The Russian LGBT community is facing increasingly harsh treatment at the hands of authorities. Attacks on gay people are rising following the enactment of an anti-gay propaganda law in June 2013. In short, the Russian gay community needs help. So, this Christmas, the agency created a special piece of propaganda to send To Russia With Love.

We created five sets of limited edition, hand-painted Russian nesting dolls featuring artist’s renders of five gay British icons: Sir Elton John, George Michael, Stephen Fry, Graham Norton and Tom Daly.

The dolls were signed by Sir Elton, Stephen and Graham and sold on eBay, raising more the £15,000 for The Kaleidoscope Trust and their work with the Russian gay community.

And in our own defiant act of propaganda, we delivered one of the sets to the Russian Embassy in London and sent one direct to Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.

The international PR campaign hit a nerve. The dolls and their positive message of pride and solidarity hit mainstream media across the globe, making the news from Idaho to Oslo to Moscow. Even the UK’s Daily Mail ran a large positive feature. The estimated reach was a whopping 183,000,000.

The twitter campaign, backed with particular enthusiasm by Stephen and Sir Elton, brought awareness to the five icons’ millions of fans.

And for the little known but vital Kaleidoscope Trust, whose activists suffer daily at the hands of the Russian authorities, we delivered over £824,000 / $1,370,000 worth of advertising value.

In order to make the dolls desirable and newsworthy, the five wooden sets had to be beautifully made, rare, collectable and – most of all – endorsed and signed by Sir Elton John.

Once we’d secured Sir Elton’s signature, Stephen Fry and Graham Norton quickly followed (Tom was busy diving, George was away in the USA), adding their voices and – in Stephen’s case – creating video content for the campaign.

We then secured mainstream media in key territories – The UK, USA, and Russia – including the Boston Metro, Moscow Times and the Daily Mail, highlighting the crafts people making the dolls (to increase the monetary value) and the celebrity endorsement (to amplify awareness.) Stephen helped the campaign along by tweeting his involvement; Graham and Sir Elton followed suit.

The dolls were then delivered to the Russian Embassy in London and mailed to the Kremlin by representatives of the Kaleidoscope trust.

Lot’s of love. The dolls made news across the globe (and the internet), with a total reach of 183million for zero spend. They were signed by Sir Elton, Stephen Fry and Graham Norton and the auction raised over £12,000 for the Kaleidoscope Trust.