It is no longer news that Africa’s highly acclaimed creative powerhouse, X3M Ideas, headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, with offices across Africa and the UAE, has once again etched its name in the annals of advertising excellence by emerging the only African representative on the prestigious list of the top 25 agencies in the world, according to the ACT Good Report for 2023.
This remarkable achievement is not an isolated feat; it is a replica of the agency’s feat in 2022, where it was recognized among the best 40 most successful campaigns promoting good causes. The ACT Good Report, published annually by the international non-profit organization Act Responsible in collaboration with marketing insights leader WARC, is a unique and highly coveted ranking that spotlights the world’s most impactful creative works promoting sustainability and social responsibility, serving as a global benchmark for creative excellence in advertising.
With the tagline “Best campaigns, agencies, and advertisers promoting good,” the organizers have made it their mission to celebrate campaigns that fulfill the crucial role of educating and raising awareness. They believe that “Advertising has a major responsibility in educating and raising awareness, and we are proud to celebrate the campaigns that best fulfill this role. These campaigns allow important messages and values to reach larger sections of the public, and therefore deserve to be celebrated, which is why we created The Good Report.”
X3M Ideas’ record-breaking feat at the prestigious Cannes Lions last year in bringing home the much desired and much coveted Cannes Lions medal last year is for a campaign on social good. The award-winning campaign titled ‘The Soot City Life Expectancy’ was created for ‘The Extra Step Initiative.’ This 360-degree medium campaign utilized soot data spanning 40 countries from the German Environmental Protection Agency and EIONET, combined with the average air quality data of Rivers State and the official life expectancy of Nigeria, to create a formula that calculates a more realistic life expectancy.
This innovative formula was integrated into a website called sootcity.com, and the agency rolled out communications directing people to visit the site and check their new life expectancy. The website was also linked to LED billboards across the country, publishing results for everyone to see as they came in. To create real change, the website automatically generated a letter on behalf of every visitor who checked their life expectancy and sent it to all senators in Nigeria, urging them to bring an end to the soot problem. Aside from the coveted Cannes Lions award, this groundbreaking campaign went on to win several other accolades globally, continentally, and locally.
The Future is Goodvertising
Advertising for good is a concept that has been around for decades, but it was Thomas Kolster, a self-described marketing activist, who popularized the term “Goodvertising” in his book “Goodvertising: Creative Advertising that Cares.” He described the term as “the belief that doing good for people and planet is also good for brand and bottom line.”
Indeed, as Kolster and other experts have predicted, the future of creative advertising lies in goodvertising, and agencies like X3M Ideas are leading the charge in this space. In the face of rising concerns surrounding accountability and sustainability, making tough calls in the short term can potentially deliver long-term benefits to businesses and society as a whole. Now more than ever, consumers are demanding better from brands. Conversations around responsibility are at an all-time high, and standing by purposeful, authentic values while taking tangible action towards lowering carbon footprint is just the beginning.
A McKinsey Report revealed that 75% of Gen Z shoppers find sustainability more important than brand names, with the same survey reporting that 82% of shoppers wanted brands to prioritize sustainable and “people-first” practices. The report noted that the reason for this could be that Gen Zs were born into a world grappling with climate change and environmental concerns, and they’ve made it clear that sustainability is not just a passing trend but a core value.
Another McKinsey report on the influence of ‘woke’ consumers on fashion found that nine in ten Gen Z consumers believe companies have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues. Therefore, the companies that stand out to the dominant consumer group are those that are purpose-driven and prioritize eco-friendly practices, fair labor conditions, and corporate social responsibility – a win for consumers and a win for the planet!
Can advertising be a force for good? Can it bring about positive social or environmental change? Should it tell the truth about a brand? With today’s consumers being more informed, empowered, and ethically minded than ever, advertising needs to do all those things and more. No longer can an agency simply state that their client’s brand or product is good; the advertising has to communicate that the client is actively being and doing good.
X3M Ideas: Living the Future Today
X3M Ideas is indeed living the future today, as over the years, it has deployed numerous social interventions and goodvertising projects that have had a high impact in Nigeria and beyond. For years, the agency has been churning out global-award-winning social impact works that have had wide-reaching impacts globally.
