Beatwax

Brief: Sony Pictures asked us to organise the UK leg of the global birthday celebration of Peyo: the Belgian artist who created The Smurfs. The celebration was the opening salvo in the campaign to launch the 3D feature film debut of The Smurfs movie.

Solution: The main feature of the celebration was a Guinness World Record attempt: The largest simultaneous gathering of people dressed as Smurfs in multiple countries! 12 countries took part in the attempt and the Guinness rules stipulated that the gatherings had to be synchronised across international time zones. Everybody gathering in every country in full Smurf attire at exactly the same moment in time!

The O2’s Live Quarter (capacity for 6,000 Smurfs) was chosen as the venue, a true celebration was built around the proceedings with on going cabaret style entertainment (delivered by the Pontin’s Bluecoats of course), family entertainers including Smurf stilt walkers, Smurf unicyclists and all sorts of fairground type attractions. Magic FM’s breakfast show presenter Jamie Edwards played host to the whole event.

The two mammoth logistical tasks on the day:

Free Smurfs outfit and blue body paint were provided to the first 3,500 people – we employed an army of ‘crowd smurfers’ to convert everybody into Smurfs within the tight four hours window from gates open at 1pm to the actual record attempt at 5pm.

A large pen was created for the actual count. The Smurfs had to file in through turnstiles, which automatically counted each entry.  Everybody taking part in the record had to be in that pen by 5pm in time to sync up with all the other countries taking part.

Of course we needed to find enough Smurfs to take part:

Smurf recruitment opened with a wide social media campaign driving people to register in advance to take part at an official Global Smurfs Day hub

A community outreach programme to local schools, colleges and other stakeholders close to The O2 followed. The O2’s digital media and broadcast network was also employed to create buzz amongst audiences at their live events.

Regional and national PR campaign, tie in with Magic FM breakfast show, and a full page advert in The Metro delivered the final elements of the publicity campaign.

Results:           

16,000 likes on official facebook page and a genuine depth of community debate and image sharing pre and post event

6,000 people registered to take in the actual record attempt at the registration site www.smurfsday.co.uk

8,000 people turned up on the day with 2,021 of them in full Smurf attire taking part in the record attempt at 5pm

The Guinness world record was achieved with a total of 4,518 people dressed as Smurfs across all participating countries – The O2 was by far the most spectacular, contributing to over 2,000 of the total

Broadcast coverage included Daybreak on ITV, The Chris Moyles Show on Radio One and Something for the Weekend on BBC2

Print coverage has been achieved in the Daily Mirror, Heat Magazine, Chat Magazine, OK, The Metro, Time Out, The Guardian and there are hundreds of listings and local features: A Google search on Global Smurfs Day reveals a well rounded communications campaign with extensive reach.

As testament to the effectiveness of the campaign, Heather Morris, who plays Brittany Pierce in Glee turned up to take part in the record attempt completely unannounced. See image gallery.