From the front door to the car and from the car to the entrance of the daycare center-- for many children, these are the only moments during the day that they spend outside. As such, these inside-outside babies are quickly becoming real indoor babies.

Child and family, a Belgian governmental organisation that supports young parents and nurseries, thinks that’s a pity, because playing outside is fun, healthy and important. But how does one convince mom, dad and babysitter to actually take their children outside more often?

With this campaign, we focused on two main target audiences. First of all, we wanted professional caretakers of both babies and toddlers to take their little companions outside more often. Secondly, we wanted to convince parents that they had to take their children outside as well.

Aside from our first 100 babies, we also asked for the support of all the nurseries and childcare providers in Flanders. We sent all 7.800 of them an #urbanbaby sticker to decorate their buildings with. There was no way people could not notice these babies. Next, we asked the convinced parents to spark conversations online and post pictures of their children playing outside with the hashtag #urbanbabies. This way, everyone could see that playing outside is good and fun for children.

To kick off our project, we asked Jo Vandeurzen, the Flemish Minister of Welfare, Public Health and Family, to glue the 100th baby during a press conference in the spot where the campaign was first. The press fell in love with all the stickers that decorated the city and covered the #urbanbabies in every major newspaper, radio show and even on national television.

Specially-planned walking tours through the city centres of Antwerp and Ghent were also organized so people could view all the different pieces of art. But it didn’t end there. Every nursery in Flanders was sent an urban sticker that they could hang outside so that we could expand our reach from only two major cities to the whole of Flanders.

In the end, over 7.900 #urbanbabies were spread across nursery fronts in Flanders. And they did exactly what they were meant to do: get the public debate rolling. Thanks to a smart PR-approach, we gained no less than 14.185.000 impressions and a media value of 456.400€ with no media budget.

We talked directly with our first target group and reached all 7.800 nurseries by sending them stickers of #urbanbies. In addition, multiple parents cooperated in spreading our message, making #urbanbabies a trending hashtag in Belgium.