Since Millennials are difficult to reach with traditional media, we decided to attract attention to our cause by developing a one-of-a-kind social media influencer event. On November 28th 2016, with the help of Bob le Chef (a Quebecer chef who’s very active on social media and loved by Millennials), we invited twenty top Montreal food and lifestyle influencers to a mystery gastronomic event, the kind of dinner they usually get invited to in exchange for a mention on their social channels. But the promised VIP evening soon took an unexpected turn: as each course was served, the quality of food degraded. The meal began with a refined starter but culminated in nothing more than plain pasta for a main and an empty plate for dessert. The tumble in the quality of food reflected what happens to hundreds of thousands of Quebecers every year once they can’t afford to buy groceries.

The invitation was sent to the influencers two weeks prior to the event. The response was extremely positive, almost all RSVP’d (the presence of Bob le Chef lured everyone into believing that they were going to get a scoop). On November 28th, the influencers gathered at the hip space we had turned into a pop-up restaurant for the occasion. As the evening unfolded, the influencers shared pictures and live videos on their social media for their Millennials followers to see. They also wrote blog posts afterwards relating their experience and encouraging people to give to the food drive.

The video of the evening launched 3 days after the event on La grande guignolée Facebook page. It was forwarded by the influencers and by the general public all over the province. Traditional media also picked up on the initiative, giving it a much larger reach than we could ever have imagined.

The idea was risky: we could have bruised the influencers’ egos by spoofing the kind of events they usually cover. However, they were profoundly moved. Almost all 20 influencers present shared pictures and live videos of their experience on their social media as the event unfolded and wrote blog posts afterwards encouraging their Millennials followers to give to La grande guignolée. Even influencers who did not attend the event wrote rave blog posts about it.

Traditional media also picked up on the initiative. We got numerous articles, but the high point was a 4-minute segment on Medium Large, the third most popular Montreal morning radio show with a 14.5% tuning share.

The Facebook video of the event we produced also garnered more than 200,000 views in the first 72 hours, exceptional for our market.

All outlets combined, the stunt generated very impressive coverage with over 4 million reached in an 8 million people market.

All of this was accomplished with no paid partnership whatsoever (neither Bob le Chef nor any influencers were compensated).

Also impressive is that the coverage was almost 100% positive. Only one influencer (who was not present at the event) wrote a negative blog post about it.

And the best result of all? For a second year in a row, we successfully attenuated the decline in donations that had affected the organization since 2011. In fact, since 2015, we haven't just reversed the decline in donations, we have stimulated a remarkable increase of more than 30 %!