National public health emergency response, 2020

The challenge

A national public health emergency unfolding in real time. The UK Government needed to communicate evolving guidance to the entire adult population at the speed events were moving, drive a specific set of behaviour changes that had never been asked of the public at this scale, and do it with the trust and clarity required when lives depended on the message being understood.

Policy changed daily. Misinformation moved faster than official channels. The audience was every adult in the country.

The role

Embedded inside the central government communications hub, six days per week on site, as digital strategy lead within the core response team. Direct interface with executive government communications leadership, No. 10 communications, public health bodies, central government data and analytics functions, and the military's strategic communications capability.

The approach

Built and implemented a scalable, iterative framework for identifying target audience groups and measuring the effectiveness of specific communications interventions. The framework drew on cross-government data science, behavioural science, polling, focus groups and real-time social listening, and fed continuously into the creative and media operation.

Daily operating model across the campaign:

• ·Confirmation and refresh of current key messaging against evolving policy
• ·24-hour and longer-term ad performance review across creative variants
• ·Organic channel reporting across the major government handles
• ·Insight integration from polling, focus groups and audience tracking
• ·Creative briefing into government production and external creative partners
• ·Paid media coordination across the buying agencies
• ·Daily sprint with the central creative agency

The scale

The outcome

The campaign became one of the most-recognised public information campaigns in UK history, achieving near-universal awareness and driving the specific behaviour changes asked of the public during the first wave of the pandemic.