The Ad Council, the nation’s leading non-profit using the power of communications to drive social change, announced today the re-launch of its premier talent engagement division, Creators for Good. Having already reached more than 251 million Americans with content and messages developed in collaboration with influencers and celebrities, Creators for Good is extending its impact with new data tools, deepened partnerships with leading social platforms and an expanded approach to feature trusted messengers – including doctors, medical experts, community leaders and others – giving them platforms to share their expertise on a large scale.
Creators for Good leverages the Ad Council’s established relationships in the media, marketing, advertising and technology industries to identify and amplify trusted voices on the nation’s most pressing issues. Since the program first launched in 2015, Creators for Good has engaged more than 2,300 influential voices across over 50 campaign issues with more than 200 individual activations and nearly 5,000 pieces of content.
“We know from our experience, the messenger is just as important as the message itself. Our Creators for Good program is a vital part of the Ad Council’s campaign ecosystem,” said Lisa Sherman, Ad Council President and CEO. “This strengthened investment in trusted messengers will have a profound impact on our ability to move the needle on the biggest issues facing our country.”
To deepen impact for the Ad Council’s more than 30 national social impact campaigns, the expanded strategic offerings apply key learnings from the organization’s groundbreaking COVID-19 Vaccine Education Initiative. The campaign, “It’s Up To You,” leveraged more than 1,445 trusted messengers across traditional influencers, celebrity talent, musicians, athletes, medical experts, faith leaders and community leaders, ultimately reaching 15-20% of vaccine eligible Americans with “It’s Up To You” related influencer content. Trusted messengers for the historic effort include Pope Francis, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Foreigner, Dr. Joe Park of the Bachelorette, more than 100 medical professionals and 1,000 hyper local influencers.
In Creators for Good’s new form, a dedicated team of influencer specialists are continuing to go beyond one-time activations to collaborate with issue experts and influencers on opportunities that come to life across a wide breadth of channels and platforms, including social media, advertising, events, and media partnerships. These holistic, year-round programs and relationships provide quantifiable, measurable results based on campaign objectives for continued impact.
Creators for Good leverages extensive research, including new in-depth PassionPoints surveys of over 100K potential influencers partners supported by a custom data dashboard, which will also be used continuously to determine the voices who are trusted, knowledgeable and authentically connected to each campaign. These offerings are possible through collaboration with partners such as Influential and People First. Influential is an AI social data and conversion technology that helps to match influencers to important social causes, ultimately driving awareness and encouraging conversations. People First sources and distributes highly personal peer-to-peer content from trusted messengers—en masse and across any digital channel—to increase awareness and unlock the power of real people sharing lived experiences with their communities.
The fully integrated Creators for Good program offers services across the entire life cycle of campaign engagement. Beyond core services in strategic planning, activation and direct outreach, new capabilities include ambassador program development, trusted messenger summits, case studies and robust research and evaluation offerings. All activations will strategically work with messengers of varying platform size and reach, rallying macro, medium and micro influencers. These services are available to all Ad Council campaigns, in addition to clients working through the nonprofit’s consultancy, Ad Council Edge.
The new capabilities apply insights from the Ad Council Research Institute’s inaugural Trusted Messengers Study, which identifies an effective trusted messenger ecosystem as one that recognizes the unique potential of “Amplifiers” with broad reach and relevance, “Validators” with specific issue expertise and “Persuaders” with personal connection to audiences. The study found that, after their family, most Americans (60%) turn to medical professionals for trusted information on social and societal issues, followed closely by close friends (59%) and scientists (51%). Local and community leaders are the next most trustworthy, with the public placing trust in pastors/religious leaders (40%), teachers or school leaders (39%), church members (32%) and local business owners (31%).
These key findings support Creators for Good’s broadened definition of trusted messengers to connect with voices who have already established trust on social issues across their diverse areas of influence.
To date, Creators for Good has worked with celebrities, social influencers, subject matter experts, podcasters, businesses, athletes, musicians, hyperlocal/community influencers and more, including:
- Mike Alfaro – The digital creator and CEO of Millennial Loteria shared the importance of being prepared for natural disasters as part of the Emergency Preparedness campaign.
- Simone Biles – The Olympic champion gymnast starred in PSAs for the “You Will See Me” campaign to inspire and empower Black Americans, who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, to wear face masks to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
- Billie Eilish – The Grammy award winning artist opened up about her experience with mental health for the Seize the Awkward campaign, encouraging young adults to check in on their friends who may be struggling.
- Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett, Ph.D. – The viral immunologist and scientific lead for the Coronavirus Vaccines & Immunopathogenesis Team at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Vaccine Research Center (VRC) teamed up with basketball legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar to answer questions surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines for the “It’s Up To You” campaign.
- Karina Garcia – The YouTuber and “Queen of Slime” with more than nine million subscribers empowered young girls, non-binary and trans youth to pursue interests in STEM for the She Can STEM campaign.
For more information, including opportunities to partner with Creators for Good, visit here.
