The Egg that broke Instagram cracks under the pressure of social media highlighting a global mental health issue

The Background

Which came first? The campaign or the egg?

I’m sure everyone is aware of the egg that broke Instagram – it’s already been covered on this site, but just to recap, somebody set out to beat Kylie Jenner’s most liked post on Instagram by posting a picture of an egg. Whilst Kylie’s picture, following the birth of her child received 18 million likes, the egg has currently now achieved 50 million likes.

An outstanding social media success… or was there more to come?

What They Did

As part of its Super Bowl coverage, US entertainment company Hulu streamed a beautifully simple animation.

It starred the egg from Instagram, but in reality the egg isn’t very happy, in fact the egg is quite sad. Under the pressure of social media scrutiny, the need to look perfect, to have the world’s eyes on you; the egg started to crack and in fact was broken.

A very straightforward message appeared with the broken egg urging people who might feel the same way, to visit talkingegg.info where they are directed to a country-by-country list of different mental health services available. The animation now sits on the egg’s Instagram account and to date has had 16 million views, 10 million likes and over 76,000 comments.

The Review

Hi-jacking cultural moments can be the cornerstone of great creative PR and some of the most fleet-of-foot brands and agencies have seen huge success with this approach.

This response to the original egg is nothing short of genius. Why?

It completely took ownership of a hugely engaging piece of activity, but adding a depth and layer that hadn’t existed up to that point
The video itself was simple, engaging, endearing and universally enjoyable
It had a simple call to action, driving awareness of mental health services globally
It completely understood the context of the issue – that social media scrutiny can have a negative impact on people’s self esteem
It had a hugely shareable quality, tapping into people’s need to be ‘in the know’ and part of a movement
It is for an incredibly good cause that is becoming a global issue
It had a universal appeal that didn’t alienate or focus on a specific target audience or pigeonhole people or issues
It felt supportive with a ‘you are not alone’ message, which is kind and compelling

In fact, someone hatched an all-round, good egg of a campaign!

In Hindsight

It will be interesting to see how this campaign could be built on to sustain momentum and keep raising awareness and how many people acted on the call to action.