The Little Project that Smashed Big Benchmarks...

Earlier this month it was time for children all over the UK to head back to school, and that meant it was time for us at Don’t Panic to join them, not literally, but by getting our thinking caps on for a slightly experimental social campaign. Teaming up with Save the Children, we aimed to do something a little different and using a new form of activation, hijack this year’s back to school conversation. Save the Children came to us after identifying that every year, September comes around and with it comes a flock of social media posts showing smiling faces, blazers they’ll “grow into” and well wishes from distant relatives for the upcoming school year. So we were tasked with creating content to get STC involved in this conversation, aiming to operate within and own that space. With social media already a hub of back to school pictures, together with Save the Children, we decided to harness this trend and use it to direct conversation towards a more pressing issue surrounding the world’s education problems. In line with children going back to school we released a video called ‘Go Back to School with the #Classof16’. The 30 second video to kick off the campaign and let our audience know what was being asked of them, shows children from both the UK and developing countries on their first day of school holding up signs stating their dream jobs.

Our ‘little’ project, won The Drum’s ‘Ad of the Day’, smashed Save the Children’s year one activations and saw parents get involved across the UK, proudly displaying their children’s ambitions. In the future, we hope to further involve Save the Children in the back to school conversation, aiming to show that no matter where they are from, every child deserves the opportunity to access an education – and pursue their ambition.