Excellence in Digital Communications

Summary of work

Skin cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer in young adults. The charity SKCIN wanted a campaign to educate and raise awareness on the subject of sun safety in this hard to reach group.

A cheeky hoax campaign was developed using a combination of digital, social and traditional media relations to access the world of the young person. This included YouTube videos, e-commerce websites, a Wikipedia page, an exclusive editorial partnership with The Sun newspaper and sustained Twitter and Facebook campaigns.

This supported the launch of Sunny-3 (the hoax product) as a highly believable product with over 17,000 people, in only one week, requesting a free sample.

Judges comments

A brilliant and bold use of disruptive marketing that was geniunely customer-focused and must have taken a lot of courage to commission.

Stakeholder comments

Marketing director: The agency provided amazing support for this spoof campaign which successfully targeted young people and warned them of the dangers of over-exposure to the sun. It engaged with those most at risk and those most difficult to talk to via conventional methods. We are delighted with the results.