DKMS

The Objective

The German-based international nonprofit DKMS is known around the world for their efforts in fighting blood cancer. In 2020, they launched a massive campaign across Germany to reach even more people with their message, and chose TikTok to represent a crucial part of the campaign for reaching a younger audience.

The Solution

DKMS is the world’s largest stem cell donor register, and exists to provide as many blood cancer patients as possible with a second chance at life. That means, for them to continue their vital work, more and more donors are needed every year. Enter TikTok’s Branded Hashtag Challenge. Not only does this platform provide huge exposure for a brand and its message, it also generates unprecedented levels of participation.

Calling on users to “join the club” with their #FightClubFaces, DKMS asked young people across the TikTok community to show off their fiercest looks. The charity also ran three other TikTok branded solutions to support the challenge, including a TopView, One Day Max In-Feed Ad, and an In-Feed Brand Premium Ad. Each featuring genuine content from popular creators or members of the community, the ads helped boost participation and provide an authentic feel to the campaign.

In the case of the TopView and One Day Max In-Feed Ads, both mechanisms placed authentic user challenge videos in users’ For You feeds, either upon opening the app or, for the One Day Max, as the fourth in-feed video. Featuring the challenge’s official music and DKMS branding, the ads drove significant traffic to the challenge page, and boosted brand awareness in their own right.

The Results 

Running from November 17 - 22, the DKMS Branded Hashtag Challenge generated an incredible response for the charity, spreading their message to millions of young people in Germany and beyond. In the first three weeks of the campaign, more than 783 million video views were recorded, alongside more than 262,000 user-generated videos.

The DKMS campaign’s supporting ads also performed incredibly well, with the TopView generating 17.6 million impressions, and driving close to three million clicks to the challenge page.

The high number of video views, clicks, likes, shares, comments, and video creations during the challenge highlight the TikTok community’s interest in the work of DKMS, and the power of a platform dedicated to creating – and sharing – moments of joy.