Government Communications Service
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Congratulations to the Ministry of Defence for winning Campaign of the Month
The Ministry of Defence’s D-Day 75 campaign has won August’s GCS Campaign of the Month competition. This campaign marked the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, placing Veterans at the heart of the campaign.
The Ministry of Defence’s campaign events team ran the D-Day 75 campaign from November 2018 to June 2019 to lead the nation in paying tribute to all those who served on D-Day. It was also an opportunity to demonstrate to the world the continuing strength and relevance of the Western alliance.
The campaign involved nine events across three days in two countries, preceded by months of awareness-raising communications and stakeholder engagement. The Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force all contributed and had their own campaign highlights.
The Directorate of Defence Communications organised a multitude of campaign moments, including six media facilities, social media content, media releases and collaboration with major youth outlets including VICE magazine and BBC Newsbeat. This was done in order to drip-feed details of the official programme and help media gather advance content.
The events themselves were of formidable scale, with major stakeholders including Buckingham Palace, No 10, the White House and The Royal British Legion all playing a part. The BBC also dedicated more than eight hours of live coverage on BBC One over two days.
The Cabinet Office’s Rapid Response Unit (RRU) was able to provide live analysis of public sentiment during the events, prompting the creation of additional products on social media and GOV.UK.
Posts from Ministry of Defence-owned social media accounts reached 25 million people, there were 17 front-page headlines about the campaign in two days and 300 media representatives attended the national event from 15 countries. These included media outlets such as BBC, Sky News, ITN and Fox News. The campaign also received coverage from LADbible and UNILAD, which was important for reaching 16-25 year olds as one of the target audiences of the campaign. Reaction to coverage of the commemorations was highly positive and by the end of June 2019 81% of the public had heard of D-Day 75.
This campaign was led by the Ministry of Defence:
- Vicky Gradden
- Ross Palmer
- Sarah East
- Frances Haycock
- Nicole Vigilance
- Marc Ridley
- Lt Col Tim James
- Lt Col Tim How
With thanks to all those from the Directorate of Defence Communications and the Armed Forces who supported.
Original article link: https://gcs.civilservice.gov.uk/news/congratulations-to-the-ministry-of-defence-for-winning-campaign-of-the-month/