General Pants brief to us was simple and instructional; we want to be the most talked about retailer at Christmas.

2014 was a tough year; from the global conflicts that dominated our news every night to the outburst of division and violence on our own streets, we felt that the Australian public were crying out for a social movement around which to rally.

We decided to turn General Pants Co. into the General Peace Co. We would be dedicated to spreading messages of peace and raising money for Oasis Youth Support and Save The Children Australia.

We partnered with our favorite brands to create the Give Peace t-shirt range with 100% of proceeds going direct to the charities.

A multitude of celebrities answered the call including Anthony Kiedis, Daniel Johns, Ronan Keating ,and Cody Simpson (with his 7.5 million followers) to name a few. Each one offering up their time to the campaign for free, something unprecedented for a retail Christmas campaign.

The campaign become a social movement with thousands of messages shared on our #GivePeace hashtag. Delivering over 19 million impressions. We had truly become the most talked about retailer at Christmas.

And this Christmas was General Pants best in years with all sales targets surpassed and $88, 765 was raised for our partner charities.

Key PR Elements

Not a dollar was spent on advertising.

The campaign was driven by celebrity engagement.

The campaign was a social cause embraced by the public and the media.

On November 24th we made the switch announcing that up until Christmas day we would be known as the General Peace Co, dedicated to spreading messages of peace and raising money for Oasis Youth Support and Save the Children Australia.

We partnered with our favorite brands to create the Give Peace t-shirt range that was sold in all stores with 100% of proceeds going direct to the charities.

We approached celebrity influencers and asked them to become involved with the campaign by sharing messages of peace on their social and being photographed wearing out GivePeace T-Shirts for the windows. A multitude of celebrities answered the call including Anthony Kiedis, Daniel Johns, Ronan Keating, Diplo and Cody Simpson (with his 7.5 million followers) to name a few. Each one offering up their time to the campaign for free, something unprecedented for a retail Christmas campaign.

The campaign become a social movement with thousands of messages shared on our #GivePeace hashtag. Delivering over 19million impressions. We had truly become the most talked about retailer at Christmas.

And this Christmas was General Pants best in years with all sales targets surpassed and $88, 765 was raised for our partner charities. The brand was also able to go on sale a week later driving a dramatic upswing in profitability.

Proving that doing good is the best marketing strategy there is and there’s never a bad moment to give a little peace.