Celebrations for EastEnders’ 25th anniversary were to be extra special with the live climax of a powerful and long-running storyline. To build anticipation and create a sense of event who better to turn to than the show’s legion of fans?

Our “We want your Doof Doofs” campaign encouraged them to submit their favourite cliffhanger from the past 25 years; those big dramatic moments before the end credit drum beats or “doof doofs.” We created 9 unscripted promos featuring the fans and incorporated their faces into the iconic EastEnders map. We also offered them the chance to be part of the end credits in anniversary week. We even got a celebrity or two to give the low-down on their choice “doof doofs.”

Alongside the fan-based campaign, we built excitement around the “who killed Archie” storyline using four narrative promos. We came up with the idea of a free EastEnders exhibition to take place around the jubilee and also created a special BBC One/EastEnders ident to celebrate the event.

We‘re proud to say that the phrase Doof Doof is now officially in the Urban Dictionary. But more to the point it got the nation talking and built unstoppable momentum for what turned out to be a hugely successful event:

Campaign Results:

• Unprecedented media coverage
• A total of 18.8 million people watched the episode
• More people watched live than England vs Croatia in 2004
• EastEnders outperformed itself for the entire quarter, year on year
• And now is regularly out performing its main rival, Coronation Street
• 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 UGC Doof Doofs
• Quantitative research shows the campaign made a positive impact on both programme and channel brands

Awards

• PromaxBDA Europe 2010: Silver for Best Integrated Marketing Campaign Promo