ADCOUNCIL: SHE CAN STEM

The Ad Council's ongoing She Can STEM campaign aims to encourage young girls to pursue their interests in science, technology, engineering and math. STEM gets a tough rep for being cold, calculated and reserved for those who have a knack for it. To counteract these misconceptions, the Ad Council and Deloitte's Digital Heat wanted to show how STEM is cool, accessible, and fun.

 

So we developed a fully integrated Dare to STEM campaign including a launch film and social content but most interestingly, we pushed tech innovation to the limits by delivering an immersive digital gaming experience, centred around a live concert performance, all built within Minecraft.

 

We dared girls to complete one of five STEM-themed challenges to unlock a complimentary ticket to a live Ruth B virtual concert all built and hosted within Minecraft. All of the challenges allowed the girls to have an input in building our challenge world - we asked them to build an aquarium, a firework display, a lighting performance, experiment with notebooks and music and then finally build a monument to a woman who inspires them.

 

The concert world was an even more elaborate build: It had landscapes to explore, three stages, and multiple viewing platforms. We also filled the concert world with elements the girls built in the challenge world, like their monuments of influential women, to drive home the idea that their skills contributed to building the concert experience. It was a highly personalised final concert world, fully immersive, shareable and all enabled through the use of the Minecraft game platform. And with an average playtime of 3 hours and 30 minutes, the activation exceeded all of our expectations!