Science Sleuth - 3M and DoSomething.org
Currently, there are close to 6 million unfilled Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) jobs in the U.S. with 300,000 jobs added annually. Girls are three times less likely as boys to aspire to be scientists or engineers. This poses a significant problem for companies like 3M who rely upon these professions to create products and technologies that make practical improvements to daily life. However, when they’re shown what scientists actually do, 76% of girls show interest in science and engineering.
With this knowledge in hand and to combat the stigma that science can’t be fun, DoSomething.org and 3M created a campaign for young people ages 13-25 called Science Sleuth.
Reaching out to their audience of 3.1 million members (70% young women), DoSomething.org conceptualized Science Sleuth, a multiplayer SMS game where members use real science skills to solve a high school mystery. The game allowed participants to invite 2-3 of their friends to solve the mystery together. To incentive participation, they partnered with Donorschoose.org to provide players with a $10 gift to give to a local classroom in need at the end of the SMS experience. These donation helped fund 4,199 projects on Donorschoose.org.
DoSomething.org worked closely with 3M’s scientists to identify key skills to inform the content of the SMS game and was able to reach 92,986 young people with the message that science can be interesting and fun.
Enlisting a top celebrity and activating media partners around the campaign put the 3M brand in channels that don’t typically cover science, such as Seventeen, E! Online, MTV Act, OK! magazine and Just Jared Jr. Even internet cat extraordinaire, Lil BUB gave a shout out to Science Sleuth.
In total, Science Sleuth was able to garner 189,507,452 media impressions for 3M and $935,294 worth of donated media. With 69% of participants being females, Science Sleuth was able to educate young women on the neat things scientists do. One in 4 participants chose to learn more about 3M female scientists at the end of the game and 99% of participants felt Science Sleuth portrayed science as fun or interesting and 60% said they’re more interested in science after playing the game.
Judges felt these campaign partners were a great fit to address an area of great need in education. Conceptually strong, they admired this campaign’s partnership with Donorschoose.org to create an empowering interaction for participants and loved the fact that 3M’s own scientists were involved in the engagement.