We joined a small group of marketing and communications professionals at HM Land Registry in Plymouth to learn about the Government Communication Service’s OASIS planning model and hear about some exciting local campaigns who have used the model successfully.
The OASIS model
In essence, the OASIS model follows five steps:
- Objectives – what does the campaign want to achieve
- Audience insight – who are we trying to target/speak to
- Strategy – what are we going to do, what channels will we use, what is the messaging
- Implementation – how are we going to do each element and when, create a plan
- Scoring – evaluate the campaign, look at the inputs, outputs and results
We talked through all of the elements of the model and then put it into action with fictional campaigns. Working in small teams, we talked through each of the OASIS steps and created plans for different marketing communications ideas and presented these back to the team.
The OASIS model in use
Emma Russell, Head of Marketing & Communications at Bristol Waste, explained how she planned and delivered a clever campaign to reduce litter in Bristol, “Litter Hurts”, using the OASIS model. Litter is a real problem for the city and as a result, the council wanted to engage with the public to encourage them to be more responsible for their own waste moving forward, as well as addressing the problem in hand (and in the parks, streets and open spaces).
The target audience was people based in Bristol, but of all ages – as littering is a real problem for everyone. They therefore used current research and focus groups to learn what motivates people to stop littering and help pick up litter in their local area. As well as being ugly, damaging to our environment and spreads quickly, they found some emotional stats from the RSPCA about how many of our furry friends are hurt by litter: more than 69,000 animals every year in Britain. As a nation of dog and cat lovers, we don’t want to be seen to be responsible for hurting our pets and this helped to shape the campaign and thus, puppies and kittens became a key element.
A humorous but hard-hitting campaign, it made people stop and think before leaving their litter on Bristol’s streets and parks, and pro-actively helped to keep our much-loved pets safe, through the use of pun-tastic language and emotive imagery:
A low budget campaign with impressive results, the team also commissioned some outdoor advertising around the city in the form of bus advertising and cardboard wraps on lamp posts in the main centres, and distributed ad-hoc promotional doggy poo bags and cigarette cases, hosting the campaign messaging. They also published the campaign across social media, with targeted (Bristol-based) posts and using #LitterHurts for shareability.
We loved the campaign and particularly like the play on words (we love a pun!) and supporting assets to make the campaign really connect with the public. The research into the audience and what motivates them was very clever and incredibly emotive from the word go. Whilst there’s an important and scary message here – you litter can seriously harm our pets – the campaign wasn’t telling people off as such, it was carefully crafted to educate and motivate people to take their litter home.
The additional promo items, such as doggy bags and cigarette cases, were a nice touch – but this activity is hard to track it’s success, and there is a slight risk that these will also become part of the greater problem if not used responsibly. There were other elements to the campaign, such as organised litter picks (one held on Valentine’s Day) but these didn’t generate much awareness and in comparison, didn’t generate the same engagement (given the population of Bristol).
If we were to manage this campaign, I think we could create even more cool content for the owned channels and for shareability. This might include some video or animation content featuring shared content of the city’s best loved pets and pledges from the public about how they are going to do their bit to protect our pets and parks. There could also be a competition to find the cutest or most loved pet, which would generate interest and shareability as people tag their friends, share the competition and upload their images/videos to enter. This would always be underpinned by the campaign messaging and links to join in and find out more about the campaign.
Find out more
As an office full of animal lovers, if we can include cute puppies and kittens in a campaign, you’re already onto a winner. We loved the campaign and wanted to share it! To find out more about this paw-some campaign, please visit: www.bristolwastecompany.co.uk/learn-more-home/litterhurts
With recent events changing our world, we recently worked on a campaign with Glasses Direct to promote and celebrate the amazing work of the NHS and can attribute much of the OASIS planning model to this. A simple and effective idea of providing free glasses for NHS workers, the team were quick thinking and measured in sharing the opportunity, highlighting key influencers who would be able to share the message with the right people (as well as shouting about the fantastic NHS work), and getting the campaign published across national and specialist titles all around the UK. Since we needed to act quickly and efficiently, the campaign had no budget to pay influencers or support editorial with advertising, we used our great contacts, the emotive messaging and shared this incredible opportunity far and wide. You can find out more and see the amazing results, here: www.adpr.co.uk/work/glasses-direct
To learn more about the Government’s OASIS campaign planning model, please click here. Or check out this episode of our Revitalise & Grow podcast where we talk through the steps of the OASIS model and discuss how you can put them to use within your own marketing campaigns.
If you would like help in creating an awesome campaign for your brand, please get in touch today to discuss how we can help. Email: hello@adpr.co.uk
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