18 months ago, Daintree Paper was forced to close down due to the owner at the time’s anti-gay stance. The business was sold, but the new owners now had a pretty serious image problem. This is how we helped this little paper shop in Ireland restore their reputation and become a global phenomenon – by simply recycling homophobic flyers into confetti to raise money for Marriage Equality.

Daintree believe in making beautiful things out of paper. So when paper was used to print some ugly lies in the run up to Ireland’s Marriage Equality referendum, we saw an opportunity. We created “Shred of Decency” – confetti made from 100% recycled lies.

We collected any negative and dishonest flyers and leaflets and recycled them into beautiful confetti. Then we sold it online and in Daintree’s little shop in Dublin – with all profits going to Support Marriage equality.

The results were completely overwhelming. The campaign generated hundreds and thousands of likes and shares, and millions of social media impressions. It was featured in newspapers, magazines and websites all over the world. Incredibly this was all completely organic – not a single cent was spent on media.

The campaign was also a huge turnaround for the business, with the image of the shop fully restored in the eyes of their customers and the general public. Thousands of euro was raised for Yes Equality, and we’re proud to say we helped take lies and hate out of Ireland’s Marriage Equality debate.

The brief from Daintree was very clear. They had three main objectives in this campaign:

1) To re-gain their customers’ trust and undo the damage caused by the previous owner’s anti-gay stance.

2) To expand Daintree’s target audience by raising awareness that Daintree was under new ownership and had different values.

3) To support and raise money for the Yes Campaign in Ireland’s forthcoming Marriage Equality Referendum.

Given that we had no budget for media to promote it, this idea would need to be something clever and newsworthy that would capture the imagination of the public.

The campaign was an outstanding success for Daintree – with more than 62 million media impressions in earned editorial coverage and over 6 million social media impressions over the course of the campaign. It was featured in publications all over the world – from Buzzfeed, to the Huffington Post, to Mashable and many, many others. Incredibly this was all organic reach – not a single cent was spent on media.

Shred of Decency was also a huge turnaround for Daintree as a business – with a 15% increase in overall sales since the start of the campaign. What’s more, the image of the shop was fully restored in the eyes of the public.

Unsurprisingly, we sold out of confetti. Thousands of euro was raised for Yes Equality, and we’re proud to say we helped take lies and hate out of the Marriage Equality debate.

We launched “Shred of Decency” with an online film. This directed people to a purpose built microsite. We had no media budget, so our strategy was to focus on key influencers, journalists and leaders among Ireland’s LGBT community. We sent these influencers a press pack in advance of the campaign launch. Then we targetted them on our social channels. Meanwhile we pushed the launch film on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which in turn drove people to the website to purchase the confetti. As it happened, we didn’t have to push very hard. Within 2 days the campaign was featured in publications across the globe.

We adapted our plan to focus on keeping the conversation going. We encouraged people to post photos celebrating with their confetti. We also asked them to send us any homophobic tweets using the hashtag #shredthistweet so we could add them to the confetti.

18 months ago, Daintree Paper was forced to close down. Due to his religious beliefs, the owner at the time refused to stock any products that would celebrate gay marriage. Let’s face it, if you’re in the business of selling fancy paper you probably shouldn’t alienate gay people.

The business was sold, but the new owners now had a serious image problem. They needed to communicate that the values of the shop had changed, and they wanted to do this by showing their support for the Yes Campaign in Ireland’s forthcoming Marriage Equality referendum.

With Ireland’s Marriage Equality referendum approaching in May 2015, the debate surrounding it took an ugly turn. Certain groups began publishing anti-gay marriage literature that contained outright lies. Using Daintree’s expertise and love of paper, we decided to turn these groups’ lies back on themselves.

We created “Shred of Decency” – confetti made from 100% recycled lies, with all profits going to support Marriage Equality.

The target audience for this campaign was divided into three groups: previous customers who had turned away from Daintree and were not aware of the new values of the shop; the general public at large who did not know Daintree was under new ownership, and finally Ireland’s LGBT community, many of whom could potentially give Daintree their business when Marriage Equality was passed after the referendum.