Title	FREE THE KIDS
Brand	UNILEVER
Product/Service	PERSIL / OMO
Entrant	MULLENLOWE GROUP London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	MULLENLOWE GROUP London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production	RSA FILMS London, UNITED KINGDOM
Additional Company	DIGITAL ART STUDIO Madrid, SPAIN

Name	Company	Position
Richard Denney	Mullen Lowe London	Executive Creative Director
Alex Okada	Mullen Lowe London	Global Creative Director
Bruno Riberio	Mullen Lowe London	Creative
David Henderson	Mullen Lowe London	Chief Creative Officer
Luiz Fillipin	Mullen Lowe London	Creative
Juan Chrismann	Mullen Lowe London	Creative
Jack Patrick	Mullen Lowe London	Creative
Diogo Abrantes	Mullen Lowe London	Creative
Adam Sears	Mullen Lowe London	Creative
Gavin Nastili	Mullen Lowe London	Creative
Francisco Barrera	Mullen Lowe London	Creative
Rojan Munthe	Mullen Lowe London	Creative
Mays Al-Ali	Mullen Lowe London	Executive Producer
Idoia Perdiguero	Mullen Lowe London	Producer
Toby Dye	R S A Films Ltd	Director
Ben Porter	R S A Films Ltd	Executive Producer
Ayesha Walawalkar	Mullen Lowe London	Global Planning Director
Emma Batho	Mullen Lowe London	Planning
Phoebe Robertson	Mullen Lowe London	Account Executive

The Campaign

The time kids spend outdoors gets smaller every day – but it’s hard to understand how much time is too little unless we can put it into a context that’s easily recognised. The rights of prison inmates to outdoor time are laid down by the UN. This is not the case for children, who now spend less free time outdoors each day than prisoners. The creative idea was to compare the time the average child spends outdoors with that of a prison inmate. To bring this to life, we visited a high security prison in Indiana to film inmates, and ask them what their outdoor time each day meant to them. We then revealed that kids spend less time outdoors each day than they do, and we filmed their reactions. Because they truly understand what it means to have free time outside, they were shocked by this statistic

Creative Execution

Filmed as a piece of documentary, we went to Wabash Maximum Security Prison, in the state of Indiana, United States, to investigate and compare the time the average child spends outdoors with that of a prison inmate. Staying true to the documentary approach, everything was shot for real with a tiny crew that had restricted access to the prison. We decided to go to the USA, since it best represents the iconic image people have in mind when it comes to Prison. We pre-selected 50 inmates and checked their criminal history background. The Prison allowed us to speak with the inmates but ultimately they would need to volunteer themselves for the film. As expected from a documentary, all the V/O, depositions and their reactions are for real.

In the first 3 weeks of the launch it got an impressive uptake by the media, with over 471 Million media impressions and 115 articles in renowned titles including Fast Company, Globo, CNN, The Times, the Guardian, The Telegraph and El Pais. As the objective of this campaign was specifically to get the issue of children's outdoor play onto the public agenda, this is an especially relevant measure of success.There has also been significant engagement online, with thousands of mentions on Twitter on launch day alone, including retweets by influential bodies such as Greenpeace and Public Health. Total reach is estimated at 471 million impressions with an additional 13.1 million earned impressions from campaign interaction.

The aim was to maximise impact, get this issue onto the public's agenda. We chose for a big, PR-led burst campaign, which launched in the UK & Brazil simultaneously.We teed up the media with several PR-placed articles highlighting the lack of outdoor play & the announcement of Sir Ken Robinson as our Dirt is Good Child Development Advisory Board Chairman. The primary focus was online, & related content taking over Twitter Moments, a live Periscope broadcast & rich banners. Offline, the film was pushed out in cinema, press, outdoor, radio & custom-made 'prisoner kits' were mailed out to key influencers.

OMO launched ‘Dirt is Good’ in 2004 and has been advocating the need for children to go outside and get dirty since this time, because when a child is free to play and get dirty, they learn essential life skills that cannot be taught in a schoolroom. The shocking insight, that prisoners are spending more time outdoors than children was chosen to communicate the fact that children need to spend more time outside as it quickly and starkly gets the point across that society needs to change it’s behaviour. This campaign is aimed at society in general, with a skew towards parents. The approach chosen was to create an provocative online film which generated earned reach via influencers and PR. With the overall ambition to drive conversation and increase desire to change behaviour.