Happy Soldiers Tontine campaign wins MFA Awards grand prix

Tim Burrowes

October 20, 2011 9:30

The awards have continued to roll in for the now defunct agency Happy Soldiers’s category-redefining campaign for Tontine pillows.

Tonight, exactly a year to the day after the campaign, based around date stamped pillows launched, it picked up the grand prix at the Media Federation Awards alogn with several other trophies.

The judges said: “The Tontine entry stood above some brilliant category winners by mastering every element of the complicated communications landscape. The transformative business idea was founded on a simple but significant insight that spanned the entire customer journey continuing to deliver well beyond the paid media investment with every pillow case change.”

The campaign kicked off with a heavy burst of advertising and PR designed to draw the public’s attention to bugs that live in old pillows. It was then followed by the launch of date stamped pillows to remind the public when it is time to buy new ones.

Subscribe to keep reading

Join Mumbrella Pro to access the Mumbrella archive and read our premium analysis of everything under the media and marketing umbrella.

Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the publisher of Mumbrella and Unmade. He co-founded Mumbrella in 2008 and sister title Unmade in 2021. He's worked in the UK, Middle East, Asia & Australia and has specialised in writing about the communications world for the last 25 years. He wrote the book Media Unmade, published in 2021, and became the presenter of MediaLand on ABC Radio National in 2025.