ABOUT

Concept:
Of the 1 million British and Commonwealth servicemen and women killed in World War I, some 165,000 would never receive a proper burial. Many were left in unmarked graves on the battlefields where they fell. Some were simply never found, and countless families back in the British Isles were left with no focus for their grief.

In 1920, one warrior – of unknown name, rank, or regiment – was brought home from an unmarked grave on the Western Front to be buried in Westminster Abbey. A symbol of all who had given their lives, his journey allowed the nation to come together and begin to heal. In an unprecedented outpouring of grief, over 1.25 million people came from all over the UK to visit the tomb in the week following his burial.

In February 2020, Westminster City Council asked us to help commemorate the centenary of the burial by bringing this largely forgotten but hugely poignant story to the fore once again.
Through our research, we discovered that ‘Abide with Me’ – the hymn that sang the Unknown Warrior to his final resting place in 1920 – survived experimental recording at the service to become the first electrical recording ever sold to the public.

The power of song to gain lasting attention, create emotion and bring people together is well known. So, to retell the Warrior’s story in a way that would resonate with a wider audience, we decided to reimagine that very same song – using ‘Abide with Me’ as a ‘Trojan horse’ to grab attention and push people towards watching a short and emotive documentary film that we would also create about the Warrior’s story.

To further increase reach, poignancy and relevance, we approached the Military Wives Choirs to perform the song, eventually releasing an audio track, music video and documentary.

Execution:
By building an overarching campaign narrative around the power of music to bring people together when they feel alone, we were able to create a unique, timely and resonant angle for the story.

Produced in the first wave of the pandemic, the song’s themes of finding consolation and unity in the face of adversity were suddenly more relevant than ever. To ensure our reimagined version of Abide with Me would strike a chord, we teamed up with pop producer and Military Wives Choirs ambassador, Sean Hargreaves. Because of social distancing rules, each member of the choir had to record their vocal separately in a special booth. We then knitted the finished song together from all of these parts.

This was reflected visually in the music video itself, and became a fitting metaphor for the power we all have to collectively help each other through difficulty.

During the recording of the song, the women of the choir also shared stories that helped shape the narrative of our short documentary. Stories of grief. Stories of family members lost in war and conflict. And stories of how music had helped them through the most challenging times.

It was this unique narrative thread that framed our 9-minute documentary film and our retelling of the Unknown Warrior’s story – voiced by one of the choir, and complemented by quotes from both the present and the past.

To further bring the story to life visually, we sourced historical footage from the original burial in 1920 and then shot the same London street scenes in the present day, blending the two together throughout the film. This helped cement the idea that grief is a universal emotion that spans generations, creating an emotional bridge to the past.

Results:
Our aim was to touch as many people as possible, and we did just that – reaching over 40 million people in the week before and after Remembrance Sunday. This included the British Royal Household and HRH Queen Elizabeth II herself, who requested a personal copy of the single and documentary.

The song was streamed hundreds of thousands of times in the run up to Armistice Day and reached the Top 25 of the main iTunes chart, before hitting top spot in the UK Classical Chart, where it stayed for two weeks.

The release of the single gained national TV and radio coverage across the BBC, Sky, ITV and Channel 5 – achieving 100+ pieces of unpaid news and influencer activity, even being played after the national minute's silence on BBC Radio 2. It was also played across all of Global Radio commercial radio and news stations, comprising nine national radio brands with an additional reach of over 25 million listeners.

The UK’s largest television sports channel, BT Sport, were so moved by the documentary that they asked permission to air it in full multiple times during the opening weekend of the FA Cup – an event that was watched by 8.2 million people across platforms.

Earning a further royal seal of approval, the documentary was also shared by the official account of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall (@ClarenceHouse) to their 995,000 followers on Armistice Day.

Most meaningfully for us, the documentary film was also requested by churches, schools and care homes across the UK; one of the latter sent us a photo of one of their residents, Bill, a WWII veteran who had donned his medals before sitting down to watch the film.