PR Week: ‘We made this global moment personal to all’ – Behind the Campaign
Rosie Shephard, founder of Shephard Communications and the Luxury Communications Council, discusses her agency’s work around The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
What was the campaign, in a nutshell?
Sir Nicholas Coleridge, great media mind and former chairman of Condé Nast, awarded Shephard Communications the lead role in the communications of The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Sir Nicholas was co-chairman, alongside Sir Michael Lockett, to arrange the Jubilee celebrations alongside Buckingham Palace and Downing Street’s Department of Culture, Media & Sport. Our role was to design, implement and deliver a strategy that would ensure the Jubilee would dominate the media landscape up to and beyond June 2022.
How did the idea come into being?
As the largest event for the Queen since her Coronation, the eyes of the world were on us. Our overarching objective was to “unite the nation and Commonwealth in hope for the future”. We honed in on the Platinum Jubilee Pageant as the key opportunity to do this.
After months of strategizing, we agreed with Buckingham Palace and Downing Street to position the Pageant as ‘The People’s Pageant’ – by the people, for the people. This gave the Pageant its own distinct identity from the more celebrity-led BBC pop concert, and the ceremonial occasions such as the Trooping of the Colour.
A global campaign with clear positive key messages was required. The strategy took into account many ‘distractions’, including commentary on the wider royal family members who were in the press constantly at the time.
Briefly describe the campaign planning and process.
This campaign touched every communications discipline.
Media Relations: Shephard Communications conducted a truly global media campaign, working with all major broadcasters, lifestyle shows, podcasts and media titles from all over the world.
We placed hundreds of interviews with the Pageant team and performers and placed thousands of stories. On the Pageant day, we worked with accredited media (over 2,000!), co-ordinating the broadcasters and photographers. We co-ordinated the live studio interview schedule for the major broadcasters – BBC, ITN and Sky – as well as running the press centre.
Digital: As a digitally-minded agency, we were able to save precious man hours using tech. This assured there were no restrictions on who we were able to work with globally with live streamed press conferences and a global digitalised content hub.
VIP relations: There were 200 VIPs involved from Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Holly Willoughby, Joan Collins, Ed Sheeran, Cliff Richard, etc. We placed numerous VIP interviews surrounding the Pageant.
Crisis communications: We created a multi-faceted crisis comms scenario manual with everything from COVID to terrorism. We were able to contain and proactively neutralise negativity with positive stories.
What were the biggest challenges, and how did you overcome them?
There were more than 56 stakeholders including Buckingham Palace, Department of Culture Media and Sport, Ministry of Defence, City of Westminster, the Metropolitan Police and other major organisations.
Managing expectations and ensuring consistency of messaging was vital and required the Shephard Communications team to be meticulous throughout.
How did you measure the results, and what were they?
The majority of the coverage featured our lead messaging – ‘The People’s Pageant’ with a total reach of 3.8 billion views across 46,000 pieces of proactively generated coverage.
We received great feedback including accolades from the Jubilee, Buckingham Palace and Downing Street teams.
What’s the biggest lesson you took away from the campaign?
Shephard Communication’s core proposition is ‘making brands relevant’. There is nothing more distant to society than royalty, yet I firmly believe we made this global moment personal to all.