Breastfeeding has always been one of the most beautiful and natural things in the world. But things have changed. More and more breastfeeding mothers receive complaints for their “indecent behaviour” and are being sent away from restaurants, parks or shops. Forced to breastfeed their babies behind closed doors or even in toilets.

‘Child & Family’, a Belgian governmental organisation that supports young parents and nurseries, wanted to make breastfeeding normal again.

But how to change the vision of an entire nation? By bringing it back into popular culture. Because the more you see breastfeeding, the more normal it becomes.

That’s why we decided to reach Belgians by their favourite entertainment-medium: television. But how to sneak into TV-shows and movies? So, we came up with something quite unusual: Breastfeeding Extras. They are just like normal extras that appear in the background of television shows, movies, video clips or talk shows. The only difference is that Breastfeeding Extras are breastfeeding their baby while acting.

To launch the idea, we’ve created a casting agency and used the power and reach of influencers to inspire volunteers to register online on our special casting agency-website.

Next the press attention would be of great importance to charm production agencies to book our special extras. Because only if we could get breastfeeding in the background of real TV shows or films, we could show how common it is to breastfeed a baby in public.

We kicked off with the official start of our casting agency, introduced by a touching online video. Next, we used the power and reach of influencers on social media to inspire volunteers to register on our casting agency-website.

The press loved the surprise and reported about Breastfeeding Extras on online news sites, radio and even television. This way, they pressured production agencies to hire a Breastfeeding Extra for their recordings. The agencies were charmed by the idea and soon, some of Belgians biggest TV-shows booked a Breastfeeding Extra. This resulted in a second and third wave of both on- and offline PR when our extra’s appeared on television again, inspiring production houses yet again to book our special extras.

It was an unusual approach and it worked. With zero euro media budget, we managed to already get a reach of 20 million and received over €686.000 in ad value.

Besides, after only one week, 10.000 people have visited our casting website. What’s even better, 497 of our visitors subscribed to become a Breastfeeding Extra. That’s a conversion rate of 5%.

Our first Extras have already made their debut in big shows like ‘Familie’, ‘De zonen van Van As’ and ‘De Buurtpolitie’. The Flemish Audio-visual Fund even decided to become a supporting partner. Moreover, Breastfeeding Extras are even going off-screen, appearing in two famous Belgian comic books, ‘Kiekeboe’ and ‘De Buurtpolitie’. This way, we’re reaching an even bigger and more diverse audience.

And so, episode by episode, our Breastfeeding Extras are changing the way Belgians think about breastfeeding. Proving that breastfeeding is truly part of everyday life.