Bluetongue:
Crisis comms and press office
The campaign focused on media, digital channels, webinars, and an online hub in this comprehensive stakeholder engagement programme.
Overview
To position Ruminant Health & Welfare (RH&W) as the go-to resource for information on the bluetongue virus - leading communications on behalf of the group and delivering proactive, coordinated, and clear communications.
To align UK stakeholders and equip livestock farmers with timely and up-to-date information.
- A network of 20 stakeholder organisations were mobilised to be the industry working group
- Evidence based FAQs developed to counter mis-information
- Swift crisis management deployed
Goals
Position Ruminant Health & Welfare (RH&W) as the go-to resource for information on the bluetongue virus leading communications on behalf of the group and delivering proactive, coordinated, and clear communications.
Align UK stakeholders and equip livestock farmers with timely and up-to-date information.
Deliverables
The campaign focused on media, digital channels, webinars, and an online hub to signpost people to, all channelled through a comprehensive stakeholder engagement programme.
- Create a central bluetongue online hub
- Craft messaging with strong calls to action and framed with a sense of urgency
- Mobilise and coordinate a network of 20 industry stakeholders
- Engage farming, veterinary, and regional media contacts and provide regular news updates
- Develop evidence-based FAQs to prevent and challenge mis-information
- Facilitate technical webinars and ensure they are cascaded through stakeholder networks, trade media, and farmer-facing channels
Results
Outreach was achieved to at least 90% of stakeholder organisations in the UK ruminant sector.
It is impossible to put a metric against slowing the spread of the disease, but is gauged by the positive industry testimony of the campaign.
What we can showcase is 13,500 individuals were reached with the webinars, 3.6million media impressions were achieved and there were 57,000 web page views in an annual period.
Added value
Our communications expertise spanned the breadth of digital channels and was bolstered by our strength of media relations, alongside a crisis management mentality to react swiftly and muster collective drive and urgency amongst industry colleagues.
