Those parents not currently teaching their kids how to cook will often “outsource” cooking to fast food and takeout. To change this behavior, we asked: What if we outsourced all education? And then we created a cheeky startup company to do just that. The company – “HomeworkDirect” – launched at one of the world’s largest parenting conventions, offering to complete your kids’ homework assignments overnight, and home deliver them the following morning. We predicted that parents would passionately reject this company, and tell us how it important it is that kids are educated at home – allowing us to remind them about the essential education being forgotten in millions of homes across the USA.

We created a fake company, to spark an important conversation, but it certainly didn’t seem fake to the parents. Before officially registering and claiming a prime spot at this gigantic parents convention, we did all the things a tech startup would do. We created a website with user experience feedback forms, printed detailed marketing brochures, made pitch videos, had startup tee shirts made – there was even a customer service hotline, to answer questions about the service. This was all setup to guarantee a genuine experience, and get the funny, disbelieving reactions captured on film. We knew that the comedy in those moments would be essential to get the film shared far and wide, to parents online.

Parents reacted passionately – both at the convention, and when commenting on and sharing the video online, resulting in a 350% increase on social media target, 32Million impressions, and a key role for the brand in the important national conversation about teaching kids to cook.