Client overview:
The Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK) is a national drowning prevention charity founded in 1981. Its mission is to enhance the UK’s communities so that everyone can enjoy being in, on, and around water, safely.
At-a-glance summary:
- Multi-format YouTube ad campaign served
- 76% of planned budget spent
- Raising awareness for Drowning Prevention Week
- 2.79 million people reached
- 33.7 million seconds of watch time
- 30.19% rate of engagement
- CPV significantly below industry benchmark
Campaign objectives:
Every year in the UK and Ireland, over 300 people lose their lives to drowning – a deeply worrying statistic that RLSS UK hopes to reduce by raising awareness of the educational resources available.
With a target audience of parents – specifically those with children aged five to 15 – as well as teachers responsible of the same age range, RLSS UK wanted to create engaging, memorable messaging and visuals that offered the perfect balance of sensitivity. And there was no better time to deliver such impact than during the charity’s 2022 Drowning Prevention Week.
Armed with a series of animations, RLSS UK sought the expertise of Let’s Run Marketing (LRM) to help facilitate the successful delivery of the campaign, and strategically position content to drive optimum reach and engagement from the right audience.
Campaign details:
As awareness was the main driver of the campaign, and YouTube consistently sees a surge in consumer numbers over legacy TV media, LRM channelled its focus on curating content for this platform – leveraging the opportunity to engage with a captivated audience less likely to skip through the ad.
Curating three different formats of video – a short, six-second bumper ad, as well as a slightly longer non-skippable in-stream ad, and a skippable, full-length version – LRM was keen to make content truly dynamic to engage consumers in different ways.
While the bumper ad is extremely short form, this style offers the most effective way to increase brand recall – which is crucial for such an important message. On the other hand, the lengthier versions of content enable RLSS UK to include more detail, as well as grow the watch time considerably.
Results:
RLSS UK’s key KPIs during the campaign were to achieve 750,000 impressions – which requires users to view content for a minimum of five seconds – as well as 340,500 views that watched at least 75% of the YouTube ad.
Yet, RLSS UK reached a staggering 2.79 million in total – of which a combined 1.46 million reached 75%. But that’s not all, LRM was also able to reduce the average Cost Per View (CPV) to significantly below the industry norm.
LRM generated 833,000 interactions overall, equating to a 30.19% engagement rate – which sits 5.19% above the average benchmark for success. LRM engaged with 55% of the campaign’s target audience via TV, whilst 25% engaged via mobile – with only 12% and 8% respectively viewing the YouTube ad via tablet or desktop.
Whilst the CPV was considerably higher for teachers than parents of children over five, and continued engagement was 18% lower, the one to many nature of these relationships means that this was still a significant result.
As well as a high number of educators completing the video, many also went onto the resources page – able to better understand the campaign and disperse insights further afield.
Testimonial:
“After the curation of the campaign animations, RLSS had enough budget left to look at advertising – to really help push the messaging to our audience. As a charity, we obviously need to be careful with our spend and maximise ROI as much as possible too – and LRM has delivered brilliant results.
“Their knowledge throughout the entire process was invaluable. As well as sharing crucial advice on how to spend our money wisely, they offered detail into the technicalities of their approach – not just what the plan of action was, but why.
“With continuous updates throughout the project, LRM always kept us updated on progress – rather than waiting until the end. The service was personal, adaptable, and flexible, and the team arranged a variety of virtual meetings to really get to grips with our objectives.
“The aftercare process was just as professional too. LRM gave us a full evaluation of what worked and what didn’t, as well as details about ROI and how the campaign fared against various benchmarks. It has been a real success, and we wouldn’t hesitate to work with them again – for charity and commercial projects alike.”
Porcha Treanor, Head of Charity Communications at RLSS
