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Dairylea and Trainline team up to ignite family adventures

The ‘Discovery Days’ campaign launches in collaboration with VCCP London, Publicis Media and Channel 4

By creative salon

16 April 2024

Mondelez-owned cheese brand Dairylea has unveiled ‘Discovery Days’, an integrated campaign in partnership with Trainline. The vast, multi-platform campaign, launched in collaboration with the brand's global creative agency of record VCCP London, Publicis Media and Channel 4, aims to highlight the importance of children’s unstructured play.

‘Dairylea Discovery Days’ aims to help families to provide their children with more opportunities for essential development and happiness, after new research found that three-quarters of UK children (75 per cent) express their greatest happiness when they have the freedom to play in their own way.

To bring the creative concept to life, Dairylea, part of Mondelez, and VCCP created a series of social-first films set across key UK locations: like the woods and beach. Each film follows a child, wearing a GoPro, who has been given the freedom to play outdoors. VCCP’s global content creation studio Girl&Bear worked with director Emma Hvengaard, to capture genuine and authentic moments of discovery, highlighting the importance of ‘Discovery Days’.

In addition to social, the campaign will feature dynamic out of home and audio creative to ensure that everyone sees the most relevant targeted Discovery Day messaging. The radio actively reflects the weather in each location - so when raining, the audio focuses around playing in puddles, and when the sun is shining, radio reacts, urging the nation to get out to the beach and go rockpooling. The OOH and social is fuelled by retail data to help reach Dairylea’s audience across both of these channels, led by Publicis Media.

Something to look forward to is an impending two-part content series with Channel 4, driven by Publicis Media, where Dairylea Discovery Days are brought to life with the help of a pair of the nation's favourite comedians.

Tin Man Communications is leading the PR and influencer arm of the campaign, which aims to drive awareness of the initiative and the benefits of unstructured play through discovery. The PR campaign will see actor and celebrity Dad, Joe Swash, along with his four-year-old son, Rex, enjoy discovering new things together. This is underpinned with a wider influencer programme where family content creators will bring to life what a Dairylea Discovery day looks like for them, providing inspiration for families across the country.

VCCP London additionally helped Dairylea forge a new partnership with Trainline: with Dairylea offering families £10 off Trainline tickets across the UK, providing children with more opportunities to explore and discover.

This campaign continues to evolve Dairylea’s “Set Them Free With Dairylea” brand platform, which has been running for three years and aims to create more authentic moments of discovery for the children of the UK.

Caroline Rawlings, creative director at VCCP London said: “It's a special career treat when you get to work on a project that's close to your heart. I can't wait to see what impact Dairylea Discovery Days has this spring. Even if it results in just a few more kids getting to benefit from a really good muddy socked, grazed kneed, pocket full of stones, knotty haired day of freedom and discovery (with a cheese triangle to fuel them, of course) I’ll be one happy hearted lady.

"Well done and thank you to a brilliant team from Dairylea, VCCP, Girl&Bear, C4, Publicis Media and Tinman.”

Kirsten McPherson, marketing director at Mondelez added: “Dairylea is synonymous with the unstructured moments we can all remember from our own childhoods. It's a handy triangle of cheese that kids can take anywhere and eat in any way they please. This bold campaign urges everyone to embrace the surprising and extraordinary experiences that happen when families get out there and discover.”

Paige Tilley, business director at Publicis Media commented: “This Dairylea campaign truly is the perfect blend of emotive content and smart data. Leveraging retail data via The Trade Desk for better targeting, supercharged with dynamic creative, this omnichannel strategy allows people to find out more about the fantastic opportunity that Dairylea and The Trainline have to offer. The heart-warming partnership with Channel 4 will encourage families to get out there and discover moments of true, unbridled fun.”

The campaign will run from 15 April for six weeks, with media planning and buying led by Publicis Media and PR managed by Tin Man Communications.