St John Ambulance launched a new campaign to encourage more people to be the difference between life and death. In a recent survey, over half of the parents asked, told us they wouldn’t have the confidence to perform first aid to save their own child’s life in an emergency. And it’s not just parents, over two-fifths (41%) of people admit that it would take something as severe as the death of a loved one to make them learn first aid. Our volunteers know first aid but they can’t be there every time in an emergency. We wanted everyone to know the necessary first aid skills to save a life so we’ve developed an integrated campaign to work across TV, Mobile, Tablet and Desktop.

An integrated campaign that launched with a TV commercial. It featured a father and son in their garden with mum seemingly looking on through the kitchen window. The boy climbs a tree but falls. The shocked mum - a St John volunteer - runs out. Upon reaching the garden we realise she has no connection to the father and son and is rushing out to take her washing in. Meanwhile the boy is elsewhere with the helpless dad screaming. Viewers were directed towards an interactive first aid tutorial to learn the necessary first aid needed to ‘save the boy’.

The campaign was a genuine success. Over 20,000 unique users used the interactive element across mobile and desktop devices. It drove nearly 150,000 unique website visits resulting in an additional 15,000 people learning First Aid.

We saw a 12% uplift in Facebook fans and 17% uplift in Twitter followers. The charity also accrued an additional 500 training course bookings in the 2 weeks after launch (generating an additional income of £623,000 for the charity – although this work was not designed to drive donations/income).

The charity’s budget does not allow for ongoing consumer tracking so no awareness and perception measures available.