Everyone tries to paint childhood as a blissful, carefree time in your life. But from bad haircuts and clothes picked out by your parents to bossy teachers and falling off your bike, in real life, being a kid kind of sucks. After a long day of dealing with childhood, a kid needs something to cheer them up, something like cracking open a jar of their favorite pasta sauce. With an integrated campaign including TV, radio, digital, and social, we brought the idea of “a long day childhood” to life and positioned Ragu as the solution with the help of our catchy song. The campaign got so popular it was extended with a spot chronicling the internet's longest day of childhood, YouTube's "Charlie bit my finger," a series of radio spots, and an App allowing users to turn their own kid’s long day videos into spots with customized funny songs.

The long day of childhood campaign kicked off on one of the biggest nights of the Olympics with a spot featuring a kid who just accidentally walked in on his parents. Within minutes Ragu had become the 6th trending topic on Twitter, and YouTube views started piling up. 2 more 30' spots were released during the following weeks along with a series of slideshows on Facebook featuring pictures of user generated “long days” scored to songs we wrote for specifically for them. 3 radio spots followed along with a web film featuring the boys from YouTube's “Charlie Bit My Finger” video as well as a parody commercial made by the Jimmy Kimmel Live show. The response was so overwhelming that we created the Give ‘Em Ragu App, which allowed users to take their own child’s pictures and videos and score them to funny customized Ragu songs.

Within minutes of airing the first TV execution, Ragu became the 6th trending topic on Twitter. Within a week the spot had been viewed over a million times on YouTube and we began to see parodies and recreations popping up all over the place. The campaign was mentioned in the press 483 times, earning Ragu 384m free impressions. And the Give ‘Em Ragu App has been downloaded over 466,000 times to date.