How Liam Gallagher and Ricky Gervais made all this possible

We always say that PR campaigns are 50% good ideas, 30% hard work and 20% good luck, and the story of Cult Media Collective is a perfect example of that.

​

Back in 2009, when we launched what was then called Cult PR, we met a team of filmmakers at Cannes Film Festival, who were working on a project called The Vanishing of the Bees. It was a vitally important film about how bees hold the key to life on planet Earth and without them, we'd be in big trouble. 

Only, the important message was being lost. After all, a film about bees dying wasn't exactly sexy. And the cast wasn't packed with Hollywood stars. It was just bees.

​

They asked us if we could help, and we jumped at the chance to sink our teeth into our first, proper campaign. 

​

We pitched the idea of creating a purposefully low-budget, daft video of a bee's last day on earth, ticking off his bucket list before it all went awry. And we cast our friend as a homemade version of The Simpson's Bumblebee Man in the leading role. 

​

We knew it was just about ridiculous enough to grab the attention of journalists - and once we had that, we knew the film's strong message would pull through.

 

So one Saturday afternoon, we headed out in London's Hampstead armed with cameras and a head full of ideas. And that was where Lady Luck reared her head. Hampstead is packed full of celebrities and we chose the location knowing there was a good chance we might be able to grab a comment or two from a familiar face to support the campaign, but we weren't expecting Liam Gallagher - who was still making daily headlines after Oasis' split just a few months earlier - to rush out of the pub to say hello to our Bumblebee man. 

​

Once we explained the campaign, Liam jumped at the chance to help out, and delivered a piece to camera urging people to save the bees. 

 

"Without bees there's no honey, and you need honey for the old Rolls Royce," he said, in reference to the fact that the official story for the band's cancelled shows was due to him losing his voice.  

​

He posed for pictures, chatted to our team and gave us quotes for the campaign. 

​

As we walked back up the High Street towards the tube station, we bumped into another friendly face - famed animal lover, Ricky Gervais, who also posed for a photograph and gave us a few quotes about bees. 

​

We excitedly packaged up our new campaign and sent it straight to the newsdesks of newspapers up and down the country - and the response was incredible. From the NME to the Dallas Observer, the campaign to save the bees had now gone global. 

​

But there was one more twist to come. Just when the initial wave of press had begun to die down, The Guardian's Mark Beaumont wrote a humorous counter-piece, urging readers to join the Honeybee's campaign to save Liam Gallagher and, all of a sudden, we had a second surge of interest. 

​

The campaign was a huge success on a minuscule budget and helped us pick up further work on incredible films including From The Ashes and One Night in Turin. 

​

Bee populations are still in trouble - we can't claim to have saved the planet, unfortunately - but we're proud to have done our bit for the movement. And not many companies can claim to have launched with the help of Liam Gallagher and Ricky Gervais.