This July, markettiers was tasked by the RNLI to maximise broadcast coverage for their flagship annual marketing campaign, ‘Respect The Water’.
After helping the charity secure record broadcast coverage for the inaugural ‘Respect the Water’ campaign 12 months ago, the brief for this year’s campaign was simple: same again, only this time bigger and better.
How we did it?
Using the release of coastal fatalities data as a timely news peg for broadcasters – as well as utilising access to RNLI campaign managers, a strong case study, and a stand-out promotional cinema ad, created especially for the campaign – markettiers undertook a comprehensive media relations exercise, which culminated in a live TV and Radio Outside Broadcast opportunity at Whitburn Bay in Sunderland on the day of the campaign launch.
From here, we connected to numerous national and regional TV and radio outlets, conducting live and pre-recorded interviews with RNLI’s main campaign spokesperson, Chris Adams.
BBC Breakfast kicked off a day of blanket BBC coverage, covering the story no less than 5 times throughout the morning with a mixture of live crosses and pre-packaged. Sky Sunrise, ITV News and various regional TV outlets also reported from the OB. Separate to this, and taking place with a secondary RNLI spokesperson based at our studios in London, we set up a session of back-to-back local radio interviews via the BBC’s General News Service, and also pre-recorded news clips for Sky News Radio – effectively ensuring that every commercial station in the country had access to the story.
Prior to the launch day itself, we pre-filmed B-roll for TV outlets to supplement their own material. From this footage, we also edited an engaging video package for online outlets which appeared on the likes of Mirror, the Huffington Post, Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo, and others. Finally, we distributed pre-recorded soundbites of England Rugby star, Jack Nowell, discussing his connection and support of the RNLI’s campaign – key in attracting more sports oriented outlets.
In total, the launch of the second Respect the Water campaign was covered by over 250 broadcast outlets across the UK.
Highlights included:
- Blanket coverage across the BBC network, with BBC One O’Clock News, BBC Breakfast, and BBC News Channel all covering the story in detail
- On the national radio side, stand-out coverage included multiple interviews on BBC Radio 5 live, Radio 2, and Radio 1’s Newsbeat – a key demographic target for this year’s campaign
- BBC News online covered the story, using Breakfast’s cut-package – this was the ‘Most Watched’ video on the BBC News website that day
- The campaign hashtag, #RespectTheWater, was trending on Twitter throughout the day
- Over 400,000 views of the RNLI-produced campaign cinema adverts.
- BBC Regional Radio: over half of the BBC regional network covered the story
- Sky News Radio pre-recorded an interview and distributed this to their 200 + commercial radio clients
- TV coverage included Sky News Sunrise and numerous regional BBC and ITV hits