Digital UK is leading the process of digital switchover in the UK. They are an independent not-for-profit organisation founded in April 2005 at the request of the Government, owned and jointly funded by the UK’s public service broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five and S4C) and multiplex operators SDN and Arqiva.
BRIEF - The BAME community makes up around half of London’s population and all of them needed to be made aware of the digital switchover. We were approached with three objectives:
- Make sure that the largest BAME and non-English speaking communities in London would be successfully informed and educated about the switchover.
- Target those aged over 75 in the above communities and advise them that free help and assistance is available to them.
- To choose the appropriate media for each audience and negotiate and secure the best rates with prime positioning.
OUR SOLUTION – To identify the top 20 BAME communities and create a through the line media and advertising strategy based on the the specific media habits, preferred language and best mode of communication for each community. PR activities were also added to the marketing mix to support the switchover message whilst increasing coverage of the switchover date to target communities.
We divided the communities into segments – age, generation, religion and assessed language and literacy levels to determine the best way to communicate with them.
We identified 86 different media channels with a strong influence and high circulation amongst BAME audiences in London incorporating TV, print, radio and online.
RESULTS - We have identified a BAME audience of over one million readers, one million listeners and five million viewers, all of whom fit the initial target profile of BAME. They live in London, are not likely to receive/pay attention to advertising messages through mainstream channels or very unlikely to act on messages received.
We also secured free space worth £200,000 and reduced the overall advertising spend by over 40%. In regards to PR we achieved 30 pieces of coverage in multiple languages across print (front pages), online, TV and radio.
