JWT creates Indonesia’s largest virtual choir turning concert sponsorship into social change

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website soulofthenation.jpgJWT helped Indosat use social media to turn a concert sponsorship into a movement for social change, motivating Indonesian youth to pledge to take a more positive outlook on life and rekindle their passion for their country.

It all started out when JWT Jakarta received a brief to support Indosat’s sponsorship of a music festival in Jakarta. Soulnation is a popular music festival held annually every September, showcasing performances from local and international artists. Indosat wanted to make the most of this sponsorship, since this festival is celebrated among youth, who makes up the majority of Indosat’s target audience.

But for Indonesian youth, there has lately been little cause for celebration. Gang fights between different schools are now back in fashion, drug usage among youth remains a problem, as well as the low discipline among youth in general.

JWT1.jpgJWT Jakarta saw an opportunity for Indosat to harness the unifying power of music, and lead a movement to improve the outlook and attitude of today’s young generation. Dubbed “Soul of the nation”, the idea was to create the biggest sing-along in Indonesia to remind youth to reconnect with the Indonesian spirit of unity and positive action.

The idea started on August 17th, Indonesia’s Independence Day, through a single youtube video. The video featured Raisa, a young artist singing a popular national song “Bagimu Negeri” (To you my country). The video showed scenes of violence and vandalism, and ends with emotional appeal by Raisa to encourage Indonesian youth to become agents of positive change.

She asked young viewers to go to a microsite, www.soulofthenational.com, to pledge, in the words of the song, to dedicate their lives to their country. This was followed by a call for youth to submit a video of themselves singing the song. These videos were then composed into the biggest sing-along performed live with Raisa at Soulnation on September 30.

crowd soulofthenation.jpgThe campaign was indeed impactful. Over 2,300 people sang along on video, and over 2,800 digital pledges were made on the microsite. In less than a month, they achieved over 420,000 views on Youtube; and over 7.9 million impressions on social media and they also broke a record. The event has gone down in history in MURI, Indonesia’s book of records, as the biggest sing-a-long in Indonesia.

“As a truly youth brand, we need to reach deeper into the lives of youth. The idea here was to invite them to become agents of positive change,” said Andrini Novie Hastuti, Group Head Marketing Communication at Indosat. “Together with JWT we created a youth movement that earned high recognition and was a real success, measured both by numbers of people who took part in the biggest sing a long – and the number of people who were moved, emotionally, by it all. “Got the goose bumps” was the expression we saw on twitter during the event.”