Excellence in Public Health Communications

Summary of work

Health services rely on the blood service to provide consistent stock levels for use in patient treatments including A&E, maternity and cancer care. In turn, the service relies on a nationwide ‘team’ of blood donors who give up their time as well as their blood selflessly to help others.

However, historic data shows that major public events such as sports tournaments can disrupt the regular supply of blood donations as donors are distracted by festivities. This campaign set out to engage them early before the start of the World Cup, to ensure regular donors made and kept their appointments – turning a potential issue into a communications opportunity.

The campaign also used the World Cup to engage a new generation of donors by appealing to their sense of duty, drawing comparison with the team spirit and sense of national duty associated with international football.

As a result of the campaign, blood stocks were successfully maintained and the campaign delivered a healthy ROI for a nominal budget.

Judges comments

This entry ticks all the boxes and is sexy and visceral – an easy win for this category. It was pitted against some extremely tough competition this year, but was clearly the best Public Health Communication programme we saw.