Created by Sydney-based creative communications agency The Conscience Organisation (TCO) for Allen’s Lollies, the Smile Maker campaign is based around the premise that adults don’t smile as often as we should.

With an aim to ‘raise a million smiles’, an Allen’s-branded car carrying Sydney-based performance artist and creative workshop facilitator Bravo Child (and production crew) will be dropping into all Aussie capitols—plus 10 regional towns—to try and turn unsuspecting frowns upside-down and inspire people to share the love via the Allen’s Lollies Facebook page.

The personal touch

To reach out and engage personally with their audience, TCO’s campaign has chosen small-scale personal experiences as its focus. The intention is that fun experiences, unexpectedly delivered in person by Bravo Child, will encourage participants to help spread the joy with smile-worthy acts of their own.

“We’ve got different outputs that we’re aiming at,” says Bravo Child. “One, we’re testing out our ‘smile makers’ in the street. Things like just saying hi to people, or waving at people with a sign or giving someone a high-five, even hugging people or handing out free flowers.

“We’re also trying to find ‘smile makers’ around Australia; the local community aspect. These people might not be known on a national scale but their friends know that they do something to make a difference.

The idea being that it’s almost a library or a collection of the different techniques Australians use to make themselves smile. [We want to] empower people to do something nice to other people.”

Converting physical to online action

At the heart of TCO’s campaign is a desire to drive social media engagement with the Allen’s brand by making people feel part of something good.

“Social media paricipation is definitely a call to action that we’re championing,” says Child. “It's very important because it’s inclusive and is a way people can represent their own areas and get involved.

You know the idea is to spread a million more smiles, so of course that’s a huge number and it’s not going to be achieved by me just going around and giving people high-fives. It’s more of a change of mindset and hopefully it’s a social change of mindset—that people feel they can be part of a movement of sorts, and I think those things really do get represented in social media.”

This grass-roots approach is hoped to increase the reach of future activations. “The level of social media engagement is going to be pretty much the focus of whether on not we’ve succeeded” admits Child. 

Outcomes

Though the campaign remains ongoing for the rest of the month, the results are positive so far—no doubt born of the emphasis on necessary people skills employed by TCO in choosing Child as the human face of the campaign.

“I think you need a point of reality or a common understanding before people feel safe enough to open up,” says Child.  “Because smiling, and laughing and being yourself is something that’s a bit vulnerable, you’re allowing the truth to be open to exposure, so it’s something we have to walk around with keeping in mind all the time. I’m actually really, really encouraged by the number of people who respond well.”

The signs point to good news for Allen’s Lollies. Their Facebook page demonstrates a significant increase in activity in terms of likes, comments and shares and indicates that TCO’s simple, personal, real-world campaign approach can pay social media dividends.