Success of the British Heart Foundation CPR advertisement including Vinnie Jones To: CEO of Prestigious Promotions
From: Harry Anderson
Terms of Reference: Within this report I will look at success of the BHF campaign looking at the variety of media they used and how successful each form of media was.
Procedure: I will do this by looking at evidence gathered from the internet, look at the facts and figures of the campaign and come to an overall conclusion on the success of the campaign. The British Heart Foundation is the UK’s number one heart charity, founded in 1961. The charity was founded by a group of scientists concerned with the rising death rates from cardio vascular disease. The money raised from its 700 shops nationwide and donations go directly to scientists for research and development in cardio vascular diseases. Last year over £84 million pounds was given to scientists for research.
A few of the promotional mix were used to achieve their goals and help them achieve a successful campaign. Firstly advertising was used in various ways for the campaign the advert launched on twitter and was a success with 53,000 shares within the first week. The advert was also launched on YouTube before it debuted. Furthermore the advert has over 4 million views on YouTube. To create Publicity for the campaign they used a celebrity in Vinnie Jones this creates excitement about the advert a draws people into watching it: creating publicity. Finally from the advert there corporate image was increased over an already very good reputation. This was due to the advert actually saving lives.
The marketing mix was considered when the advert was made, here are some examples of the ones they used. The price of production of the advert was only £4000 I feel this was a great price for the production of a television advert as many companies would spend millions however BHF just spent a fraction of that. Place was important for BHF as they wanted to make as many people aware on CPR and the methods of it. The more people that know about it the more lives that can be saved. So the advert was launched on twitter as social media is becoming ever more popular especially twitter. The promotional campaign was quite simple for the BHF they wanted to make people aware of what to do in the event of a cardiac arrest but more crucially the advert was designed to save lives. The physical evidence of the campaign was the advert itself. The advert including Vinnie Jones and was a memorable and unique advert. This is was so people would remember it as it was so distinctive as if people were to just forget about it then less lives would be saved. The use of Vinnie Jones also leads me on to another part of the marketing mix: with Vinnie Jones it does many things it shows that celebrities are supporting charity and trying to save lives. But with Vinnie being in the advert it makes it more remember able for the viewer.
With the increasing popularity of social media especially Twitter. The BHF decided to premiere the advert on Twitter this was for many reasons. Firstly many people would see it in a short amount of time and would spread the word through tweets and retweets. But it was also good for the BHF to launch on Twitter as it costs them nothing to promote the campaign. Like Twitter YouTube is now more popular than ever so they decided to promote their campaigns on there. This was effective for them as it is a very simple but effective way to spread the word fast. Like Twitter it is also a free method of advertisement. Using free forms of media is good for the BHF as they do not have the huge financial budgets like some companies. Also the money spent on huge promotional campaigns could be spent on crucial research and saving lives. l Finally they used TV as a form of advertisement this is a great way to get out to a huge audience and with more people spending more time using technology and watching TV than sleeping, and with viewers watching an average of 47 adverts a day it is no surprise that the BHF decided to launch the campaign through social media.
As for the success of the advert it was extremely successful. Twitter where the advert premiered generated five organic trends. Twitter also gained the BHF 53,000 shares in the first week. This demonstrates that twitter is a really effective method of spreading the message. YouTube was also a massive success with 4.2 million views. It was shared more than 100,000 times in the first ten days, resulting in the video entering Brand Republic's Viral Video Chart in top spot, beating Coca-Cola, Apple and ESPN. Most importantly the advert saved lives, with the advert saving at least 28 lives. With many people saying without the advert they wouldn’t have known what to do. This also suggests that the advert was remember able to the viewers.
In conclusion I feel this was brilliant and successful campaign. I firstly think that there choice of media was a good choice. As many of the promotion was free using social media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This works for a charity like the BHF as they want to invest their money in saving lives not big promotional campaigns. Furthermore I also feel it was vitally important as more people are using social media than ever. I feel the use of a celebrity in this case Vinnie Jones was also a good idea as it got people engaged and interested in the advert. Finally I feel the BHF did a great job in designing a very memorable advert with the use of “staying alive” and the content of the advert also made it funny but also had its serious side. The advert also achieved its main aim which was to save lives which makes the campaign a success no matter how you look at it. As for improvements they could have used billboards and handed out leaflets. However I feel this may not be necessary as they have already got out to a huge proportion of the market and the money could be seen as just being wasted as it could be put into good use.