On the face of it, an objective to engage with young people about the very real dangers of skin cancer and the wish of a corporate energy supplier to be perceived as green and caring about cost efficiencies, seem to be poles apart! But the 24th November’s CIPR Marketing Communications group event ‘Putting PR at the heart of integrated campaigns’ proved that the two campaigns have more in common than you would first think.
Both Limelight PR’s ComputerTan campaign, in partnership with McCann Erickson, for skin charity Skcin and Blue Rubicon-led Green Streets campaign for British Gas proved that, for a campaign to be successful, it must be truly integrated. Which, as explained by Limelight’s Patrick Barrett, means more than adding PR to a creative idea. According to Neil Daugherty of Blue Rubicon, neither advertising nor PR can stand alone. Both need to work together but, in his view, the PR agency needs to be more ‘ballsy’. PR practitioners should shape the narrative and manage reputation and advertising should amplify the message.
Both campaigns used a rich mix of traditional and innovative PR techniques to deliver a rounded campaign and yet both had their challenges to overcome. In the case of Skcin, was Limelight brave enough to hoax an entire set of journalists with the ComputerTan idea? Barrett decided it was, on the basis that the underlying message was a serious one and that it was for a charity, not a commercial brand. With only one exception, the journalists accepted their approach. For Green Streets, Daugherty had to handle the challenge presented by British Gas increasing prices by 35% during the campaign! But, unlike ComputerTan that was designed as a short, sharp campaign to drive web traffic, Green Streets was an 18-month customer engagement campaign, playing the long game.
One key point for both campaigns was that the clients were prepared to take a risk. Skcin had to convince its charity trustees that using the fake device of ComputerTan would engage the young target audience in a way they would find accessible and yet still get the real message across that sunbeds are dangerous and that five people in the UK are killed by skin cancer every day. British Gas had to be brave enough to engage with their consumers (and staff) who, as it turned out, rose admirably to the challenge and provided them with an amazing group of British Gas advocates and a rich bank of case studies.
So, the overriding message from both teams was that integrated campaigns are the way forward and that PR has a big opportunity to take the lead role, especially as implementation should be around engaging with, rather than shouting at, the target audience.
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