Our research found that never before in history have kids spent so little time playing outside. In one decade, the time kids spend outside doing free activities has diminished by half. The roaming area of a kid has been reduced to one tenth in just two generations.

Crossing different studies and statistics we highlighted the problem by putting side by side the time kids spend outdoors with the minimum time spend outside by prison inmates. To deliver this impactful idea we went to a maxim security prison to interview real inmates and get their natural reactions when confronted with this paradox: that kids spend less time outdoors than inmates. The result was “Free the kids”, a highly emotional and surprising short documentary film. The idea was also executed in print, outdoor and digital.

1. Provoke:

We visited a real high security prison in Indiana to film inmates reacting to our statistic that, on average, children now spend less time outdoors than a prison inmate, and released it as a highly shareable online mini-documentary. We supported with research conducted with 14,000 parents across 12 markets to understand market behaviours and attitudes.

2. 'Educate'

We enlisted an authoritative partner in the form of educationalist Sir Ken Robinson. In his first commercial partnership, he chaired our newly formed 'Dirt is Good' committee and released guidelines on the importance of play; promoted via a Periscope stream and YouTube content.

3. 'Facilitate'

We developed an app to get kids outdoors, and partnered with Project Dirt for 'Empty Classroom Day', an initiative in which schools teach all their lessons outside.

The positive reception noise drove a market by market launch from UK to Brazil and then throughout Europe.

MEDIA RESULTS:

Earned coverage (498 pieces) amounting to 575 Million impressions. Covered in titles such as TIME Magazine, FastCompany and the Huffington Post.

BEHAVIOURAL SHIFT:

82% of mums planned to get their kids outdoors more in the next week of the campaign, and more than 774.000 extra outdoor hours for kids as direct result of the campaign.

More than 4,000 schools engaged in the Outdoor Classroom Day.

BUSINESS RESULTS:

More than 12 million extra washes sold after 3 months of the campaign and 2.1% rise in value sales.

63% of people who saw the campaign could later associate it with Persil, a staggering figure given that we pushed much of it out through credible third-party partners.

In the three months following the campaign (to September 2016), both relevance and conviction had already shot up.