Last year in the UK, 246 people lost their lives in house fires. Many of these deaths could have been prevented if their homes had a working smoke alarm. The human cost of these deaths is immeasurable. The cost of these deaths to the British taxpayer is measurable, and it amounts to an expensive £393,600,000. We needed to find a way to reduce this financial burden of £400m, and to do so on a media budget of only £400,000. Most importantly we needed to encourage everyone in the UK to test their smoke alarm, to prevent these tragic and unnecessary deaths. Our solution was to create a new behavioural association, which linked smoke alarm testing to the clock change dates. By leveraging a behaviour which already existed, putting your clocks back or forward, we could make it easier for people to remember to test their smoke alarms.

The campaign has been very successful in delivering reach well beyond the media spend. Advertising recall overall rose to 45% post campaign which meant that almost 1 in every 2 adults in the UK were touched by Fire Safety advertising, a significant reach for a completely new concept and an on air campaign which lasted only 2 weeks. The majority of people who saw the campaign felt it was a helpful reminder (77%) and a powerful Ad (66%). Most importantly the campaign has succeeded as a means of enacting immediate behavioural response. 27% of those who recalled seeing the campaign responded directly by testing their smoke alarm on clock change day. This is a high conversion rate, especially for a low interest category and a behaviour change task. The campaign has also laid the groundwork to make this an annual association and a new social norm.

The campaign launched 2 weeks before the clock change date when we uploaded the video onto our YouTube and Facebook pages and began to promote the association on Twitter. The radio began at the same time with a 30 second ad which explained the idea to people supported by 10 second reminder cut downs which were specifically bought around news programming for extra impact. 1 week before the date, the radio became increasingly more time targeted with different copy executions that talked about the clock change happening this weekend, tonight and last night as relevant. Our print activity also launched 1 week before in magazines and national press, with an emphasis on TV listings so that the message could be associated with the date. On the weekend itself, we ramped up intensity with frequent 10 second Ads on radio in addition to a twitter and PR campaign creating the impression of a massive media blitz.