Do It Day 2016: xAd helps the public take a stand against domestic violence
As a company that puts location-based solutions at the the heart of its offering, the xAd team’s Do It Day challenge, and subsequent offering, was ultimately about connecting a network of people that need to ‘get to a better place’.
The #MyEmbrella campaign in action at Times Square, New York
xAd challenged Do It Day participants to create a location-based platform called Embrella – one that would anonymously connect domestic abuse victims with individuals in their locality who are willing to help.
Over the course of the challenge, a team comprising of eight individuals – whose skill set spanned software engineering, campaign management and creative –devised a campaign to encourage members of the public to ‘take a stand against domestic violence’.
On Do It Day itself (November 10) the team focused on building and populating the campaign site, as well as supporting social properties. The social execution saw participants encourage passersbys in Times Square, New York to pose with a pink umbrella and then take the pledge to support the campaign on camera (see video above).
“When it rains, it doesn’t have to pour. If you or someone you know has been affected by domestic violence, take a stand with us under #myembrella,” reads the opening riposte of the campaign copy.
The resulting content was then to be shared on the scheme’s various social profiles, with the team achieving over 150 shares within an hour of campaigning.
Julie Sharma, charity ambassador, xAd, told the Drum that participation in the challenge aided its business goal of ‘helping people to a better place’, adding that the unique setting allowed participants to implement steps toward these goals in an environment that encourages them to see concept-planning through to the point of execution.
Although the initial execution of the campaign did not use xAd’s technology, at its core the campaign embodies xAd’s core proposition to the market; and that is to pair proprietary location-based data with third parties. From here it then builds geo-based strategies to connect audiences in real-time.
Speaking with The Drum, Brandon Beachum, senior account manager at xAd, said the team had devised a strategy whereby the xAd campaign could eventually be integrated into an app that could help women in need of help by directing them to a safe haven.