St John Ambulance has made it through to the shortlist of Marketing Week's best brand category. Wonderful. But forget Boaty McBoatface. Wouldn't it be tremendous if they won? Here one of their comms team explains what it would mean to them.
by Emma Sheppard
The last year has been an amazing one for St John Ambulance and it could get even better if you vote and help us win brand of the year.
It was an utter surprise to hear we'd been nominated for Marketing Week's prestigious award. And an even bigger one when we saw the shortlist included the likes of Disney, Starbucks and Instagram, who have slightly more in the bank than us.
I have no idea how the judges made their selection - though I'd very much like to meet and hug them - but it could be down to a few things:
- - Our campaign The Chokeables, which taught the first aid to help a choking baby in 40 seconds and reached 31 million, had 10 million online views, 150k+ FB shares and ultimately helped save 48 babies lives.
- - It might have been our new suite of bitesize first aid videos, one of which had 18 million views after we worked with Channel 5 on a story.
- - Maybe it was our partnership with The Mail on Sunday for our Everyday Heroes awards, celebrating incredible life savers. Or our Big First Aid Lesson where Claudia Winkleman helped us teach first aid to 190k young people in one hour. in fact last year our PR coverage doubled as we focused on 'celebrating and educating'
- - Or maybe it was how we hashjacked trends, like Game of Thrones, swotting up on the plot in advance and then issuing first aid advice as all the characters slowly met their untimely ends, and getting hundreds of retweets
- - Or our campaign to get a first aid on the curriculum, which was included in four of the main party manifestos.
I have no idea what made them pick us but I do know that I would absolutely LOVE it if we were to win. So please vote. You can do that by clicking the link here. It takes one second and brings many benefits, including unconditional love from myself, and that warm feeling of watching a charity beat the big guns to the prize. Thank you!
Emma Sheppard is head of brand and communications at St John Ambulance.
