For the duration of the pandemic, we developed an extensive suite of content for Cheshire East, building on a central ‘It’s In Our Hands’ strapline – all conscious of the wide audience and sensitivities that come alongside the nature of the messaging. Alongside the social media graphics, we also delivered posters, local radio adverts, translations, outdoor media, on-bus and bus stop advertisements, toolkits for businesses, and hyper-specific paid digital advertising. For example, we ran a highly localised promotion for those that lived within a 5-mile radius of testing locations but had low uptake on COVID testing, encouraging people to make their way over and have a test.

As the campaign was so wide, so long-term, and about such an omnipresent subject as COVID, the challenge was keeping the creative fresh, ensuring that it had the same impact and attention each time, as the message didn’t decrease in importance. We reinvented and rethought our creative on a reactive basis, developing on the results of previous work, and delivering content across the entire duration of the pandemic that was adapted for events like the Platinum Jubilee, Halloween, Bonfire Night, the Euros, and music festivals. As well as monitoring progress and engagement spikes, and building the campaign around calendar events, we had weekly calls with the Cheshire East COVID team to ensure that we were developing the campaign in line with the micro-changes to the specifics of government guidelines.

The core messaging of the COVID campaign was paramount to the safety and wellbeing of the residents of Cheshire East during the COVID-19 pandemic, so we understood the importance of getting the message across. We combined this with understanding and monitoring how people work, and react, to such messages in a challenging time for all, and delivered communications that were consistently fresh, clear, and engaging.