On the morning of the December 11th 2012, the typically bustling, chaotic city of London ground to a halt as typically frantic commuters, proven to be suffering from a happiness recession, were made to stop, smile and laugh as they witnessed a giant yellow rubber duck floating along the River Thames.

Never before in London’s history had anyone attempted such an ambitious and extremely daft launch stunt on the Thames. At this moment in Jackpotjoy.com’s trajectory as a bingo brand, it was necessary to create a PR campaign that would amplify its ATL strapline - ‘Just for the Jackpotjoy of it’, and increase spontaneous brand awareness across a disparate consumer base, while subverting the inherently negative perceptions that gambling brands can attract.

Cue the launch of the Jackpotjoy FUNdation – a £250,000 bursary we created on Facebook that immersed the public in daft fun by offering to FUNd their crazy ideas. We needed to create a ‘wow’ moment to launch the FUNdation and we did this by floating a 50 foot rubber duck down the river Thames! Within 24 hours of setting sail the duck could be found in the front end sections of almost every major national newspaper, on TV stations, all over the internet worldwide, as well as on the Twitter and Facebook feeds of people who were inspired enough by the moment of daft fun, to create their own ‘Just for the Jackpotjoy of It’ moments via the FUNdation.

We announced the FUNdation with a news story, revealing the UK to be suffering from a ‘happiness recession’ based on stats that Brits were laughing half the daily recommended amount, and supported it with a FUNDEX of the most and least fun cities.

This was followed by the daftest stunt we could think of – sailing a 50 foot giant rubber duck down the river Thames! Never before had anyone attempted to sail an inflatable object of its scale and magnitude down the river.

News of the duck’s voyage broke on Twitter driving conversation through #jackpotjoyduck as it successfully sailed past thousands of people from London’s Docklands up to and then through the balustrades at Tower Bridge, creating the media’s ‘money shot’.

We issued a constant stream of picture and video content across all channels to keep conversation at a high for at least 48 hours.

The duck stunt secured widespread coverage across the nationals including 2/3 of a page in Daily Mirror, ½ in Metro, and additional coverage in Guardian G2, Evening Standard, and The Times. Online coverage extended from The Sun online homepage, the Mirror Online and Telegraph Online to a ‘making of’ video on Metro and Mail Online. TV exposure included London Tonight 6pm and 10pm bulletins and coverage on BBC Breakfast.

The stunt inspired important media influencers to tweet about the duck, including Caitlin Moran and India Knight, which led to 12,500 social media mentions and the duck trending worldwide on Twitter at number 7 and number 2 in the UK.

The campaign led to an increase in spontaneous brand awareness of 7% nationally and 10% in London, 99% of the media mentions across the 65+ pieces of coverage secured were positive and 90% messaged the launch of the Jackpotjoy FUNdation.