Keep the Magic: the Christmas campaign parents turned viral

[.style-intro]We didn’t expect the cards to explode. But they tapped into something deep and universal — the instinct to protect childhood in a smartphone age.[.style-intro]

When we learned we’d won a month-long national billboard run (thank you JCDecaux!), we wanted it to be more than a billboard. December is when every child asks for a smartphone — and when parents feel the pressure most. Our campaign message, Keep the Magic, needed to meet families right at that point.

So we turned the billboards into Christmas cards too, hoping they’d end up on mantelpieces across the country. We genuinely didn’t know if people would want to send them. This isn’t an easy conversation to start.

But once they went live in our shop, the entire stock vanished in 48 hours.

Headteachers began ordering in bulk. One told us he wants to give a card to every pupil, reinforcing the message he repeats in assemblies: the biggest blocker to your success is your smartphone.

Parents in our 40 (and counting) global spin-off groups asked to translate and print them abroad. Families across the UK sent them to teachers, MPs, the Prime Minister — even to the tech CEOs shaping the digital world our children grow up in.

And alongside the physical cards, thousands have shared the digital versions via WhatsApp, email and parent group chats — letting the message spread in the spaces where parents talk.

Download the digital cards here: [LINK]

None of this was planned. Christmas cards aren’t meant to go viral. But these ones hit a nerve — so we doubled down, printed more, and let them carry the message further.

The images are nostalgic, funny and quietly unsettling. They’re instantly recognisable. We’ve all been the parent – and the child – in those moments. And they reveal what’s lost when a smartphone slips into childhood — how even Father Christmas struggles to compete with a glowing screen.

In a season when parents want reassurance and solidarity, the cards became a signal: you’re not alone in this.

They spark bigger conversations about what’s at stake and invite us to give children what they actually need — our presence, and a childhood shaped by people, not platforms.

Because this isn’t about Christmas.  It’s about every ordinary day that follows — the days that add up to a childhood.

And the runaway demand says one thing clearly: parents are ready. They’re leading this.This Christmas, thousands of families are choosing to keep the magic — and inviting others to do the same.