The campaign objective was to maximise sales of 2009's must-have children's toy, the Ninky Nonk Playset (RRP £59.99). The Ninky Nonk is a character in the BBC programme In The Night Garden. Mandatory to the campaign was not just brand awareness, but also creating genuine emotional engagement, ideally by use of a cross-platform solution. We wanted to create genuine emotional engagement with mums and the In the Night Garden brand to such an extent that desire for the premium-priced toy would be increased.

To create genuine emotional engagement between mums and the In the Night Garden brand.

Research showed that many mums with young children think they can write a children's book; after all, they spend hours at home with their youngsters making up stories. Our execution was to launch a short story-writing competition based on In the Night Garden about the Ninky Nonk character. This would guarantee deep engagement as mums would not only have to watch the show, but to really listen to the way the characters talk and behave in order for the short story to be credible.

After an incredible 237 entries, the results were published in M&B in January 2010, and included an interview with the winner explaining her motivation for the story, further enhancing engagement with the programme. The winning e-book was published on Bauer's parenting site Ask a Mum and the BBC's website as an e-book and 5 actual books were made up for her. The combined web activity generated over 4m page impressions over 6 weeks.

M&B was delighted when not only the BBC marketing team but also the show's creator Andrew Davenport loved the idea and offered to judge the competition.