Salford takes a running jump
The challenge
Salford Community Leisure (SCL), a not for profit organisation set up by Salford City Council, is responsible for the education of the people of Salford about the importance of healthy living and encouraging participation in beneficial recreation.
The organisation wanted to run a campaign at the beginning of 2009, the core objective of which was to raise maximum awareness of the importance of taking regular exercise.
Danielle Moss, marketing manager at SCL comments: “Only five 30 minute sessions per week can improve your health. And it doesn’t have to be a chore as washing the car, climbing the stairs and even walking to the shops count. This is something that we needed our campaign to communicate.”
Wanting to build on the success of earlier campaigns, the SCL team was looking for different and innovative ideas to ensure that the message was received by as many residents as possible to ensure maximum awareness.
The Solution
Following a competitive pitch SCL selected creative agency Through Creative to execute the promotional campaign as, according to Danielle: “They took a totally fresh and different approach to anything else we’d seen.”
Central to the success of the campaign was the messaging itself. Rather than state the obvious ‘exercise is important’ the agency developed messaging aimed at the those that would normally be negative about excersise. This challenged residents of Salford to ‘take a running jump' to get yourself fit. Other messages included ‘on your bike’, ‘push off’ and ‘take a hike’.
At the heart of the campaign was a series of branded cars that were seen around the City of Salford over the months of the campaign (February to April 2009). Through Creative selected car drivers who lived and worked in Salford to participate. GPS technology was used to track the car journeys made during the campaign to give SCL feedback as to the routes taken and the likely exposure based on the advertising industry’s ‘opportunity to see’ figures.
“By giving the campaign a humorous, slightly edgy angle we got more attention from the residents of the City of Salford,” continues Danielle. “The use of livered vehicles was new to us and a novel way to create maximum awareness and get our message across effectively.”
Danielle was so taken with the idea that she decided to have her own car branded. “I was amazed at how many people look and stare,” says Danielle. “It really has given me an insight into how the media works and it created significant interest at our offices.”
By defining a mixture of people, some working full or part time across a variety of occupations, including hospital workers, council employees and community workers, and some just going about their normal day to day business, Through Creative has achieved maximum exposure throughout Salford. GPS tracking technology identified almost 4 million ‘opportunities to see’ based on Government data on vehicular and pedestrian traffic flows. Drivers were also given a supply of flyers to hand out and 6,500 were distributed at appropriate opportunities.
Danielle continues: “There have been many stories of how the cars have added further awareness and benefits to our campaign. There was a lady that was running a series of briefing sessions at local schools about the importance of exercise and she asked for some of our leaflets to support her message.”
In addition to the branded cars, Through Creative installed posters inside buses which challenged the passengers to get off a stop early. These ‘headliners’ appeared in buses operating from the Manchester Queens Road depot.
While there was no specific data regarding the bus headliners there was plenty of ‘opportunities to see’ over the course of the campaign. Over 12 million adults in the north west travel by bus more than once a week. 650,000 ABC1s in the north west see bus interior adverts every week and 594,000 travel by bus at least once a week (Source:TGI; Base: North West)
A ‘cheeky’ radio advert was also broadcast on Salford City Radio that supported all other activities. This is the only station specifically for Salford so the radio advert covered all 220,000 residents. Publicity with the Salford Advertiser was also secured on the launch of the campaign.
Through Creative recommended that Salford Community Leisure should give its residents some sort of offer as a secondary call to action to enable further tracking of the success of the campaign. Over 70 people have registered for the free one day leisure pass, valid at any of their Fit City centres located throughout the City. This was obtained by SMS texting or registering online at www.activecity.co.uk . Further tracking was achieved through utilising website stistics which tracked 159 unique visits to the website during the course of the campaign.
Danielle concludes: “We have been very careful to ensure that we give the residents of Salford the maximum opportunity to see our messages and get involved in what is potentially lifesaving activities.”
Develop an integrated campaign to raise maximum awareness of the importance of taking regular exercise with residents of the City of Salford.