Bridgeneers

How we made people work on their relationship - without invading their personal space.

Government

Experience strategy

Content strategy

Creative direction

Concept

Campaign development

Content production

Art direction

Digital production & development

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The challenge: Make people work on their relationship - without invading their personal space

Relationships require maintenance. But school runs, dishes, taxi service for the kids etc. eats into the you-and-me-time. Still, how you feel in your relationship is a big part of your mental health. With an ever increasing number of people feeling pressure on their mental health, the Flemish government decided to take action. But how do you get into the most personal, most inner circle? How do you talk about the talk people are not having?

The approach: Creating habits and opportunities beats preaching

Surprise: we didn’t start with why: telling people why it’s important and what they should do. Trust us: preaching simply doesn’t work here. Instead of taking the stage, we set the scene and invited to play. That is, to start dating eachother again.
We focused on one day, one moment: a wonderful new habit you can easily squeeze into the rush of family life. And when couples start dating again, the relive another type of rush: the loving of their dating days and have fun instead of arguments.

The campaign: Transfroming a banal evening into an exciting prospect: Thursday Date-Day

With rolling drums accompanied by some chuckles and laughs, we launched Thursday Date-Day. Yes, banal Thursday-I-have-to-take-out-the-garbage-and-drive-the-oldest-to-swimming-class. With a little help of cartoonist Ilah and her famous character Cordelia, we provided everything but the candles: sweet suggestions, fun nudges and a little wink for a wonderful datenight with your own partner. Even if it’s just in the kitchen.
Key media: facebook and national radio drove traffic to our site. But our main aim was PR. A partnership with a Horeca Vlaanderen proved to be a great supporting act: the hospitality sector went along for the ride.

The results

Massive PR, healthy conversations, and an uptick in babysit and restaurant bookings… on Thursday.

Thursday Date-Day really hit the sweet media spot. The campaign was booming in all newspapers, TV shows etc. and Thursday Date-Day became something of a household name, featuring for example in #1 quiz show “De Slimste Mens” and it even became a quiz on it’s own on JOE FM. Even media abroad picked up the campaign, where the Dutch press concluded that the Flemish Government wanted couples to have sex on Thursday… But that’s just the Dutch for you.

Most importantly, other indicators (such as an uptick in babysit and restaurant bookings) showed that couples really started dating again on Thursday. Eat that, Fat Friday.

Next case

Federal Public Service Finance - MyMinfin

Thursday? That's date-Day!