A Cornish creative agency has been playing a key role in celebrating the ‘lockdown heroes’ across the UK and Republic of Ireland.
Last March, Halo PR and Communications received a call from long-standing client, DOOH.com, a London-based outdoor advertising agency.
DOOH.com wanted to turn the ‘out of home’ platform – outdoor billboards, digital screens etc – into a public service channel during the pandemic
Working with fellow agency Kinetic Worldwide, DOOH.com contacted media owners across the UK and Ireland with the idea. Within a week, the #MyHeroes Campaign was live on more than a thousand screens across the two countries with the likes of JCDecaux and Clear Channel UK joining the movement.
#MyHeroes shared the thanks of a nation in lockdown, celebrating key workers across the country by lighting up screens with their pictures – sharing their stories and photographs of everyday individuals from nurses and farmers, to delivery drivers and teachers.
Alongside consulting on the creative and conceptual framework of the campaign, Halo created an accompanying social media and press campaign, urging the public to come forward and nominate one of the 14.5 million key workers keeping the country running.
The message called for tweets including #MyHeroes, nominating heroes with their unique stories. The hashtag received 2,603,454 impressions in the UK and Ireland and has since reached 105,849,775 impressions worldwide.
As a testament to the powerful connection the campaign provided, #MyHeroes has been recognised in various media awards including the Campaign Media Week Awards and The Drum Out of Home Awards.
Halo founder Jess Ratty said: “When we first started talking with our friends at DOOH about this campaign, our first thought at the start of the pandemic was to understand how we could use our platforms and our creativity to do good.
“I’m beyond delighted that Andrew and the team at DOOH.com trusted us to stand with them at the helm of this campaign and spread the word about #MyHeroes to a global audience.
“This campaign was never about us, or the brilliant teams that came together to make this happen, it was all about sharing thanks, love and care for those on the front line, keeping society as safe as possible – as relevant today as it was in March 2020. To have received the recognition and won these prestigious awards off the back of a campaign that was created purely for the people of the UK and Ireland is humbling.”
