We took a global campaign idea and added local topspin, resulting in Febreze being the only UK Aircare brand to grow volume and value share in 2011.The challenge was to overcome consumer skepticism around Febreze’s efficacy against genuinely tough odours, and PR met the challenge head on by setting out to prove Febreze’s effectiveness in the toughest of smelly situations. The activity was designed and delivered under the management of the PR agency which led to a truly holistic execution that was promoted across media channels.

The Febreze Breathe Happy Experiment, the UK’s largest ever odour experiment, saw a purpose-built box constructed in Europe's largest shopping centre and one brave man live in it for 3 days straight. Designed to accumulate the odours, we set about kicking up a stink with 9 odour-inducing challenges and no escape. The stench was verified by the public gallery, and it was bad!Febreze set about eliminating the eye-watering odours before recruiting and blindfolded participants to go into the box and tell us what they could smell. The power of Febreze was a success with 100% positive comments.A total of 222 pieces of coverage with a reach of 250,000,000 was generated by the PR team alongside delivering daily video packages that ran across Febreze social media channels, resulting in record engagement figures and doubling fans.The experiment delivered against the business objectives with Febreze taking market leadership and 19% value share growth at end of campaign.

We took the global campaign idea of Breathe Happy, added local topspin and executed a 4-day experiment, to prove the efficacy of Febreze in extreme conditions- 4m x 4m perspex box set up in Europe's largest shopping centre to maximise exposure;- 3 daily odour inducing challenges including gutting a fish, fitness class and pizza night with friends;- Gave people the ability to choose and control the challenges through Facebook;- Created 2 video edits daily featuring all the day’s excitement to be posted on Facebook and You Tube for public to view;- Celebrity host, Stephen Mulhern, helped to drive pre-event coverage, host video content, tweet and engage the crowds at the event;- Launched photocall set up, featuring bespoke picture opportunities for key publications being targeted;- Explored a wide range of media option available to generate buzz and awareness including: event listing pages, bloggers, London guides, national newspapers, radio, online video channels.

The experiment saw Febreze take market leadership and be the only aircare brand to show growth in the UK market in 2011, with a 19% value share growth at end of campaign (versus 1 year ago, source TNS).

It addressed the challenge in changing how people perceive the efficacy of Febreze with those seeing the activity claiming a huge 96% increase in future purchase consideration.PR led the planning and activation process, providing content to leverage across multiple media channels, while also delivering 222 pieces of PR coverage with a reach of 250,000,000.Activity doubled Facebook fans over course of the experiment, got 50% of our Facebook community ‘talking about’ it, versus 16% benchmark from Facebook and generated very high engagement levels of 0.5% versus a target of 0.3%Total footfall for the 4 days of activity at Westfield: 555,914; direct consumer interaction at event: 166,774.