Client Brief
Cats Protection asked Mushroom Marketing to help publicise their brand new Homing Centre in Ferndown, Dorset – the first centre of its type in the UK for the charity, which aims to make adopting a cat from the charity quicker and easier. The objectives for the project were to help publicise the homing centre’s first ever open day before and on the day of the event itself, to local press, TV, radio as well as social media.
Our Work
Cats Protection liked our idea of a schools competition, to ask pupils from local schools to draw a picture of what they thought the new homing centre would look like and to write some accompanying text – entries could be as creative as pupils liked. So, we put together competition packs and liaised with local schools to send in their fantastic entries. We also arranged a media partner for the competition and arranged for Reham Khan, weather lady from BBC South Today, to come and help launch the open day together with the Mayor of Ferndown and the Town Crier. We also sent out press releases to relevant press before the event and invited journalists to attend the day itself.
Results
The competition and open day attracted a lot of media attention (as well as a huge queue of people waiting to see the new centre!). We gained a vast array of PR coverage across different media types, including BBC South Today TV coverage, radio interviews, front page news stories in local magazines, newspaper coverage and social media posts/ interactions. The competition and the open day were a great success and we thoroughly enjoyed working on this project with Cats Protection!
Mushroom Marketing was subsequently awarded a coveted CIPR (Chartered Institute of PR) Silver PRide Award for this campaign.
