The Department of Health have been working on a national campaign for 2 years now. What they’ve found is that people don’t want the government telling them how to live their lives (what a shock) but would appreciate a health department supported people’s movement (enter music from The Life of Brian . . . )
What does this mean? It means that the Department of Health is putting £75 million over 3 years into promoting healthy living, but doing it in a way which fits with real people. Supporting existing projects, programmes, schemes, community centres and real people. I’ve seen the presentations and I’m convinced – I think they’ve done a really good job with the research, with their thinking and with the design.
It’s supposed to kick off with Gordon Brown announcing it in the last week of July. This will probably get decent coverage on Channel 4 news, but not much in the Sun. It’s intended as a way of getting all the right organisations aware that this is happening but not going large with the public as yet. This announcement will probably involve a showcase meeting involving a supermarket, a national paper, the minister for sport and various other
This announcement will be followed by Department of Health getting in touch with involved in sport, physical activity, food and health generally. They want to keep everyone informed and get feedback. This should take place throughout the rest of July and August.
Publicity will start in the Autumn with PR of existing schemes, programmes and projects. So if you want to get publicity for anything you’re doing then watch this space and I’ll tell you how to get your details to them.
Then in January they’ll be launching TV ads. I’ve seen the first draft of the storyboards for that, but I imagine with it being so far off it’s likely to change a few times between now and then.
I’ll be able to bring you more detail on how you can benefit from this over the upcoming weeks and months, but for now here’s some headlines.
- you will be able to use the Change 4 Life campaign branding if it’s helpful
- they’ll be producing packs for partners. I’m currently helping them identify what people would like so if you have any ideas then email me at john@makesportfun.com
- they’ll be producing a CRM system (customer relationship management) which will make it easy for people to find their local services – this is a chance for you to promote what you’ve got
- they’ll be doing case studies of hundreds of great existing schemes, and turning 4 or 5 of them into TV ads. If you want publicity for your work then this is a great opportunity
The biggest thing though is that this should be raising the profile of sport and activity and getting people thinking about it more.