Branded Entertainment is an area that is quickly developing in the UK market, with many brands venturing into music, sport or film for instance. Restrictions on TV make branded content difficult to get to air, simply due to the undue prominence law governed by Ofcom.

The content on TV must show no benefits of the brand, or sales messages, and therefore the content must be engaging, and offer the viewer true entertainment. The digital, print and social landscape is lot more relaxed in that respect, and therefore our campaign was teased on TV and the vast majority of activity took place digitally and socially to take advantage of the restrictions.

#GTBFreaks was born in social with 115 posts from Bauer, O2 and the artists.

To build scale GoThinkBig used 4Music to help find a Vlogstar – a young talent to be the voice of our campaign.

A 30” TV and Radio spot featuring the artists encouraged viewers to go online and apply.

Using key music bloggers GoThinkBig was able to reach over 7million people to promote the single.

The finished song premiered at Nile Rodgers’ sell-out gig and simulcast at Rudimental’s gig on the same night. The three minute music video premiered on 4Music as well as Bauer TV.

This was the most successful GoThinkBig campaign ever, receiving over 3,300 applications and #GTBFreaks reached over 29 million people.

The music video and other films have been viewed over a million times and the GoThinkBig site received a 125% increase in Unique Users.

From recruitment through to single release, this became O2’s biggest PR story of 2014 and exceeded targets for the brand statement “O2 supports young people.” Importantly, the track was officially released as a charity single and the young people were able to see and share their professional work.

Better still, our Vlogstar was recruited to work on subsequent O2 advertising campaigns, Rudimental invited one of the young producers to work at their studio and the some of the musicians are set to feature on Chic’s next UK tour.

Most Importantly, GoThinkBig has now offered over 23,000 work opportunities to young people.

This wasn’t just work experience, but the start of careers.