Linking the banning of plastic bags into its 25-year of a butterfly conversation project positioned Holland & Barrett as the first high street retailer to lead the way on a major environmental concern.
Under the banner “The Butterfly Effect”, Pegasus PR launched a campaign aiming to highlight H&B's corporate responsibility, its 25-year sponsorship of the Large Blue butterfly conservation project and achieve significant media coverage. The campaign, launched at London Zoo reached an audience of more than 56 million and was featured in major press including the BBC and the Daily Telegraph. Through the PR campaign, H&B successfully raised the profile of its corporate responsibility towards green issues and its overall environmental credibility.
It also won a Gold CIPR Pride Award for Corporate Responsibility and therefore I decided to have a closer look at it as an example of best practice.
The campaign was quite creative employing the well-known “Butterfly Effect” theme to add an interesting twist to the story. The strategy was clear: to raise awareness of H&B as an environmentally aware retailer and communicate social responsibility to its eco conscious target consumer.
What seems really interesting to me is the fact that they added a political angle to capture the attention of the business media by releasing comments from H&B’s CEO challenging the UK government to encourage other retailers to follow its positive lead by introducing a tax on plastic bags. Furthermore, this controversy was used to grab media attention on an old topic: introducing half measures such as plastic bag charges or a total plastic bag ban?
The campaign was measured by attendance at the briefing, number of press cuttings, total audience reach and equivalent PR value. In terms of their objectives it seems that the campaign hit its targets and even exceeded them. However, in my opinion measurable outcomes should have been set to make the campaign look even better, i.e instead of just aiming to raise awareness of H&B as an environmentally aware retailer a clear percentage could have been given and then compared to the initial perception of media and target audience.
Interesting blog Maria green is good. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteNice to see someone not just selling their own corporate responsibility by convincing people to use a bag for life, but also donating the earnings to a charity project. That is "walking the walk", not greenwash. Think what could be done if Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda did the same...
ReplyDeleteThis is a very impressing campaign and I would rate it 4 from 5, only because I have not heard about it before. The only thing Ican recognize is the blue image of the butterfly.
ReplyDeleteAlso I believe this campaign is 4 but not 5 because the bags they offered look very feminine, maybe they could have thought it through a bit more carefully, some man might not like to walk around with a blue butterfly on their shopping bag
Overall I think it deserved to win gold because of it tactics and creativity.
That's a very good point actually:) I haven't thought of that, Kri!:)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Catherine - the campaign deserves to be applauded for being truly green! Especially after having problems with activists in the past!
PR is not really my area, but the company seems very interesting to me.It should be an example for everybody of how green should look like.
ReplyDeleteI'm always happy to see companies that actually care about nature.
I have to say that from Public Relations perspective "The Butterfly Effect" campaign was definitely well plotted and brilliantly executed. I like the idea of challenging the UK government to capture the attention of media.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it seems a bit hypocritical to try to convince people that using a "green" bag instead of a plastic one will have a positive effect on the environment (even in the long run), whilst people from certain countries are forced to destroy acres of tropical moist forests every day, in order to cater the needs of cosmetic industry.
Unfortunately something has to be sacrificed, so we can continue leading that lush lifestyle of ours. And not bothering to bring a bag with you to a store is a part of it!
I have never heard about the camapign before,but I think that is an idea that somebody care about the nature. I like the idea about the creative photography as it obviously boosted further media coverage. did they have any videos?? maybe on youtube? i thinki that's another good idea of reaching the target audience.
ReplyDeleteAll in all I think this was a good campaign and did deserve the gold award. However, it does seem to have some holes.
ReplyDelete'The butterfly effect' is a great name for the campaign and really highlights how small things can make a big difference. But apart from the name I cant see any other reason they should have chosen to link the campaign with butterfly conservation. It just seems like they jumped the gun and made a quick decision without much consideration of other options. Their reasoning just seems a little thin to me.
Regardless of this the rest of the campaign was carried out brilliantly. It was a very brave move to ban plastic bags in the first place. I think staging the press briefing in the butterfly sanctuary was a great idea, as well as giving out press packs in the new butterfly bag.
The amount of coverage they got was great, as was the involvement of high profile journalists and professionals.
Seeing as I am a second year PR student at Solent I would appreciate it if you would follow my PR blog at http://2plus2pr.blogspot.com/
It will really help me out when I'm in your position next year.
Thanks