Fairy Tales are just GRIMM!

I felt the need to discuss another campaign, so here is another in the series of blogs about what I find exciting!

Our client, UKTV, were looking to raise awareness of the launch of the new american hit series 'GRIMM' on Watch, Monday nights at 9pm.

I have to say, I loved this idea as soon as it appeared - to research parents to find out if they actually still read fairytales to their kids. I just knew the results would cause some controversy - and the prediction of a BBC reaction did not appear to be too far from the truth either.

The client achieved some amazing print coverage for the campaign, but I thought I would share some of our excellent coverage with our blog viewers.

Campaign Highlights: 

A total of 21 BBC stations including BBC Radio 4, BBC Five Live, BBC Radio 2, BBC Scotland who all did an amazing feature on the research (and referenced the client and TV show), ITV This Morning opened the phone lines to viewers to open up debate and the continuous conversations today (including a feature on BBC News) just goes to prove the momentum of this story.

My question to you; Do you read these fairytales to your children?

For your reference...here is the story:

Research out today reveals that parents have huffed, puffed and said goodbye to all traditional fairytales of their childhood – choosing to read ‘less scary’ modern books to their own children. 

In attempts to avoid nightmares and awkward questions, one quarter of children won’t have heard stories like Cinderella, and Rumplestiltskin by the age of five because of underlying messages like theft and kidnapping…

But why have attitudes changed and are we worrying too much about the overactive imagination of our children? New drama series Grimm is launching tonight at 9pm on Watch, and is inspired by Grimm’s Fairytales, embracing the darker side of fairytale classics.

Joining us to discuss this further is children’s author Diane Purkiss who sits on the advisory board for the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairytales and Fantasy.