The agency is the driving force behind the viral groundbreaking Nirvana Water ‘Headline of Innocence’ and the ‘Lyrics of the Innocent’ campaigns that broke years ago on International Children’s Day. These campaigns, featured on prestigious platforms like ‘Ads of the World’ and ‘AdForum,’ generated significant buzz and traction for passing a sensitive message in a simple yet highly effective manner. The campaigns aimed to address the issue of sexual violence against children and the exposure of indecent songs and lyrics to children.
In the political sphere, X3M Ideas crafted the ‘Vote to Predict the Future’ campaign for its client, Neusroom, and ‘Voices in My Head’ for the LPM Foundation to create awareness about schizophrenia and reduce the stigma surrounding it while helping sufferers seek help. This was creatively achieved on radio by creating a sensation for listeners as if they could hear voices in their heads. The agency also developed campaigns like ‘Welcome To My Kitchen’ for Flour Mills of Nigeria on gender equity, and ‘Heroes’ for the Lacasera brand celebrating the health workers who stood firm with Nigerians during the COVID-19 pandemic, among others.
X3M Ideas has also placed Nigeria’s name on the global creative stage by winning a Gold Medal at the prestigious Luum Awards, receiving Gold for its work ‘Suicide Note’ created for the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI). The campaign was designed to help people dealing with mental health issues in Nigeria.
Before that, the trailblazing agency won a bronze award at the Lisbon Advertising Festival for its International Women’s Day press campaign, ‘Make History Equal For Women.’ X3M Ideas was the only African agency to win an award at the festival and one of the 17 bronze winners in the international competition. The bronze-winning work ‘Make History Equal For Women’ was selected as one of the 62 ads from across the globe for the 2020 Great Ads For Good Exhibition and has been celebrated numerous times in the advertising community.
The agency also hit three final entries, including ‘Mum Hotline’ – its breathtaking integrated campaign for Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI), and ‘Forgiven’ – X3M’s widely acclaimed social media campaign for Easter, all selected by an executive jury consisting of high-profile, global creative leaders such as David Kolbusz, the Chief Creative Officer of Droga5.
The agency announced its presence on the goodvertising stage on the continent by winning a grand prix at the African Cristal in Morocco. Its self-sponsored anti-depression social service advertising campaign, tagged ‘Look Beyond,’ emerged as a grand Cristal winner in the Social/CSR category at the African Cristal Advertising Festival held in Marrakech, Morocco, in 2017.
The ‘Look Beyond’ campaign featured a series of ads, including an online film, and was one of the agency’s deliberate attempts to be a social contributor and dependable voice in supporting the then Akinwunmi Ambode-led Lagos State government’s efforts to enhance and maintain a sane and safe society for all.
According to Steve Babaeko, Chief Executive Officer of X3M Ideas, the increasing spate of suicides was considered antithetical to the nation’s global recognition as the “happiest people” despite all the odds. This prompted the agency to take action and launch the campaign, which could not remain silent in the face of this ugly development.
The campaign, which won a Grand Cristal (equivalent to a Grand Prix), utilized the immense popularity of social media to paint the picture of how depression holds its victims hostage. The victim often hide their “depression” behind written words, especially on social media, pretending “all is well” because they either have no one to talk to, are unaware of available support platforms, or have lost confidence in those around them. The short “social-mercial,” which trended heavily on YouTube, Twitter, and other social media platforms, discouraged youth from the growing and painful decision to “end it all” which had earlier caused the nation immeasurable loss such as the loss of a young medical doctor who took a plunge into the lagoon from the popular Lagos third mainland bridge among numerous others.
In yet another campaign for Ambode’s predecessor, the agency’s unflinching support for social causes was expressed during the Babatunde Raji Fashola’s tenure’s “Horns Free Day”, the campaign to curb violence against women.
Aside from these campaigns, X3M Ideas is consistent in its social intervention which it started in 2023. In 2013, the agency built a block of six classrooms for the Lagos State’s Opebi Junior Secondary School; provided computers and other ICT equipment to two government schools in 2014; in 2015, refurbished and provided two modern toilet facilities to the Lagos State home for boys (reformation centre). In 2016, it was the turn of Ikeja Senior Secondary School to benefit from the agency’s milk of humanity through the provision and equipment of a befitting library for the use of the school while in 2017, X3M Ideas made a daring move as it moved out of Lagos to lend a hand to the Chibok Girls Secondary School as it provided the much-needed chairs and tables for easy learning and teaching in the school that has come under national global attention. It will go on for each intervening year to locate areas of need in society and work towards filling these needs.