Dirty Business

Client: Channel 4

Water companies have been illegally dumping sewage for years… a scandal hiding in plain sight.

Our campaign rejected traditional media planning in favour of hijacking the news, polluting the cultural conversation to force attention. In doing so, we made the UK’s sewage scandal impossible to ignore and in the process, we drove audiences to Channel 4’s hard-hitting factual drama, Dirty Business, in their millions. The result was the fastest growing partnership in the Guardian’s history, the biggest factual drama launch in five years and a debate in Whitehall. Here’s how we blew Britain’s dirty little secret out of the water.