In August 2011, London was burning.

Riots had spread across the city.

Civil disorder had been fuelled by social media and its ability to mobilise large groups of people quickly.

The Prime Minister called for social media sites to be shut down.This entry demonstrates how our interns used their creative PR skills to reverse this and show that social media in the hands of young people could also be a powerful source for good.Aaron Biber, an 89 year-old barber from Tottenham, was one victim whose business was ransacked during the riots. His story struck a chord. If we could restore Aaron’s faith in youth and technology that might not solve the problem, but it would be a start.We set up a blog to tell Aaron’s story and encourage the public 
to donate to help get Aaron back on his feet.We then targeted the world’s media with broadcast, print and online coverage secured from as far afield as Russia, the USA and Australia.Within three days we’d raised £35,000.Aaron’s shop has now been completely refurbished and he is back cutting again.The campaign generated traditional media coverage with a potential reach of 82,480,977, and a total advertising value equivalent of nearly £1m.

The Daily Telegraph observed: “David Cameron’s ill-advised comments ignore the overwhelming goodwill that the internet has enabled in the aftermath of the rioting. A touching highlight is a fundraising blog set up by three marketing interns for Aaron Biber”.

The blog was up within hours and our media outreach began immediately. We started with bloggers and journalists within our network who were media writers and London commentators. The story then took on a life of its own and expanded globally. We produced video content on day two of Aaron in his shop talking about how the riots had threatened his livelihood.We then enlisted the support of Aaron’s hero Peter Crouch, the England and Tottenham footballer, and convinced him to come to the shop to get his hair cut. London Mayor Boris Johnston also came by to show his support.

This kept the story going and generated wall-to-wall coverage in the national UK press. By the end of the week, we’d raised £35,000 and had more than enough to Keep Aaron Cutting.

We achieved all of our objectives. We raised more than enough money to 'Keep Aaron Cutting', and we also changed the way the media was reporting on the subject to show that social media and young people can be a force for good. We raised £35,000 and completed a full refurbishment of Aaron’s shop. We were even able to help make plans to rebuild the local community with the money left over.Traditional media coverage had a potential reach of 82,480,977 and generated a total advertising equivalent of £923,413.The campaign achieved 2,511,179 Twitter impressions, the largest amount of impressions of any riot-related campaign, with conversations spanning Europe, America, Africa and Australia.

Tweets to share the campaign hit almost 3,000 whilst Facebook shares gained the support of 13,540.There were over 63,000 combined video views to the keepaaroncutting Vimeo channel.