In the Referendum, they had all voted ‘remain’. The four founders – Oliver Knowles, Ben Stewart, James Sadri and Will Rose all have a connection with environmental campaign group Greenpeace. In December 2018, two years after the Referendum, four friends were discussing their frustrations with the Brexit situation in the pub.

Led By Donkeys won the award for Best Social Media Campaign in the 2019 ‘Social Purpose Awards’. The videos of these stunts were subsequently viewed millions of times on social media. Later the group staged real-life stunts, including projecting messages on iconic places such as the Houses of Parliament and the White Cliffs of Dover, carving giant tweets and messages on beaches and fields, and directing crowds to unfurl huge flags at marches. It was then expanded into a crowdfunded campaign, which purchased advertising space on hundreds of billboards across the UK. The campaign was initially run as a guerrilla marketing operation, in which Led By Donkeys posters were plastered over existing adverts. Led By Donkeys’ main campaign consisted of billboards containing past tweets by pro-Brexit politicians, which appeared to undermine the politicians’ current political position, or clearly have not stood the test of time. Putting aside your political views, one aspect of the Brexit campaign that start-ups can learn from is the stunning communication strategy of one political lobbying group, Led By Donkeys, itself a startup venture formed to join the Brexit debate.įormed in December 2018, Led By Donkeys is a British anti-Brexit political campaign group which used satire targeted at pro-Brexit politicians, calling out ‘thermonuclear hypocrisy’. Well, January 31 came and we left the European Union, and already the schism between Boris Johnson and Michel Barnier on constitutional, economic and cultural consequences is apparent.

Led by Donkeys by Led By Donkeys