A 5* night at the Prolific North Awards 2022

Drummond Central bagged five gongs at this year’s Prolific North Awards, the annual awards programme that recognises the creative achievements and talents of agencies, companies, teams and individuals from across the north of England.

We have an incredible team of individuals that make Drummond Central what it is and the work as successful as it is, alongside our incredible partners and clients.

Our ‘Change of Heart’ campaign for the NHS Integrated Covid Hub was named best campaign in three categories; Best use of Data and Insight, Best Health and Best Integrated Campaign.

Using comprehensive ethnography, behavioural analysis and co-creation with our audience, we discovered the many barriers to the Covid vaccination. Our behavioural insight-led strategy centred on giving young people the permission, opportunity and freedom to reconsider and have a ‘Change of Heart’.

We achieved this by creating a campaign with four storytellers. Each one had previously had their own reasons for being vaccine hesitant. Produced by CRXSS Agency and photographed by Ryan Edy whose approach gave the campaign a truly authentic and down to earth look which spoke to the broad and heterogeneous audience known as ‘Young People’.

Our Change of Heart campaign' helped create a change of behaviour in the North East, with 84% of the audience taking at least one of our desired actions after seeing it.

Julie Marsh, Head of communications at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said, “Increasing vaccination rates for one of the hardest to reach age groups wasn’t an easy ask. It’s hard to gain cut through in ‘normal’ circumstances, never mind against so many Covid-related messages and the apathy that seemed to be creeping in at that point of the pandemic.

“We worked closely with Drummond Central throughout the research, creative concept and delivery phases of the campaign and were delighted with the final result. 

“It was particularly important for us to complement the advertising with a campaign toolkit, designed by Drummond Central and then shared with partners, including local authorities and universities, to maximise reach. I believe this successful integrated approach combined with the strength of the creative execution allowed us to achieve the results we saw.”

In a challenging environment where Covid restrictions were being lifted and the take-up of vaccinations was falling in under 30s, NHS data showed that this rate of decline was slowed in our region vs the national picture during the campaign period.

The success of this campaign was in no small part down to the constant collaboration between ourselves, the NHS Integrated Covid Hub and our partners SD Advertising and McBryde and Co.

Alongside this, our Greggs x Primark collab won best B2C Campaign for its creativity and unique approach to engaging a shared audience - resulting in the collection being so sought after it sold out in a matter of days. 

We worked closely with the team at Greggs and their PR agency Hope&Glory to deliver a neon-hued, street-tasty campaign that was built around a series of choreographed set-moments over a two week period to maintain engagement and excitement - announcing the partnership, drip feeding details of the hottest high-street collaboration of the year and then landing the big reveal of both the range and the first Tasty café experience bringing Greggs into Primark in Birmingham.

The overall campaign was a unique coming together of two of the UK’s high-street favourites, a cross-over that surprised and delighted both audiences and generated great results for both brands - including trending above Adele on Twitter.

YouGov’s BrandIndex reported that both brands’ Buzz Score increased during the campaign period and were the top-performing brands in their respective sectors.

With most items selling out within 2 days of launch and items being sold for 5 x the price on eBay - the Greggs x Primark collection was truly a collaboration everyone couldn’t wait to get their hands on.

To top the night off, Drummond Central was named Best Large Agency.

Dan Appleby, MD of Drummond Central said, “Proud doesn’t even come close to how I feel about the team at Drummond Central and what they’re capable of. Each and every person at DC has worked incredibly hard over the past 12 months to make effective work that we, our clients and our partners are proud to put our names to. We’ve welcomed new faces, expanded teams, joined forces with new clients and snapped up a number of awards for our work along the way. This one puts the cherry on top of all of that and is real proof that hard work really does pay off - plus, we get to have a lot of fun along the way.” 

It’s no secret that our roots are in the north, which makes winning across a number of categories at the Prolific North Awards a very proud moment for us at Drummond Central.

Up the north!