In November 2012 and January 2013 markettiers4dc supported Ruder Finn’s strategy to raise awareness of the approval process of the first vaccine to prevent meningitis B.
There was a concern as to whether national media would report on the story as the vaccine still needed to go through a number of other approval stages before it is available to children in the UK. Therefore a two phase approach was in place; a national roll out as soon as the announcement was made and a regional “Winter Meningitis Awareness” to take place on the following Monday.
The team were ready to react as soon as the initial approval was posted online and despite previous concerns the pickup was almost immediate. We ensured all CEOs of the three UK Meningitis charities were available to comment as well as access to Linda Roberts – 2013 mother of Paralympian Jonnie Peacock, who added a further dimension to the story. The “Winter Meningitis Awareness” campaign was sold in throughout the week prior to the announcement as it made no reference to the vaccine only alerting the media to this news once it was in the public domain.
In January 2013 it was announced that the vaccine had been authorised by the European Commission and so the markettiers4dc team again secured interviews with national and regional TV and radio.
Coverage and Results
- We achieved 62 items of coverage which reached a potential audience of 60 million+
- The campaign secured 23+ hours of coverage on national radio and TV.
- Radio highlights include BBC Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, 5 Live and 6 Music bulletins throughout the day, BBC Breakfast, BBC News 24, BBC 1 – 6, 10 o'clock news and 19 regional BBC's.
- 8 pieces of TV coverage ran (this again does not take in to account the number of times it ran on BBC News 24).