Case study: Spotlight on the Census Campaign: Spotlight (spotlight.abs.gov.au) Client: Australian Bureau of Statistics Agency: Leo Burnett, Sydney

1. SPOTLIGHT
ON THE CENSUS
CASE STUDY

3. CAMPAIGN
Spotlight (spotlight.abs.gov.au)
CLIENT
Australian Bureau of Statistics
AGENCY
Leo Burnett, Sydney

4. BACKGROUND
The Australian Census happens
every five years, but many
people see it as little more than
an obligation, affecting
participation rates and, as a
result, the quality of information
gathered.
There was a worrying trend of
under representation from
several key groups, the most
significant being Gen Y.
Full case study at: marketingmag.com.au/case-studies

6. OBJECTIVES
The key objectives were
defined as follows:
• actively dispel the cynicism that
Gen Y have towards most
government initiatives,
• increase engagement levels with
Gen Y and encourage interaction
in the lead-up to Census night, and
• increase participation of Gen Y in
the Census to be in line with the
overall population.
Full case study at: marketingmag.com.au/case-studies

7. STRATEGY
The Census needed to step away
from its heritage as a compulsory
government initiative and stand
for something aspirational.
We took the communications
away from ‘compulsory’ to
participation for a better
Australia.
Statistics and data weren’t the
most popular subjects, so we
focused on something we knew
our audience would be interested
in: themselves.
Full case study at: marketingmag.com.au/case-studies

9. EXECUTION
Spotlight is a personalised
interactive film that shows how
the data relates to you as an
individual, using existing
Census data to create a story
about each visitor to the site.
After launch, social media was
key to getting the word out and
building our audience.
A personalised infographic
could then be shared across the
users’ own networks.
Full case study at: marketingmag.com.au/case-studies

10. RESULTS
By Census night the site had
generated 37,000 unique
infographics, which were viewed
more than 61,500 times and
earned more than 4500 ‘likes’.
User data from Spotlight
indicates that more than half of
our visitors were from Gen Y.
Full case study at: marketingmag.com.au/case-studies

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