What was the project?
KAT Marketing was instructed to promote the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex’s Youth Activity Day. As a core part of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) strategy to engage young people, in the past the Youth Activity Day had welcomed selected class groups to the PFCC headquarters for in person sessions, but with the help of KAT Marketing the PFCC was able to organise a virtual presentation to be delivered digitally to schools across Essex simultaneously – broadening the reach of the activity and delivering the Youth Activity Day in a more modern way that better engaged the target audience.
Working with the PFCC, KAT Marketing rebranded the Youth Activity Day to become PFCC Live Access and created a scheduled day of interactive sessions targeting key issues for discussion that related to secondary school pupils. Each of the sessions were hosted by members of the Young Essex Assembly, with representatives from Essex Police, Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, RNLI and the PFCC’s Violence and Vulnerability Unit each taking part in online discussions and responding to questions submitted by viewers in classrooms around schools in Essex.
High quality filming ensured a highly professional feel for the live broadcast, which was also mixed with pre-recorded content to create an engaging and informative live stream through YouTube. In support of the event, KAT Marketing created and implemented a comprehensive PR and marketing strategy with press releases circulated to media outlets before and after the event, a social media advertising campaign, e-newsletter distribution plus a series of attrition calls and engagement activities to ensure a high level of schools participated in the live stream broadcast.
How did it go?
PFCC Live Access was a huge success and saw more schools and more pupils engage with the PFCC and share their views on contemporary issues surrounding policing and the emergency services than in any previous Youth Activity Day. Schools were able to access the live stream in their classroom settings and questions submitted from within these classrooms were then answered live by the presenters leading the discussion in the studio.
The suite of presentations and discussions were later updated to create a collection of video resources that have continued to be used by schools during PHSE lessons after the Live Access event, with many teachers commenting on how relevant the content was to the National Curriculum syllabus. As a result of the PR strategy, PFCC Live Access also received excellent coverage within the local media and highlighted the innovative approach taken by the PFCC in one of their essential strategic objectives of fostering a local connection between the fire and rescue service and local communities.
The results
In contrast to previous Youth Activity Day events which had only involved just a handful of schools, PFCC Live Access saw engagement with 148 secondary schools across Essex. Close to 2,000 students were able to directly access the live video discussions with over 120 questions being submitted by young people during the live broadcast. The overall marketing campaign around PFCC Live Access, including the live stream itself, received excellent feedback from the schools, the students and the speaker panel.
What a wonderful opportunity this has been for the children! Thank you so much. The students found the live stream informative. They have decided to educate the rest of the school and have put an assembly together. It would be great to attend another session.