Surf, a small player in the highly competitive UK laundry market, had decided to sponsor ‘The Only Way Is Essex’, a lowbrow reality TV show.

• Joey Essex – research revealed that a gorgeous, slightly dim chap obsessed with looking and smelling ‘reem’ (dreamy) - was the most influential and newsworthy character

• There was a TOWIE summer special in Marbella and we knew returning from holiday triggers two actions – washing and wishing you were still there

• So our strategy was to create ‘Surf Summer D’Reem’ - a limited edition piece of NPD that ‘bottles the fragrance of summer holidays’ – created by Joey Essex and sold in store

We created a compelling back story;

• The set up – Fresh from holidays, Joey tweeted how he loved the summer holiday smells

• The teaser - Joey was papped wearing a bandage to protect his sense of smell. Rumours of a nose job generated tabloid gossip

• The launch – Launched at a lido with photographs of Joey in Surf branded swimwear

• The film – Seeded a ‘behind the scenes’ video online

• News hijack – Joey Tweeted on the ground-breaking discovery of the Higgs Boson particle alongside David Cameron

Our campaign created an additional revenue stream worth £1.2m and generated a campaign profit of £3.8m. Our campaign had a halo effect on the rest of the Surf brand increasing penetration and boosting frequency by 24%.

We created a compelling back story;

• Set up – Fresh from holidays, Joey tweeted how he loved the summer holiday smells and wished they could last

• Teaser - Joey was papped in a ‘Surf lab' wearing a bandage to protect his sense of smell. Rumours of a nose job generated tabloid gossip

• Product - Designed new packaging to support product launch

• Launch – Launched the new product at a lido, photographs of Joey in Surf branded swimwear

• Film – Created ‘behind the scenes’ video and seeded it online. Used as a Facebook trailer whilst waiting for branded games to download

• The waiting list – A waiting list with ASDA, enabling TOWIE fans to get the product first

• News hijack – Joey Tweeted on the ground-breaking discovery of the Higgs Boson particle. Quote was published alongside that of David Cameron’s in two national newspapers

We created an additional revenue stream worth £1.2m and generated a campaign profit of £3.8m. Our campaign had a halo effect on the rest of the Surf brand – increasing penetration and boosting frequency by 24%:

• 62% of respondents said the campaign told them something new about Surf and 56% wanted to find out more (well above industry norms)

Coverage

• 212 pieces of coverage - 82% in Lisa’s target media

• 77% delivered at least 1 key message

Widespread social media conversation

• Joey’s tweets (including key messages) generated 1,609 tweets reaching 4,315,666 people

Product in consumers’ hands

• 430,869,970 people have seen or heard about the campaign

• We got the product onto the shelves of three out of four major UK supermarkets, one of them sold out in 10 days

• In just three months, we sold over 400,000 bottles of detergent