In the Australian market, branded entertainment is largely the realm of advertisers with huge budgets, and appears on free to air and pay television in the form of overtly sponsored long format programming.

The only real rule is that money buys exposure. We didn’t have a lot of money.

Branded Campaign Launched:

October 7, 2013:

Phubbing: A Word is Born film released.

Campaign Development:

April 2012:

Identify the behaviour we seek to name.

May 2012:

A workshop at the University of Sydney to create the word.

Content Seeded into the World (unbranded):

The Stop Phubbing movement was born, via Facebook and a dedicated website.

July 2013:

We realised that a movement with a visible leader gets more media traction. So we convinced an agency intern, Alex Haigh, to take the job. We offered him to the Australian media for comment, which resulted in him conducting over 40 interviews worldwide.

The campaign smashed all expectations and the phenomenon was discussed in over 180 countries via social media.

‘Stop Phubbing’ attracted more than 27,000 fans on Facebook, and the Stop Phubbing website attracted over 290,000 visits.

750 news outlets in 50 countries covered the campaign. Earning 435 million PR impressions and reaching 3.6 million Australians.

The campaign received unbelievable traction. Hundreds of news outlets such as the USA’s ABC network, Time magazine, the BBC, China Daily, Grazia, and every major Australian media outlet covered the campaign. The editor of the dictionary even spent 10 minutes on breakfast television.