When Verizon wanted to support small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company partnered with entertainment celebrities such as Dave Matthews and Usher to launch the Verizon PayItForward LIVE campaign, which featured weekly live-streamed events to drive awareness for viewers to support local businesses in their communities.

“The campaign was born from everyone living and working remotely,” said Luke Mulks, director of business development at Brave, a privacy-focused browser and platform. “When the artists performed it was from their living room.”

Shows began running in March, but the Brave and the Verizon PayItForward LIVE advertising campaign ran from May to July. It used push notifications and sponsored images with social media as a way for users to share their tune-in experience on Twitter.

This strategy resulted in 23.8 million Brave Ad views, which includes a combination of 8% click-through rate and 1,100 tweets. Performance also included 15.6 million sponsored image views that drove 1,110 tweets.

“There’s a way to measure success without asking consumers to give away their data,” Mulks said.

The strategy focused on executing a mix of ad units and placements, programmed on a weekly schedule to drive program awareness, generate tune-in demand for live events, and invoke social awareness and participation from Brave users on Twitter.

Verizon would give rewards such as free data plans. Brave managed to reward participation based on the tweets, for example.

Verizon PayItForward LIVE connected big names to small businesses, offering streaming entertainment to those at home and financial support to small businesses in need.

The concerts ran each Tuesday and Thursday on Verizon’s Twitter, Yahoo or Twitch pages. Verizon asked people to use the hashtag #PayitForwardLIVE.

For each mention, Verizon donated additional money to LISC.org to support small businesses, up to $2.5 million.