2017 Respect The Water campaign

markettiers maximises broadcast coverage for the RNLI yet again

In late May 2017 we once again successfully worked with the RNLI on their flagship annual safety campaign – Respect The Water.  This was the 13th successive year markettiers had worked with the charity.

The RNLI's advice was both startling and, to almost everyone, counter-intuitive: should you find yourself unexpectedly in the water or getting into difficulty when at the beach, the RNLI's strong advice was, rather than try and swim which would often be against the current, instead fight your natural instincts and try to float as calmly as possible for 60-90 seconds before seeking help or trying to swim away. This gives you the chance to get your breath back and reduce the effects of cold water shock. 

To demonstrate how to best float, we filmed in advance at the RNLI's training pool with the UK's leading cold water survival expert, Professor Mike Tipton. The content was then edited into B-Roll for TV stations looking to create their own packages and into a ready-made news package for websites. 

On launch day we went live from the Lifeguard Unit at Boscombe Beach near Bournemouth with the Professor and RNLI Coastal Safety Manager Ross Macleod, speaking to TV and radio broadcasters across the country.

ITV news filmed tailored regional packages on the beach for TV news in four regions: Meridian, Tyne Tees, Border and Anglia. Each included the B-Roll.

We set up radio interviews for BBC 5 Live, BBC Wales, BBC Scotland and 10 other regional BBC stations as well as several coastal commercial stations and Sky News Radio who shared the story and RNLI soundbites with the UK's 300+ commercial stations.

BBC Breakfast couldn't film on the day, the fallout from the Manchester bombing two days earlier being understandably too great. However, we set them up to comprehensively cover the story four days later, when they crossed four times to their reporter and the RNLI volunteers demonstrating how floating in their clothes was surprisingly easy.

The online coverage was extensive, led by bbc.co.uk who willingly used our floating B-Roll in their piece, followed by the Mirror and over thirty local and regional news sites.