Campaign

Investigation into a Campaign.

Sea Sense Campaign

The Sea Sense campaign was a campaign put together by Frank Gillard in order to raise awareness of the dangers of the sea and promote safety. The campaign won silver at the Frank Gillard awards for the social action category. It was selected from 39 radio stations, and was also nominated for a Sony radio academy award.

Sea Sense



BBC Cornwall's Sea Sense Campaign has been nominated for a Sony Award in the community section. These are the radio equivalent of the Oscars.
BBC Cornwall's Sea Sense campaign picked up a Silver in the BBC's prestigious Frank Gillard Awards in September 2006. The Gillard is awarded for on and off-air excellence, and is named after the founding father of BBC local radio.
Now, BBC Cornwall's been nominated for another accolade. This time it's one of five nominees in the Community section for the Sony Radio Awards.
James Churchfield, who came up with the idea for Sea Sense is delighted with the Gillard award.

Throughout 2006 BBC Radio Cornwall and the BBC Cornwall website looked at the work of the RNLI.
Sea Sense is a campaign to promote safety on rivers, and on the beaches of Cornwall. As part of the project a series of films have been produced by BBC reporters in Truro.
It's the first time that Hannah Stacey and Issy Taylor have made television reports. The two journalists have been working with Sea Sense co-ordinator Donna Birrell, who has produced television reports in the past.
"It's been a challenge but really rewarding," says Donna. "I hope it
will be the first of many television and radio projects for us."



The team had to venture out in all weathers to produce the Sea Sense films for BBC Spotlight.
"We were doing a film about beach rescue equipment in Perranporth," says Donna. "We got caught up in a Sandstorm. We felt like Laurence of Arabia battling through the sand with all our film equipment."
They may have had their share of sand in their shoes and hair but the enthusiastic team have enjoyed producing their television series.
There are four films which look at tombstoning, the latest rescue figures for Cornwall, beach rescue equipment and recruitment within the RNLI.
The films were shown on BBC Spotlight on the week beginning Monday 25 September.
Monday's film
For the first in the series the Sea Sense team look at the dangers of tombstoning. They speak to an RNLI lifeguard who rescued an injured tombstoner, and look at the growing number of people taking up the highly risky activity.

Sea Sense Poster Competition






So what did they actually do?

The campaign started off as a radio campaign. It ended up growing and growing
They made a poster campaign, where they got children to design posters for a competition which was promoted through radio.
Through the success of the radio campaign, they ended up producing a series of films, which looked at;
Tombstoning (jumping off cliffs.)
Rescue figures for Cornwall.
Beach rescue equipment, and
Recruitment within the RNLI.

They also did promotional events; a 'Buddy swimathon' competition and a 'Coastguard day'.

Why was the campaign so successful?

Interview with James Churchill on BBC website.

'What they liked about it was that it was a campaign that had life beyond a designated period. It was a way of changing people` s attitudes, making people think, whether they were familiar with the coast or whether they just come on holiday, it was accessible to all, accessible to those people that live by the sea, or those that perhaps come for a week during their traditional holiday break. There were elements that we could take away ourselves in terms of the importance of appreciating that the sea is both a beautiful place but, at times, a dangerous place and, the more we` re armed with the information of coping with that environment, the safer we` ll all be.'

SO, The campaign was successful because it was accessible to a wide range of audiences,both local and further afield. It was pitching a serious message in a way that grabbed people` s attention and made them think. These are both elements that are very relevant to our campaign and that we must try and think about.

Analysis of a section of the campaign; the 'Tombstoning' radio campaign.

The campaign focuses on 1 specific example of when a lifeguard 'tombstoned' and it went wrong.

Structure; interview with a lifeguard- goes to a description of the specific example- goes to some eyewitness accounts- then to a short interview with an expert- overview of danger and summary.

Elements of the campaign; serious information and facts are brought to life with specific example/ real life story that people can identify with. Eye witness accounts create imagery in the listener` s mind.