Ironing is a dull chore. Few would call it fun or social. But across Great Britain last spring, mums hosted ironing parties, complete with balloons, music, drinks, and smiling group photos.

Credit Philips, makers of the PerfectCare steam generator irons. After traditional PR had raised awareness of PerfectCare’s newest iron, the brand still needed to drive purchase of an iron that costs 10 times more than traditional irons, thanks to its time-saving and garment-saving technology.

So when research revealed that purchase was driven by trial and peer recommendations, the PR team convinced Philips to forego traditional media relations and direct its limited PR budget toward Britain’s first-ever mass ironing event. On May 26, the Queen’s Jubilee public holiday, Philips organized 200 ironing parties hosted by ordinary mums. A party pack got the fun started, and a party script of ironing tricks and contests had partygoers posting thousands of photos and reviews on Facebook and Amazon.com.

The parties generated more than steamy fun. The 2,300 partygoers not only recommended the iron to on average 10 of their friends offline, but they also quickly reached over 2m through online posts and reviews. And with no other marketing activities in Philips garment care category, sales of PerfectCare irons jumped 60%, while Philips leapt from #3 in the UK’s garment care category to #1. Even the large retailer Costco decided to carry PerfectCare based on the new user recommendations. Not surprisingly, Philips is now executing PerfectCare parties across other markets.

Philips aimed to drive product trial, offline recommendations and online reviews among mums, 35-55, with several children and an income above £55,000, and who did around three hours of ironing per week.

We surveyed more than 2,000 UK women, discovering that PerfectCare’s target mum longed to cut down on her ironing hours, but she needed more than information to buy an expensive new iron when her old one still worked. Before purchasing, she needed to try PerfectCare and get recommendations from friends, online and offline.

PerfectCare irons are designed not to burn, but the parties made them scorching hot. All 2,328 partygoers tried the irons, and based on post-party surveys, those partygoers recommended PerfectCare to, on average, 10 friends, reaching a total of 19,222. That was just offline. Through posts on Facebook, Twitter, and facebook.com/philipshomeliving, partygoers reached over 2m. And the reach extends every time a mum sees one of the new reviews on Amazon (500% increase in reviews), Philips.com (800% increase in reviews), or elsewhere.

Recommendations quickly transformed into business. Based on user recommendations, the big retailer Costco decided to carry PerfectCare, and with essentially no other Philips garment care marketing, sales of the PerfectCare flagship product, the GC9230, soared more than 60% in 2012. What’s more, Philips rose from #3 to #1 in the UK garment care category. Philips is now replicating the PerfectCare Parties idea in other markets.

April: Recruiting Hosts

We drove mums to www.facebook.com/philipshomeliving, where 618 mums applied to be one of 200 PerfectCare party hosts.

May: Party Pack

Each host received a party pack that included a PerfectCare iron, balloons, music, nibbles, soft drinks, and bunting to iron and hang as backgrounds for Facebook photos honoring the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

May 26: Party Contests

To ensure trial, sharing and online reviews, we created a “Best Group Photo” contest, featuring a “Keep Calm and Carry On Ironing” poster; a contest that prompted partygoers to post reviews to their favorite retailer site; and a Temperature Challenge, in which partygoers left the iron face down on a Union Jack silk scarf for five minutes, posting their surprise when the scarf didn’t burn.

May-June: Party On

The team followed up with all partygoers to spark more uploads and reviews and to learn who they had told about PerfectCare.

In 2011, Philips, one of the world’s largest electronics companies, had run a successful awareness campaign for its new PerfectCare steam generator iron, the GC9230, featuring “optimal temperature” technology that cuts ironing time in half and makes it worry free. But the iron’s price, £250 (more than 10 times traditional irons) and the fact that irons are a “distress purchase” – you think about one only when your current one breaks – were proving to be tough purchase hurdles. On a budget under £35,000, how could Philips essentially re-launch the product and motivate UK mums to proactively replace their traditional irons with an expensive high-tech steam generator iron?

Based on our research, we decided we needed to create a fun word-of-mouth campaign, one that would enable target mums to try PerfectCare steam generator irons and recommend the product to friends and connections online.

Our big idea was to create the UK’s first-ever mass ironing event – 200 simultaneous PerfectCare ironing parties hosted by and held at the homes of local mums on May 26, the extended national holiday called in honor of the Queen’s Jubilee.