British Heart Foundation/ BHF: BHF - VINNIE

Credits & Description:

Type of entry: Use of Promo & Activation
Category: Best Use of Broadcast in a Promotional Campaign
Advertiser: THE BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION
Product/Service: CHARITY
Agency: GREY LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertiser THE BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION
Product CHARITY
Entrant GREY LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Type of Entry: Use of Promo & Activation
Category: Best Use of Broadcast in a Promotional Campaign
Title: BHF - VINNIE
Advertiser/Client: THE BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION
Product/Service: CHARITY
Entrant Company: GREY LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
DM/Advertising Agency: GREY LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Executive Creative Director: Nils Leonard (Grey London)
Creative Director: Vicki Maguire (Grey London)
Media Manager: Jessica Crawford (PHD (MEDIA))
Copywriter: Vicki Maguire (Grey London)
Producer: Jacqueline Dobrin (Grey London)
Producer: Daisy Mellors (Grey London)
Account Director: Camilla Ashenhurst (Grey London)
Account Manager: Sophie Fredheim (Grey London)
Planner: Simon White (Grey London)
Producer: Camilla Cullen/Nate Yound (Hungry Man)
Director: Wayne McClammy ()
Editor: Alaster Jordon (The Whitehouse)
Post Producer: Tom Johnson ()
DOP: Fraser Taggart ()
Group Design Director: Ian Byrne (Glue Isobar)
Copywriter: Kat Clapham (Glue Isobar)
Producer: Steph Chybowski (Glue Isobar)
Account Director: Tom Sneddon (Glue Isobar)
Director: Mark Jenkinson (Superglue)
Post Supervisor: Marcus Chaloner (Superglue)
Executive Creative Director: Seb Royce (Glue Isobar)
Head Of Production: Nicky Hartnell (Glue Isobar)
Developer: Lily Madar (Glue Isobar)
Business Director: Tim Corcoran (Glue Isobar)
Producer: Victoria Banwell (Superglue)
Business Director: Joanna Williams (PHD (MEDIA))
Media Group Manager: Suneil Saraf (PHD (MEDIA))
Describe the brief from the client
Every year 30,000 people in the UK collapse from cardiac arrest outside hospitals, and only 10% survive. Lives could be saved if people were confident enough to have a go at CPR. We needed to educate people who did not know how to do CPR, so that after seeing the campaign just once, they would know what to do if someone had a cardiac arrest.


Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

From fear of catching a disease, to not feeling confident about the correct technique - bystanders are reluctant to perform CPR. To break down these barriers, we focused on educating people in the simple technique of ‘Hands-only CPR’ – which is chest compressions only, performed hard and fast, (without the rescue breaths). The campaign was about how to save a life, so to be the face of the campaign and to get attention, we chose hard man Vinnie Jones – an unexpected choice for a campaign about saving lives.


Describe the results in as much detail as possible.

Hands-only CPR has helped save 15 lives to date; these victims had CPR performed on them by people who knew what to do from watching the advert. The film has had over 1.9m views on YouTube, with 72,601 shares across social media in the first 10 days after launch. 51.2% of these YouTube views were referrals from video embedding on external sites, and another 100,590 were from Facebook. The campaign trended organically on Twitter 5 times on launch day, and also prompted 95,000 people to sign the BHF’s Emergency Life Saving skills in schools petition.


This method of promotion was most relevant, as we needed to teach the general public a lesson they would never forget, and create a public service announcement that people would choose to watch, and convey this message to as much of the UK as possible. We ignored the conventions of PSAs, and instead created a piece of entertainment – Vinnie Jones, better known as a hard man, who now was teaching viewers how to save a life instead. A 40” TVC was created for broadcast, and a training film for online sharing was created, to maximise reach of the campaign.