When we moved into a new home two years ago we decided to put our creative chops on show for anyone who walked through the door. Our office, and our agency name, reflects the creativity and playfulness synonymous with childhood. From a boardroom table made of Lego bricks, to a fireman’s pole and slide between the creative and account service floors, our office is uniquely Boys and Girls.

Rather than promote individual elements of our home or culture we decided instead to recreate all of it using the stuff of edible Christmas dreams –gingerbread.

With the architect’s original floor-plan we mapped out a gingerbread version of our office starting with the walls and interior fittings. Next we took our favourite Christmas treats of candy canes, boiled sweets and icing (lots of icing) and created miniature, edible replications of everything inside our office to build a home good enough to eat.

There were two key elements to the campaign; a behind the scenes video of the design and creation of the gingerbread house and a printed Christmas card.

We captured a photograph of the gingerbread house for the front of the Christmas card. Inside the card we wished people a happy holiday with the headline ‘Have a Sweet Christmas’. Finally, hand printed signatures surrounded a message that invited readers to go to our website, boysandgirls.ie to watch the ‘baking of’.

The ‘baking of’ video gave viewers a behind-the- scenes peek into the creation of our gingerbread office building, from the planning and design to the baking of the structure. It also gave people a closer look at the tiny charming details we cooked up to bring the idea to life, like marzipan boardroom tables, sugar-cube office chairs, custom printed sugar wallpaper and mini fondant portraits of our five agency partners.

The card outperformed objectives set with every client emailing, calling or mentioning the card to Boys and Girls staff.

“We loved the card and the video on the site was a great touch, real attention to detail. If you need helpers next year for gingerbread house eating don't be afraid to ask!”

Raymond Leddy – Skoda Ireland

From 207 cards the video received 9,733 views. Website visits shot up making December the highest month for time spent on site in 2016. All achieved with no media budget.

We were chuffed to be featured on Adweek’s homepage as one of the best global agency Christmas cards of the festive season.

But the icing on the cake was the response from new business leads. Of the 12 brands who received our card two are now Boys and Girls clients. A pretty sweet result.