Editorial

Mystery Packages

2009 UK DMA Awards

Issue 13 | December 2009

Agency

Proximity, London

Creative Team

Debi Bester Sonia Singleton Caitlin Ryan Nick Moffat Chris Monk Georgia Bradley-Grant Joseph Pirrie Julie Randall Elly Woolston

Production Team

Charity organisation

Date

July 2008

Background

The challenge was to turn RNLI from being the ‘least known charity among the youth’ to ‘one of the most talked about online in summer 08’... by discovering a higher purpose than sea rescue: the contribution young people make to society as a whole. After all, RNLI itself has no fewer than 470 volunteers under the age of 25 who are willing to risk their own lives to save others at sea.

Idea

Unbranded 'Mystery Packages' were mailed out to Britain’s 12 most popular young bloggers. They were asked to open these parcels on video and, after reading the and examining the contents, they were asked to challenge their many viewers to speak up about WHO THEY REALLY ARE. Are they the lazy, cruel, useless generation the media enjoys portraying them to be, a generation without values, views or a vision? Only after fierce debate had been kindled did RNLI reveal that they were behind the packages.

Results

The bloggers opened the DM live, they rallied huge response and when RNLI’s role was revealed, they visited Lifeboat HQ, filmed it, wrote songs, rewrote headlines, made T-shirts ...

Starting with just 12 DM packs, nearly one million views were generated with 8000 texts sent, 150 videos made and uploaded. The mash-up video was featured twice by YouTube editors and ranked ‘Top 10 most-viewed this month’ across 7 countries.