The Brief
Ellie Goldstein made history as the first supermodel with Down Syndrome to represent Gucci in a major international campaign, to grace the cover of British Vogue, as well as being the UK ambassador for a Barbie based on a person with Down Syndrome. Midas was asked to work with SPCK Publishing to promote on Ellie’s debut book – Against All Odds – which was the first in a new series curated by Katie Piper OBE called ‘The UnSeen’. Our objective was to help drive sales by delivering an attention-grabbing, high-profile campaign, featuring varied content and placement that engaged all key audiences.
The Work
Following kick-offs meetings with SPCK, Ellie and her mother Yvonne, plus Katie Piper’s team – where we brainstormed feature ideas and confirm our media strategy – we began our approaches and agreed first print and TV interviews: an Inspire cover shoot with the Daily Mail and sofa appearance on BBC Breakfast.
This was followed up by newspaper hits in The I, Daily Express, Metro, Sunday Post and Irish Examiner and we complemented this with lifestyle media – Glamour, HELLO, New, OK, Elle, Vogue – focusing on Ellie’s mission to change the face of fashion. To further highlight Ellie’s role as a positive changemaker we secured interviews in the likes of The Big Issue and The Female Lead as well as wellbeing outlets like Boots, Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place and Stompcast with Dr Alex George. To reach an audience of parents and carers that could relate to or be inspired by Yvonne’s experience, we set up interviews in more mature media including Yours, Pick Me Up, Best, Red, ITV News, Sky News, BBC Radio 2 Good Morning Sunday.
Alongside our media campaign, we organised an exclusive ‘in conversation’ publication event with Katie, Ellie and Yvonne for influencers to drive social media buzz as well as giving attendees an opportunity to create social content from the event. To extend our influencer activity, we approached a wider list across fashion and beauty industries, inclusivity champions and book bloggers to receive a copy of Against All Odds for their channels.
The Results
The campaign delivered more than 100 pieces of traditional and non-traditional coverage. From BBC Breakfast to BBC Radio 2, Daily Express to The Big Issue, Happy Place to Closer, Sky News to Good Housekeeping and everything in between, we secured a raft of coverage from our media outreach including six front covers and flashes – with interview highlights including: 9 x national newspapers, 8 x national magazines, 5 x national broadcast & podcasts.
Our influencer event welcomed 13 attendees with a collective reach of 270.8K who posted 35 pieces of content, and our gifting activity generated 13 pieces of content from 6 influencers, with a total reach of 334.6K.
@happyplaceofficial #EllieGoldstein joins us on this week’s episode of Happy Place ✨
