We dropped our hard-hitting creative, which brought the harsh reality of the care system to life, into our audience’s happy family moments:• Family breakfasts. ‘Missing’ children ads appeared on the side of milk cartons, appealing for help in stopping kids disappearing into the system. Airtime on GMTV further targeted this family moment.• Family school runs. We challenged parents to imagine if their child was lost in the care system during their school runs using a national drivetime radio campaign.• Family living rooms. Our ad ran across C4’s portfolio, targeting jointly-viewed, family programming. Alongside this we interweaved interstitials featuring real children who were currently in social care and seeking adoption.• Family weekends. Children stuck in the care system disappeared into the family weekend newspaper supplements.• Family forums. We targeted families online, with display space and PR across key parenting sites, chatrooms and forums, to stoke debate.

11.5m people viewed the season, eclipsing the numbers for previous seasons about more topical issues of knife crime and child literacy.

60% of those who saw our communications said they felt better about C4. Furthermore, the season drove significant increases in C4’s perceptions as controversial, thought-provoking and intelligent.Importantly, the season stirred the public into action. 87% of viewers felt it stimulated debate around this vital issue. Viewers were twice as likely to find out more about adoption and twice as likely to adopt in future.

Finally, there were over 400 enquiries about the children in the real-life interstitials.