Samaritans
Campaign message: “Volunteering can change someone’s life. Your own.”
Aim: To recruit more volunteers across the country and fill late night gaps in Samaritans' 24hour volunteer led service. Samaritans was also keen to attract younger volunteers.
Number of people in involved: 2
Launched: 8th May 2007
Campaign description: Leading up to the 24th July (24:7 Samaritans' National Awareness Day), Samaritans wanted to recruit new volunteers on behalf of their 202 branches across the UK and Ireland. The campaign was aimed at local and national media. Samaritans had commissioned research which showed that young people’s spare time was between 10pm and 2am, which correlated to the times when Samaritans most needed more volunteers.
Poster: The poster was designed to be used by print media in their coverage of the campaign. No advertising space was purchased. The poster and leaflets were also made available to 202 Samaritans branches for their own community media work.
PR work: To make their campaign newsworthy Samaritans commissioned a survey from Tickbox.net which asked over 2,000 people (all ages) from across the UK ten questions about what they did with their spare time. The results were the backbone of their PR work. The cost of this survey was approximately £5,000. The survey was titled “Time for you”.
Samaritans' communications team designed a generic press release, a tailored press release for each region and a press release which could be adapted and added to by each local branch for their own local media. About 12 versions of the press release were devised in total using the “Time for you” survey.
Samaritans also employed Markettiers4DC, a broadcast communications agency, who co-ordinated 50 interviews with local and regional radio stations. Samaritans' Volunteer Manager and a volunteer were based in one studio and conducted the regional radio interviews throughout the day via an ISDN line. Markettiers4DC booked in the interviews and got local stations interested in Samaritans' story about “what people in their region/ community do in their spare time”. The cost of Markettiers4DC services was approx. £3000.
Outside agencies involved: Tickbox.net for research. Markettiers4DC for radio bookings and regional radio coverage. Eclipse Creative Design for poster and leaflets.
Results: The value of the radio coverage alone was estimated at £170,000. Samaritans' communications team was pleased with the campaign overall and the coverage they’d achieved in regional/local radio and print coverage (approx. 50 stories). The campaign had not been picked up by many national media outlets and it was thought that no print media had included a visual of the poster in their coverage. The “Time for you” survey and campaign was still being covered by the media in June 2007, despite being launched on May 8th 2007.
Samaritans cannot track the number of volunteers each campaign brings to their 202 branches instead they measure their success by the overall growth in the number of volunteers which will be recorded in their annual report later in 2007. The organisation felt that the campaign had also been of value as it had increased the public’s awareness of Samaritans' services.
Contact: Mike Cobb www.samaritans.org.uk
