Making The Most Of A Cultural Moment With A Digital Partner
When a cultural moment lands in your lap, the challenge is having the capacity, audience, and confidence to capitalize on it before it passes. An integrated digital partner who already knows your organization can close that gap.
That's what happened when Jhpiego, the global health nonprofit and Funkhaus partner, became a beneficiary of Daisy Chain Fields, Olivia Rodrigo's festival. Here's how our team supported them, with insight from Erin Himes, Funkhaus Head of Content, who led content capture on site.
The real life moment
Daisy Chain Fields benefited ten nonprofits supporting women and girls worldwide. Jhpiego had a real story to tell, since Olivia had previously donated proceeds from her Philippines shows to their work. The audience was close to ideal: young, fluent in pop culture, and passionate about the issues Olivia cares about.
This catch was that Jhpiego's team spends its days improving health outcomes for women and families, and a festival campaign is a big load on top of that. We were already in their weekly meetings, so we saw the opportunity taking shape and offered to help run with it.
"This is the benefit for clients of our involvement: we're seeing opportunity in lockstep," says Erin. "We're able to chime in and say, 'we can help execute this.'" Bring your partners into planning conversations, even when the agenda isn't about their work. That context lets them spot an opening early.
Building an audience
Most of the heavy lifting happened in the two months before the festival. We built a content strategy around that audience and launched Jhpiego on TikTok to meet them where they already were. Our campaign visuals drew on the festival's floral branding while still reading as Jhpiego. On Instagram, we ran a takeover of Daisy Chain Fields' official account, turning videos from Jhpiego staff worldwide into short, interactive stories.
As the new TikTok feed filled with people planning to attend, our team invited them to the booth in the comments. It was a light lift that made Jhpiego a familiar name by festival day. Start building the audience before the event. Launch where that audience already lives, give it runway, and treat the comments as a place to connect.
Streamlined process
On site, our approach is to prepare for everything and leave room to improvise. Have a plan in place, like a capture list of everything worth having, now and later, including questions for anyone we might get time with, as well as an hour-by-hour posting plan for each platform, with captions, tags, and names approved in advance. That prep ultimately makes flexibility possible. For instance, when Jhpiego ended up introducing an act onstage, capturing it became the priority, and the plan easily absorbed the change.
Why trust is essential
The Instagram takeover had already shown Jhpiego our tone in practice, so by festival day they trusted our judgment to move quickly. For live content, that trust is what makes a campaign feel present instead of delayed.
Decide in advance how far your brand can flex. Jhpiego's looser, more playful voice suited a festival and would be wrong for a policy summit. Knowing where that line sits makes it safe to move fast.
The results
From June through August, Jhpiego's content drew 2.6 million views, up from about 75,000 the year before. Interactions rose from roughly 1,400 to more than 106,000, and the account gained over 1,500 followers. A takeover-day collaboration post drew 5.2 million views. Six weeks in, the new TikTok had 245,000 views and 29,000 likes on just over 200 followers, so the content was reaching well beyond Jhpiego's existing audience.
The work didn’t end with the festival. Recap content kept the momentum going while the moment was fresh, and because we're embedded in Jhpiego's day-to-day work, everything built for Daisy Chain Fields carries forward: a growing TikTok channel with its own voice, a community that now knows them better than before, and a clearer sense of how far the brand can stretch.
FAQs
Does a partner need to handle social full time to help with a moment like this? No. Our integrated partnership with Jhpiego gave us the context, and the social work was scoped around the moment itself.
How far ahead should an organization start preparing? For Daisy Chain Fields, audience-building ran about two months. A new channel needs runway to find its audience before the day arrives.
What should be decided before event day? Decide who can post without approval, which content is pre-cleared, and how to reach the client quickly if something comes up.