Help for Heroes Concert
Stars show their support in stadium show for UK's Heroes
Brief.
Not only a hugely impressive pop line-up, this was a very important event for a vital charity. To raise money and awareness for Help for Heroes was an honour and while part of the objective was to sell tickets, we wanted to project the goodwill the British public feels to wounded UK troops through our campaign.
Out objectives were:
- Announce the concert with as much impact as possible
- To project the importance of the charity
- To work with the charity, promoter Live Nation and broadcaster the BBC and the Ministry of Defence to maximise coverage around the UK
- Think BIG and project the concert as one of the main events of 2012
- Work with Live Nation to attract acts, using our contacts to help create the show
Strategy.
To make sure the announcement had an impact and without access to artists for a launch, we focused on the Sun newspaper as a media partner and main supporter of Help for Heroes. They ran a teaser story in their Bizarre showbiz page, followed up the next day and we backed this up with extensive announcements across press, TV, radio and online.
With a great start, we took advantage of artists’ profiles to spread the word. Every time a new artist was announced, we made sure The Sun could run the news and again spread each of these far and wide, building the momentum as we went, spreading quotes and interviews. As an ex-officer James Blunt gave his views on the charity to the likes of the Evening Standard and The Sun for example, Katherine Jenkins gave her time for an interview with the Radio Times and in conjunction with the charity we organised wounded soldiers and their families to show the press the work of the charity.
We worked with managements and PRs to plug into their artists’ current promo. Alexandra Burke and Alesha Dixon, for instance, were particularly helpful in putting word out via their album campaigns.
We used the announcement of Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow’s single to gain huge coverage for their duet at the Heroes Concert in conjunction with the announcement.
Newspaper editors and other important media figures were invited to the concert to make sure the event was high on their agendas and we handled all aspects of media on the day, inviting and catering for press, TV, radio and online.
Making sure the media had as much access as possible and were treated as key to the cause was vital to the deluge of coverage we received on the day and the following week.
Results.
After a every building campaign, the event received blanket TV news and showbiz coverage, front pages of The Sun, Daily Star, Metro, Daily Express and big stories and pictures in Daily Mail, Guardian, The Times, Evening Standard and Mirror. TV and radio clips ran all day, Heart radio broadcasting their day of shows live from the event and there was huge follow up in weekly press.
The showbiz story was balanced with political points and the event took on the significance of a major festival or awards event in terms of equivalent media coverage.
