Insight
PDSA, the vet’s charity for pets in need, honours extraordinary animals with a top Order of Merit. The award celebrates animals who demonstrate the unique bond between animals and humans – a bond that is PDSA’s mission to protect.
The brief: “We have multiple Order of Merit recipients; previously we’ve only ever awarded one at a time. We’d like to honour five hardworking dogs from across the UK, but we need help to tell their stories.”
Implementation
A media relations strategy and plan were developed, aligned to hit top targets: national print, digital and broadcast, plus women’s consumer magazines.
The challenge: each working dog and their owner had highly emotive stories to tell. We needed to give each an equal opportunity to talk to press, whilst also getting over PDSA’s key messages.
Content creation: interviews to understand recipients’ stories were undertaken months before the award ceremony. A film crew was commissioned to gain film content to use as B-roll for broadcast and digital outlets.
Keeping on message: news releases for each recipient and their owners were drafted. Briefing documents were created with sample Q&A documents and shared with all interviewees. A media-trained vet was chosen as the spokesperson for PDSA to showcase the organisation at work.
Hitting the headlines: to manage press interest, recipients’ stories were timed to hit regional media over five days. A press call was sent to attract national media to meet the animals and chat to their owners (pre-award ceremony). On the day, we managed all interviews in-person, such as live TV and radio plus national newspapers. An interview was also syndicated across all BBC local radio stations. Features were sold-in post-event to glossy consumer magazines from Prima to Good Housekeeping.
Post event coverage: at the ceremony our in-house photographer took press photos of the awards ceremony. Images and a short photo story were issued to all regional press post event.
Impact
Big Wave surpassed all KPIs and won major awards for the campaign:
• 54 million opportunities to engage
• 100% positive sentiment
• 99% key message penetration
• 312 news articles published
• 12 national news stories
• 4 national consumer magazine features
• 2 national TV news items
• 40 local BBC news items
• Campaign won a CIPR Pride Gold award for ‘Best Use of Media Relations’
“Big Wave PR provided a fantastic press office facility for us. The ceremony was a step change for the PDSA, and the coverage has surpassed our expectations.”
