BACKGROUND
With the world reeling from the Covid pandemic seven local authorities joined together to fight the spread of Covid-19 in their small, but resilient, corner of North-East England.
Locals were receiving national messages from the government, NHS and media, but cases were still rising, despite regional restrictions.
Drummond Central was appointed to lead a team of agencies responsible for delivering a regional campaign to tackle Covid-19 in the region. Drummond Central lead the strategy and creative, working alongside media and PR agencies.
Our behavioural insight-led strategy turning the tide on abrupt, ever-changing and authoritarian messaging to inspire a campaign with a distinctively friendly and caring North Eastern personality.
It demonstrated that empathy, understanding what people are going through and thanking them for the sacrifices they’re making can motivate a whole region.
Our campaign helped to change people’s minds about the importance of sticking to the rules. Ultimately, it changed the region’s behaviour, and people who had seen the campaign became more adherent to the guidelines and were determined to do even more in the future.
TARGET AUDIENCE
We balanced the need for insight with the need for speed by conducting lightning-fast quant and qual research – we listened intently for 2 weeks as locals told us their Covid stories.
Since March 2020 the UK had been subjected to a series of campaigns telling us what we could and couldn’t do. Instead of being motivational updates on how to get to a better future, they had instead increased people’s anxiety and confusion.
The North East region was confused, tired and desperately missing friends and families. Mental health and emotional well-being were under threat and impacting people’s ability and motivation to adhere to desired behaviours. We heard story after story about the sacrifices people were making and an undercurrent of injustice bubbling away. People were questioning the legitimacy of the rules which had started to make less sense.
CLIENT CHALLENGE
All of this manifested in two behavioural concerns – social distancing and household mixing. People were lapsing either unconsciously or consciously. People were simply forgetting. ‘Staying alert’ all of the time takes its toll on our resource-heavy System 2. How much longer could we withstand the constant cognitive load? People also planned ‘little lapses’, creating their own emotional loopholes to justify these behaviours, whether based on concerns about legitimacy, or for mental health, relationship or social gains.
People were worn down physically, emotionally and cognitively. They were making their own individual interpretations of the rules to justify their own rule-bending or they were just forgetting. But they were making sacrifices that negatively impacted them and their relationships. Being constantly told what they couldn’t do felt like their efforts were unappreciated. Adding more instruction would just feel like haranguing.
The challenge was how to get a region to take note and understand another set of public communications, leading them to knowing how to keep themselves and others safe during such a scary time for the North East and the rest of the world.
AGENCY SOLUTION
Despite knowing ‘what’ to do, some people felt either unable or unwilling to comply all of the time. In the determination to tell people what to do, the why had been lost along the way. Our mission was to rediscover the why and use that as the framework for our campaign.
We knew we needed to change the Covid comms narrative. From top-down, authoritarian rule-giving, to a campaign to the region from its own people recognising their efforts and encouraging them to keep going.
We created a campaign that featured 10 local people from the region. We wanted our campaign to be instantly relatable and to represent frontline workers who were contributing to the North East’s Covid response alongside everyday folk who were also doing their bit.
They all have their story, whether that be schoolgirl Emily, shielding due to medical conditions; Carol, the NHS frontline worker who wants to keep serving the region, or Jas the bus driver, keeping frontline workers moving. Each has a reason for wanting the region to stick to the guidance. Using real people allowed us to keep our tone of voice local, relatable and distinct from central government or NHS messaging.
Instead of telling the audience what they can or can’t do, each of them says ‘Thank you’ to the region for everything they are doing to help stop the spread of Covid. Each execution references the target behaviours we wanted to nudge and tells a story of why that will make a difference.
As well as giving people the ‘why’, we wanted to make sure we were reinforcing this with the ‘what’ and ‘how’ and built the BeatCovidNE.co.uk hub to host the latest restrictions, behavioural tips and stories from our campaign storytellers.
This was a campaign for and from people of the region. Geo-targeted digital reached parents around schools and people who had been in a care home. We targeted workers/commuters by using radio and the region’s transport network. As Christmas approached, the campaign featured around the region’s shopping centres. We deployed ad vans with locally specific messaging for harder to reach audiences.
Our protagonists published weekly Covid Diaries on BeatCovidNE.co.uk.
The region got to know the trials and tribulations of each diarist as they responded to the changing landscape and challenges. Bringing personal and in-depth stories into the region’s homes further strengthened the communal bonds created by the campaign.
THE RESULTS
Our campaign was noticed, locally relevant and gained widespread support. 56% of the region recognised the campaign, with TV and out of home being the most likely place people saw it. TV in particular drove recognition, with 40% seeing the ads against a media budget allocation of 23%.
74% of people who saw the campaign agreed that the information they received was relevant to their local area vs only 61% who hadn’t seen the campaign.
Our campaign was clear and easy to understand, with 94% taking a clear message away. 92% of people who saw the campaign agreed they had the information they needed to keep themselves and others safe vs 83% of people who hadn’t seen the campaign.
The campaign motivated the region. Nearly half of those who saw the campaign took at least one desired action and 90% of the region who saw the campaign agreed that they need to persevere to get through the crisis.
A huge 97% of people who had seen the campaign agreed that following all the relevant Covid rules was important – this was significantly higher than those who hadn’t seen the campaign (91%).
Self-reported behavioural compliance with ‘all the relevant rules for your local area’ and ‘social distancing guidelines’ was higher among people who had seen the campaign vs not seen.
Over the campaign period, the per 100,000 case rate in the region tracked at, or below, the UK average, and the Christmas peak fell at a faster rate in the region vs the UK average.
Over 4 months the BeatCovidNE campaign:
Empowered local people with locally relevant and resonant information.
Gave people the information they needed to keep themselves and others safe.
Changed minds - decreased doubt in the region around restrictions.
Changed behaviours - persuaded more people to adopt the desired behaviours.
Persuaded people that they need to keep going through the campaign period.
The campaign scooped accolades at a number of the UK’s most recognised award schemes, including The Drum Marketing Awards, Marketing Week Masters, PRCA Dare and CIPR North.
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