……… it must be a government health campaign !
In recent years the Government has increasingly used public relations consultancies to help run health education programmes. Laura Darke visited the Forster Company and found that they require some very different PR techniques.
Formed in 1996, The Forster Company is not a stereotypical ‘on-the-phone to journalists’ PR agency. It deals instead with social change, especially in the field of health and the environment.
The Company is currently dealing with a number of high profile public health campaigns, including the Department of Health flu immunisation programme targeted at the over-65s and those in ‘at risk’ groups. It is the third consecutive year that the company have worked on the campaign.
The agency is always looking for new ways to reach an audience that don’t just rely on the media. It tries to find “touch points” to reach the person who needs to receive the key message, in this case “get a flu jab.” A lot of time is invested in building partnership relationships and utilising the networks that are already in practice.
For the flu immunisation campaign, meetings were held with Age Concern to let them know what the team were planning and ask if they would provide spokespeople to back the campaign, Could they get information to their members regarding the flu jab and put details on their website? Anything that would aid the campaign and reach the people who needed to know.
On the flu immunisation campaign, partnership was hugely important. People automatically think of Age Concern as an obvious point of contact, but the break through comes by thinking of your audience: what they do in a day and where they go.
Research showed that the target audience for the flu jab campaign went shopping at a supermarket during the day so partnerships with Tesco and Morrisons were developed. It was also realised that over 65s like to go to bingo in the evening, so a partnership with Gala Bingo was arranged, with posters displayed in the bingo halls and leaflets about the flu jabs given away.
Relationships with Asthma UK and the Confederation of Indian Organisations were also forged as a way of reaching those in the ‘at risk’ sector. Constant reading on audiences and desk research helps to ensure that the people who need to know about a campaign message are reached.
All of the celebrity involvement surrounding the campaign was set up and managed by The Forster Company. The 2005 campaign was supported by Sir Cliff Richard, Terry Wogan, Paul Scholes, Joan Collins and Doctor Chris Steele, to name a few, with corporate support being given by the likes of Superdrug, Pharmacy Alliance, Mothercare, and Powergen.
For the Launch, an audio news release was recorded with the Government’s Chief Medical Officer and ITV’s This Morning show’s resident doctor, Dr. Chris Steele. This was sold in to regional stations across England with Dr. Steele also taking part in a live radio session with key regional stations across the country.
George Ames, project manager of the flu immunisation campaign said: ‘The launch featured on the lunchtime news, two slots with Dr. Hillary Jones on GMTV using our parenting case study, and reached a total of 117 regional radio stations’.
As well as the radio activity for the launch, the Forster Company also worked closely with the Department of Health’s press office and shared press materials, case studies and photography from the photo-shoot featuring Dr. Chris Steele and the key parenting case study, in order to reach the print media.
The advertising for the Flu Campaign was carried out by a separate agency, Euro RSCG, although there was a constant communication chain running between the two agencies to ensure that activities were coordinated and that articles were correctly placed.
George explained how ‘The Forster Company has placed articles in parenting, women’s and older people’s consumer press to have a drip feed of information between launch and the end of November/December. All major black, minority and ethnic titles have also been approached to coordinate with the launch which was on the 3rd October 2005 and where appropriate, followed up with a post-Ramadan/ festival season reminder’.
FRANK, another recent government campaign run by the Forster Company, promoted a confidential drugs awareness scheme for young people. Activities were planned in 30 different areas of the UK that again didn’t solely involve media relations.
Amanda Duffy, one of the team leaders at the company, described the challenge as being ‘about going into these young people’s spaces and not making them feel like it was being taken over by a group of girls in tight t-shirts who would tomorrow night be giving out leaflets for a local club somewhere.’
‘With FRANK we had to look at the issue and the young people to target. We discussed campaigns that have worked in the youth brand marketing line like Nike, Levi and MTV and how we could adapt those ideas to work for us.
“Kids are pretty media savvy, they know when they’re being marketed to. We didn’t want an important issue that affects lives to feel like an advert for crisps. We wanted it to be different, to mean something.
"We are always looking for something new, a different way to do things, not purely thinking about articles in magazines or newspapers. There are a million and one ways to reach kids."
The FRANK campaign involved Street Teams, children from social or drug services who were recruited from target groups of young people who the campaign was trying to research. The Street Teams were trained to be street marketers for the FRANK campaign, handing out FRANK scratch cards and give-aways.
Teams went into skate parks and shopping centres, places where they knew kids like them would hang out and talk to them about FRANK. They were not counsellors. They’re just saying “have you heard about FRANK, it’s really good.” All of the Street Teams tried the website and phone line and were essentially campaign ambassadors, brand ambassadors for FRANK.
They had the help of the FRANK branded sofa (spray painted sofas with the FRANK logo and phone number on). Teams would turn up with them in the middle of skate parks for example. It was meant as a talking point, something completely off-the-wall that gave good logo visibility in the target areas.
The children on street teams benefited from the campaign by getting a reference from the Home Office saying they had taken part, vouchers for CDs and reportedly a real self-esteem boost.
Evaluation of such campaigns is important, but often quite difficult in PR. Media evaluation is relatively easy to manage with column inches measured and advertising equivalents calculated, but with social change communications it’s sometimes a lot harder to measure in a short campaign time. Evaluation is a challenge, so from the start the Forster Company, set goals with the client, key performance indicators (KPI).
With the FRANK campaign, the success is being measured in two ways, outputs and outcomes. Outputs or KPIs are easiest to measure and include media opportunities to see, the number of kids who logged onto the FRANK website, the number of scratch cards given away and the number of stakeholders who signed up for FRANK information. Outcomes are more difficult to measure and include evidence of attitudinal or behavioural change.
For example, with the FRANK campaign, The Forster Company may want to find out how the target audiences perceived the campaign before and after they had communicated with them. This form of qualitative information could be collected from the young people on street teams who would fill out questionnaires on how they thought things went for example.
The type of social change communication carried out by The Forster Company is so varied that there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Each campaign is unique. The campaigns are about sustainability, positive change for the better, not just a quick in and out campaign where the message can be quickly forgotten.
By questioning a brief and continually developing and using issue knowledge, the company strives to use the power of communication to make a real difference. An ambition not to be dispirited.
Don't Talk to Frank, Frank Talks Crap
Government website talktofrank.com is riddled with inaccuracies, inconsistancies and contradictions the void can exclusively reveal today.
The site, set up in a blaze of publicity, aims to be a user friendly guide to drugs aimed at young people. However with some parts of the website pure comedy, and others at times dangerously inaccurate it seems young people may not be getting the 'harm minimisation' advice they need.
more at http://johnnyvoid.blogspot.com
Posted by: johnny void | February 21, 2006 at 01:59 PM