Creating the meme: #thetwofairies

Here's a heartwarming seasonal story.  Someone sets up an anonymous Twitter account called The Two Fairies and uses it to shine little rays of sunshine into the lives of random strangers.
 Anonymous? Altruistic?  We doubt it.  This initiative is costing someone serious amounts of money.  That someone is reputed to be Marks & Spencer.  The agency behind the campaign is the highly successful London PR firm Unity.

It has the appearance of something spontaneous, but is actually being carefully orchestrated.  In today's cluttered media space, for a brand to stand out it has to do something extraordinary.  We believe that the marketing people behind @TheTwoFairies are rolling out a teaser campaign, prompting audiences to ask who is behind these amazing stunts.  Curiosity stimulated, there is a moral imperative to share the story, and in doing so it goes viral.  Result: everyone feels good about M&S in the run up to the largest retail festival of the year.

Regardless of whether or not M&S is behind this campaign, they need to do something.  Last year their high profile campaign "Believe in magic and sparkle" trailed John Lewis in the social media charts.  This year, as we have noted in an earlier post, John Lewis had had a blistering start to the season with 4 million views in the first 24 hours of their Monty the Penguin campaign.

At the time of writing @TheTwoFairies is losing the social media battle.  #montythepenguin is trending on Twitter, although it has been pipped to the post by Toy Story 4.  #Followthefairies has a presence, but only as a 'promoted' hashtag - in other words someone is now paying to try and get it noticed.

@TheTwoFairies was set up as a Twitter account on October 30.  Since then it has been delighting random people across the UK with gifts of flowers, food and other merchandise, as well as covering a Cornish primary school with snow.  The Daily Mirror and the regional press have been following the story.  It has also done well across social media.

But not well enough, if the organisers are having to pay for exposure with a sponsored hashtag?  These things are supposed to go viral.  Why aren't people bothered about who is behind these acts of seasonal kindness?  Once again the Mirror obligingly asks the questions for us, and concludes that Marks & Spencer is behind the campaign.

Behold!  So it turns out to be.  Earlier today (7 November) M&S called a press conference to admit to what they had denied to The Mirror.  The new campaign, Fly Me to the Moon, has a classic soundtrack from Julie London.

As the press coverage notes, today's announcement is all about trying to neutralize the #montythepenguin effect.   Are The Two Fairies a new meme?  Watch this space.