The Challenge

BBC One’s long running soap opera was coming up for its 25th anniversary. With the birthday episode including the climax of a powerful and long running storyline, our challenge was to make that a national event, raising the profile of both the show and channel.

The Solution

Our “We want your Doof Doofs” campaign encouraged viewers to submit their favourite cliffhangers, the dramatic moment before the end credit drum beats or “doof doofs”. 9 unscripted promos featuring the fans were created and excitement was built around the storyline with 4 narrative promos. A free EastEnders exhibition and a special BBC One/EastEnders ident was also created to celebrate the event.

The Result

• 18.8 million watched the episode
• BBC Three’s EastEnders Live: The Aftermath became the highest rating programme EVER for a non terrestrial channel with 4.5m viewers
• EastEnders E20: reached 3m views by the end of March
• And there were 417,000 views of the fans’ doof doofs
• Promax Award winning Europe 2010: Silver for Best Intergrated Marketing Campaign Promo