Cannes Lions
MSLGROUP, Amstelveen / MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC AFFAIRS / 2017
Overview
Entries
Credits
Description
The creative PR idea was to organize a public election for the most attractive Dutch nature. An election was the perfect platform to drive PR with the help of citizens, all parks and stakeholders involved. Many Dutch people have their favourite nature area, and are willing to show their pride by voting (and campaigning) for it. This citizen insight we used to create an authentic campaign. This election was also the way to bring all stakeholders together by involving them as part of the organising committee. They have different interests but they all could see the importance of this election. We made sure they used their own channels to promote the election by delivering them toolkits and helping them out with pushing the elections further with our campaign support team. There was no focus on competition between parks but to push awareness on Dutch nature collectively. All entries were aligned.
Execution
1. We started with gaining insights of the target audience, involve all stakeholders, select influencers, relevant famous Dutch people and media.
2. The first PR moment was releasing outcomes of a research on citizens and their view on Dutch nature.
3. A professional jury selected the 12 best entries. This created the second PR moment. The central campaign team prepared the parks for campaigning, offered them daily support and a toolkit with all campaign materials.
4. Target groups were activated to vote via PR, social media, branded content and live activations. Interviews with the secretary of state were centrally handled. Social media monitoring and community management created more engagement.
5. The secretary toured all parks within 24 hours with a bus, media were invited to hop on the bus for interviews with the secretary and experts.
6. Eventually, the winner was announced in the highest rated daily talk show in the Netherlands.
Outcome
Media Outputs
- More than 200 articles (online and offline) in 21 days in all national and regional newspapers
- Regional print reach: 2.2 million. Coverage in every regional newspaper of the Netherlands.
- National print reach: 2.1 million. Including coverage in every leading daily newspaper.
- TV reach: over 3.5 million viewers via national news broadcasting and the highest viewed talk shows (DWDD and RTL Late Night).
Target Audience Outcomes
- 87.903 votes vs target 50.000 votes
- Social media reach: over 28 million potential views
Outcomes
- As an extra result different parks have made new plans to stimulate citizen engagement and new collaborations were born because of this election. Connections and relationships were intensified because of this first-ever election for Dutch nature. Stakeholders were brought together and creating new opportunities for the future. Parks were inspired with new ideas for extra (external) funding and most important, new plans, more awareness and commitment for conservation of our beautiful Dutch nature.