Making the world’s biggest Mo

So this isn’t particularly about wandering but it’s about a massive achievement of mine; a career highlight and something that made me feel all warm and fuzzy by doing something for charity.  Back in November 2014, I created the World’s Biggest Mo on the ground. The painted moustache measured a massive 250m by 60m and was located on land owned by Southampton Airport, running parallel to the runway.

Inspired by the efforts of gents across the world who cultivate moustaches annually, I decided to create a giant moustache to raise awareness of Movember. Colleagues of mine, working at Southampton Airport, had been supporting the charity for four years now, raising thousands of pounds for this worthwhile cause. They’ve dyed their moustaches crazy colours and had ‘best mo’ competitions – much to the delight of passengers. This year I wanted to use the space and captive, airborne audience to really get behind Movember and do something special for the fantastic supporters who work there and travel through the airport.

When I had the idea to do a huge publicity stunt like this, I didn’t think it would actually happen! I have always been supportive of Movember, getting behind male friends and colleagues to help raise money and awareness of the charity, but without being able to grow a Mo myself (!), I felt I had to do something bigger than ever before. Us marketing-and-PR-types always come up with grand (sometimes ridiculous) ideas, but I was lucky to have the support of my colleagues to help make it a reality.

It really wouldn’t have been possible without the help of some very generous organisations, who gave their time and resources for free – not to mention the backing of Movember UK themselves. Our colleagues based at the airport from PH Warr helped get the ball rolling by calling in favours and helping to plot the iconic Movember moustache shape using their planning & mapping software. Once we had arranged for the grass to be cut, we just needed help marking out the shape in real life. This is where Dyer & Butler came in, using their expertise to precisely plot every point of the Mo in the ground. I had no idea it’d be done to such perfection – they used GPS systems and computer-aided design systems to get it just right. And finally we brought in line-marking specialists, Pitchmark, to apply white paint with their expert sprayers, pretty much ‘joining the dots’. The whole process took three (rather long) days, many sleepless nights, hundreds of cups of tea, several takeaway pizzas and then, despite the weather attempting to stop us, we eventually had a Mo that we could be proud of.

But on the ground, the Mo looked nothing like we hoped… The sheer size of the Mo meant that it was impossible to make out the shape – and quite frankly I was worried that it was going to turn out to be some sort of phallic outline in the grass! Luckily the talented folk at UAViate brought along their drone cameras for launch day, giving us some awe-inspiring footage and stills – and reassurance that we’d got the iconic shape just right.

The campaign rased over £1,000 for Movember and, more importantly, generated approximately £60,000 worth of global media coverage, not to mention the huge amount of shares and likes on social media.

Take a look at the article in the Daily Mail and the post on one of my favourite websites, Thrillist.  Or play the ‘making of’ YouTube video below.