‘Babybel Yourself’ was an interactive, shareable, program that infused new technology into a longstanding relationship. The mini-cheese snack in iconic red, round packaging has helped raise money for Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day for 15 years. In keeping with the spirit of the day and goal to surpass previous years in the fundraising partnership, Babybel Yourself was born.

The web app deployed the latest facial recognition and image morphing technology to transform simple selfies into laughing cheeses with customizable laughs.

The Babybel Yourself campaign drove engagement across numerous channels, including in-store and on packaging, redesigned to reflect the promotion. To drive donations Babybel would donate money for each package purchased; shared content drove further donations. Driving awareness of the promotion were targeted 10-second TV spots, in-cinema interactive billboards, digital display media, and sponsored Facebook posts – all connected to fuel donations across an eight-week window.

Babybel had partnered with Comic Relief for 15 years. We were challenged to push the creativity of the 2015 campaign, using the charity’s popularity to drive penetration under their new theme: “Make your face funny for money.” Babybel was traditionally associated with wholesome fun, which hadn't always resonated with our target ‘tween’ audience. To widen our appeal, we needed to be fresher, funnier and more relevant to younger teens, without alienating children and parents. And we required one big idea that captured the spirit of the occasion and raised buckets of life-changing cash for an incredible cause.

Early commercial results demonstrate the impact of ‘Babybel Yourself’ as a significant awareness and attitudinal piece. With a huge number of site visits and the total number of creations surpassing initial expectation, the campaign has achieved its objective of creating an innately shareable experience.

In fact, this campaign has already been crowned as our most influential partnership with Comic Relief in 15 years. So far, we’ve achieved:

• 72,427 site visits

• 19,045 Babybels created

• 751 Babybels created via digital out-of-home activity

• Over 15 million media impressions

• Over 41,000 clicks from media

• Over 4,800 Babybels shared

• +5% sales increase vs. forecast

• Brand growth +42% vs. 2014

• £150,000 pack donations to Comic Relief with an additional £20,000 attained from ‘social share’ donations

The campaign is live until 19.04.15.

The creative execution was relevant for a number of reasons. We were inspired by Comic Relief’s fuel for driving positive change: the power of laughter. Because laughter is contagious, it is the perfect ingredient to provoke sharing and activate giving. Research established that sharing a few laughs with friends is a significant driver of peer-to-peer behaviour. Combining the strong social value of personalisation with simple shareability, allowed the campaign to spread organically.

Moreover, we applied the creative execution to the brand by transforming simple selfies into interactive cheeses, using the brand’s iconic round, red packaging to frame the laughter. By placing our product at the heart of the campaign we answered Comic Relief’s ‘Make your face funny for money’ proposition.

The promotional campaign ran according to the original plan, in top UK grocery retailers across POS, packaging and shelf trays from 10.02.15 to 19.04.15.