Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (While Staying Safe)
It’s normal to wake up after a night of drinking to a slight headache.
But having no recollection of what happened, or worse–being a victim of assault—is never part of the plan. Yet for victims of drink spiking, this nightmarish scenario becomes a reality.
About 8% of college students say they’ve had drugs slipped in their drinks; 80% of those victims were women. This reality didn’t sit right with then 16-year-old Shirah Benarde who’d heard horror stories from her college friends.
Shirah went on to create Nightcap, a drink spiking defense device. In February, Nightcap was featured on Shark Tank where it snagged one of the fastest deals in Shark Tank history with Lori Greiner.
With an expanded budget, Nightcap was looking to invest in influencer marketing to spread awareness on drink spiking. That’s when Ubiquitous’ Creator Services (CS) came in, and landed them a deal with self-defense influencer Robin (@dutchintheusa).
The campaign resulted in explosive growth. Robin’s first video for Nightcap generated 27.8M views on TikTok and 37.1M on Instagram—combining to 65M views and an ultra-low CPM. That same month, Nightcap had an unanticipated increase of web traffic of 51% —meaning an additional 19K users hit their site from the campaign. 🤯
This was only the beginning for Nightcap. Here’s how the campaign unfolded:
The Goal: Raise Awareness of Both Drink Spiking and Nightcap's Brand
It’s difficult to trace the substances associated with drink spiking as they dissolve quickly in liquids. By the time a victim reports a case, the drugs may have cleared from their body.
This means there’s a lack of data on drink spiking, but a study published in the journal The Psychology of Violence suggests it’s more widespread than previously thought. “I had no idea it was happening until students started bringing it up,” said Suzanne Swan, head researcher of the 2016 study.
There’s not enough awareness on drink spiking. Nightcap wanted to change this.
Their goal was brand and drink spiking awareness. As a small company, Nightcap knew creating buzz on social media was how they could raise this issue—and make a name for themselves.
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The Perfect Match: How Ubiquitous Secured NightCap The Perfect Influencer
Nightcap had previous videos go viral, such as a clip where a person pretended to drug someone to demonstrate drink spiking’s swiftness. Nightcap wanted to recreate this type of content, leading them to discover Robin.
Robin, a Royal Marine, is an instructor who teaches safety and escape tactics. As a safety influencer with over 4.8 million TikTok and 202K Instagram followers, he was a fantastic fit for Nightcap’s product.
Robin has been a long-time partner with Ubiquitous’ Creator Services, which acts as an influencer’s project manager and helps them run and negotiate their deals.
Ubiquitous suggested Nightcap begin with a stand-alone video from Robin, as they’d had a hunch it would perform well because Nightcap’s product fit seamlessly into Robin’s page.
If the clip did well, Ubiquitous then suggested continuing on one-off projects or sealing a long-term engagement. But Robin’s first video blew all expectations out of the water—and then some.
“Creator Services has a grind mentality. We ensure everything is working as smoothly and efficiently as possible so we can be the best management team for our brands and influencers.” — Jen Steere, Ubiquitous Creator Services
The Execution: Bullseye On The First Try
Robin’s first video for Nightcap launched in August and reached astonishing heights.
The video, in which Robin pretends to drug his date, hit nearly 65 million views combined across TikTok and Instagram, leading to a microscopic CPM. Nightcap's web traffic for August hit 56K users, a 51% increase from two months earlier.
Robin’s video went viral because of its shock factor. Viewers believed they had witnessed a crime, getting them to stop scrolling and start learning about the insidiousness of drink spiking.
Ubiquitous helped Nightcap create another six videos with Robin, and over this time period the CPM remained superb, per Nightcap's standards.
Over several months, Robin made popular videos to the following creative templates:
• Statistics. In June 2021, a man was charged with 63 years for carrying a 2-liter bottle of the date-rape drug, GHB. It’s shocking statistics like this one that provide a solid base for Robin’s content.
• Tips and Tricks. For Halloween, Robin made a video on going out safety tips. Combining practicality and humor on a sensitive topic makes for a popular video.
• FAQs. “Won’t my hair get in the drink?” is a comment you’ll see in a lot of Robin’s content. He’s made videos addressing questions like this, which brings a viewer directly back to Nightcap’s ad.
The Long-Term Arrangement: Sealing The Deal
In March 2022, Ubiquitous concocted a deal between Robin and Nightcap. For one year, Robin would create one video a month to be distributed on both TikTok and Instagram.
The deal was sealed. Then, Robin’s first video for the campaign hit the jackpot again.
The video hit a ballpark of 30M views across various social media platforms–and that’s not including the meme pages who reposted the clip, leading to millions of more views.
It’s been four months since Robin and Nightcap’s year-long deal began, but the content continues to go viral. Robin’s videos average around millions of views — not a shabby number to boost brand awareness.
“Once we establish a good working relationship between the influencer and brand, we expect our campaigns to perform well. And when the influencer knocks it out of the park, well, it’s the cherry on top.” — Jen Steere
The Unexpected: Why Does Certain Content Do Better Than Others?
After several months of working on the Nightcap campaign, Ubiquitous noticed two ingredients that go into creating viral-worthy content:
- Don’t Underestimate Instagram. While going viral on TikTok is more reliable, Nightcap’s videos won the lottery on Instagram. A popular meme page reposted one of Robin’s videos, leading to an additional 14M views — compared to the original TikTok’s 5M.
- Expose Controversy. When a viewer left a misogynistic comment on Robin’s video, he decided not to delete but pin it instead — leading to an additional 800 responses. Controversy entices people to return and comment on a video, leading to higher engagement rates.
Conclusion: Win-Win For Influencer and Brand
Robin is no longer Nightcap’s only influencer.
Ubiquitous was able to connect Nightcap to another one of their influencers, Brandy and Billy. The duo recently worked on a campaign for Nightcap, which has already accumulated close to 10M views and was picked up by several news outlets.
Nightcap is now everywhere thanks to influencer marketing. “If you walk around college areas and ask people, ‘Have you heard of the drink spiking prevention scrunchie,’ almost everyone our age knows of it,” says Shirah.
While the influencer marketing world can be a jungle, the right strategy can catapult clients into the top echelon of influencer marketing — leading to higher view counts, better ROI, and tangible impacts on top-line revenue.
“Working with UBQ has been wonderful. We launched our most successful campaign to date, and we’re excited to have worked out a long-term affordable partnership that was beneficial to everyone involved. UBQ consistently does a great job working with us to ensure that our content requests are met, all videos meet quality standards, and that they fit our brands messaging.” — Michael Benarde, Co-Founder & President of Nightcap
From the inbound requests, negotiation, ideation, and creation, Ubiquitous is there for its brands from A to Z. If you’re looking for the same support (and results) drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you. 🤝
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