Brief Explanation

Consumers were asked to share messages of peace on our GivePeace hashtag to receive 15% off in store. This was the core mechanic of the campaign and saw many thousands of messages shared by customers and celebrities alike. It functioned to drive people in-store while also creating a much larger social movement over key social channels. A limited edition range of GivePeace T-Shirts were created by our favourite brands (Ksubi, Stussy, Neuw, Zanerobe, Santa Cruz, Vans, Insight, Candidate and RVCA.) with 100% of proceeds supporting our partner charities Save The Children and Oasis Youth Off The Streets. This activation gave customers a way to support the charities and become more involved in our campaign. With over half the t-shirts in the range selling out they had become the must have Christmas present.

The Brief

They needed to win at Christmas in a retail environment that has seen the arrival of international brands Zara, H&M and Uniqlo. In the face of this competition we needed a genuinely unique campaign that would stand out from the crowd. General Pants brief to us was simple and instructional; we want to be the most talked about retailer at Christmas. With a limited budget and a much smaller footprint than competitors this was an ambitious target.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The campaign become a social movement with thousands of messages shared on our #GivePeace hashtag driving people in-store to redeem their discount. This enormous success delivered over 19million impressions. We had truly become the most talked about retailer at Christmas. And this Christmas was General Pants best in years with all sales targets surpassed and the brand was also able to go on sale a week later driving a dramatic upswing in profitability. Over 60,000 children were immunised against a life threatening disease by Save The Children and 600 young people sleeping rough in Sydney were helped by Oasis Youth Of The Streets.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

On November 24th we made the switch announcing that up until Christmas day we would be known as the General Peace Co, dedicated to spreading messages of peace and raising money for Oasis Youth Support and Save the Children Australia. We partnered with our favourite brands to create the Give Peace t-shirt range that was sold in all stores with 100% of proceeds going direct to the charities. We approached celebrity influencers and asked them to become involved with the campaign by sharing messages of peace on their social and being photographed wearing out GivePeace T-Shirts for the windows. A multitude of celebrities answered the call including Anthony Kiedis, Daniel Johns, Ronan Keating, Diplo and Cody Simpson (with his 7.5 million followers) to name a few. Each one offering up their time to the campaign for free, something unprecedented for a retail Christmas campaign.