PR Case Study: Newsfeed PR – There But Not There
Liam Maguire, director at Newsfeed PR, details the success of the agency’s There But Not There campaign for charity Remembered to commemorate the end of the First World War.
Campaign: There But Not There
Client: Remembered
PR Team: Newsfeed PR
Timing: Wednesday 28 February
Summary
Newsfeed PR launched a national campaign to commemorate the centenary of the end the First World War on behalf of the charity Remembered.
We installed the ghostly silhouettes of First World War soldiers – or ‘Tommies’ – all over the UK, as part of a new fundraising campaign called ‘There But Not There’.
The charity, led by former chief of the general staff Lord Dannatt, is also supported by a raft of senior ex-military personnel, as well as celebrities including Birdsong novelist, Sebastian Faulks, historian Dan Snow, television presenter Ben Fogle and former soldier and explorer Levison Wood.
Objectives
Hoping to raise in excess of £15 million for armed forces and mental health charities, the six foot high Tommies form part of a nationwide art installation and appear as 2018 marks 100 years since the end of the First World War.
The campaign’s KPIs were as follows:
- Inspire communities to purchase and install our silhouettes of their local fallen wherever they are listed for the Armistice Period, 2018, and/or to buy our 6’ Tommy figure for use in a public space at any time through 2018.
- Educate all generations about why they made the ultimate sacrifice.
- Raise very substantial funds to help heal those suffering from the hidden wounds of war.
The money raised from the sale of the commemorative figures will be distributed evenly between The Royal Foundation: Heads Together, Walking With The Wounded, Combat Stress, Help for Heroes: Hidden Wounds, The Commonwealth War Graves Foundation and Project Equinox: Housing Veterans.
Strategy and implementation
Remembered’s logo is a silhouette of a ‘Tommy’. This symbolic fallen soldier icon communicates the message that we must not allow WWI soldiers to become silhouettes, to become forgotten. The strength of this logo inspired us to scale it up and transform it into a nationwide installation for the fallen in key locations around the UK.
Tommy installations appeared in sentry boxes usually manned by Yeoman Warders at the Tower of London, on Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland, at Big Pit National Coal Museum in Blaenavon, South Wales and at Heart of Midlothian Football Club in Edinburgh.
In addition to the life-size silhouettes installed across the nation, a limited-edition table-top Tommy figure was created, to represent every single name from the 888,246 British and Commonwealth Fallen of the First World War.
The Tommies will be touring the country until Armistice Day and members of the public are being encouraged to buy their own 10 inch versions to remember their relatives.
Results
- In under 3 hours, nearly 10,000 Tommies were sold, raising £300,000.
- £1 million raised in the 24 hours after launching, with a rising total of £1.5 million raised to date.
- Re-educating the general public to the sacrifice that WWI veterans made all year long, and not just on 11 November.
- Reach of 11,150,000 across ten television stations with just over 41 minutes of coverage.
- Reach of 8,790,000 across five radio stations with almost 27 minutes of coverage.
- Coverage of the Tommies featured in The Times, Financial Times, Daily Mirror, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and The Sunday Times, as well as the BBC News website and MailOnline.
- Comment piece by Sebastian Faulks featured in The Times.
