FACE is a charity relying on private funding to educate school children about food, farming and the countryside. Our task: create interest and awareness amongst marketing professionals, thus increase sponsorships, donations and support for FACE. We needed to create a message with social currency to spread online. We secured British comedian Bill Bailey to be spokesperson and made a comical film featuring him educating children about the farm to generate interest and go viral. Results: 11,500 Youtube views, blog posts, four-fold increase in FACE website visits, 250K+ Bill Bailey fans exposed to the film via Twitter, Facebook and his website.

We created a two-minute film starring comedian Bill Bailey educating school children about the farm, we needed to cut through and reach our target audience (marketing managers and their communications agencies) in an innovative way. We prepared a press pack including the film, stills and a press release and targeted the marketing trade press (24.01.11). The same week we created a targeted campaign to reach the most relevant audience. 115 copies of our two-minute film, accompanied by a basket of farm-fresh vegetables and a letter from the Executive Director of FACE were delivered to our top 35 prospective brand partners and their agencies. Simultaneously, we seeded the film virally by targeting online farming, food and mummy bloggers and also Bill Bailey fans via his Twitter (@RealBillBailey) and Facebook page. We also mailed to the FACE database comprised of over 11,000 educational organisations and brands. The campaign ran to plan.

Bill Bailey tweeted the film to his 228K followers and posted it on his Facebook and website. The campaign featured across marketing and farming trade press, it was shared on blogs, re-tweeted and the Youtube video received over 11,500 views (52 likes, zero dislikes), despite no other advertising except our DM campaign. Sainsbury’s, Jordan’s & Ryvita, Cereal Partners and Marks & Spencer have all expressed their interest in partnering with FACE. Overall FACE now receives far greater recognition: there was a four-fold increase in traffic to its website immediately after launch, and consistently receives two and half times more visitors.