France is one of the most vigilant countries when it comes to disguised advertising. Any brand mention on TV/Print/Radio is forbidden and punished with tough sanctions, unless it’s considered as “news worthy”. That’s why, to produce brand content that generates earned media, agencies have no other choices than developing culturally engaging content that can therefore be regarded as newsworthy.

To fuel a real popular movement, we developed a 360° communication ecosystem centered around a Twitter activation engaging people to share their (bad!) jokes #The1FrancJoke, to raise money for our partner non-profit, one joke at a time. Each tweeted Joke = 1 Franc for the charity.

The rest of the campaign mixed digital (an interactive site, a 3-D animated brand-content video…) and physical (an attention-grabbing PR kit to rally influencers’ support, a partnership with the largest “boulangeries” network across the country, a piggy bank-designed “Francs For Carambars” truck that drove around France’s major cities giving the movement a grassroots feel).

The campaign exceeded our objectives :

- More than 2 millions views of the film

- 20 000 tweeted jokes

- Around 340 main media mentions, in places where usually a brand can not be mentioned

- 1 000 000 €+ in earned media (5x the cost of production), and total of 150 000 000 impressions

- A very positive sentiment about the campaign with 99.4% positive mentions

- And more importantly, more than 1 000 hospitalised children in critical conditions got to spend an hour with a clown, breaking up with their daily routine