A recent study showed that 51% of Danes would like to be more generous for their partner, but keep on forgetting it. As Valentine’s Day was approaching we wanted remind people about being generous and enforce Anthon Bergs message “you can never be too generous”.

Attracting a skeptical target group where only 2% of Danish men actually love Valentines, we needed a new approach. Following the many popular shows like Mythbusters that use scientific methods to determine the cause and effect, we teamed up with Neuroscientist Professor and TED-talker Paul Zak, to conduct an experiment and film it.

By measuring the levels of oxytocin in a person’s blood, one can measure levels of happiness. The purpose of the experiment was to determine whether giving chocolate to your loved one, would not only make your better half happier, but also make you happier.

In order to maximize effect we partnered with one of Denmark’s biggest magazines that followed and reported the experiment from first row. Once the experiment was finalized and we had the result, we gathered everything in a short movie which we together with angled Press Releases send away to specific media houses and blogs. Each one getting a story that would fit their core audience in order to maximize relevance: An emotional story line for the ladies and scientific proof for their male counter parts.

The planning phase of the PR-campaign was fall 2014. Paul Zak was in Denmark to do the film in December, where journalists were invited. Around Valentines, the PR campaign was executed. Our strategy was two-stringed: We made 7 different PR angles (scientific, male, female, marketing, trade, local, and video news release) to be able to reach a broad range of media. And we made exclusive PR partnerships with non-competing media who got their own story.

The PR strategy was not changed along the way since the elements of the strategy did what the purpose was: to secure a lot of awareness of the film and campaign under and after in many different channels. However, even though the first PR burst gave a lot of awareness, one week after the launch of the film, even more PR follow up was executed in order to secure more views on the Youtube channel.

We sent the PR material 10 days before Valentine, giving us a limited time frame to stay relevant. In spite of that, the campaign received phenomenal results.

Sales went up 9,6% comparing to the same period last year.

The campaign resulted in incredible media coverage in Denmark with +130 press clips (plus 170 global press mentions) and estimated reach of +56 million people. The PR value in itself is estimated to reach 10 million DDK (approx. €1.340.000), reaching a ROI of 1198%!

Furthermore it reached engagement levels of 11% (benchmark 1-2%), and more than 50% of Anthon Berg’s fans on Facebook either share/liked or commented the film!