How Heart arrived – the regional marketing campaign

As Heart launches a new regional marketing campaign in former Real Radio areas Earshot Creative takes a look.

On the 6th of May 2014  2.3 million additional listeners woke up to the sound of a new Heart station as Real Radio turned into Heart. To help launch the station in new broadcast areas owner Global Radio has invested two million pounds to spread the word that “Heart has arrived” across regional TV, outdoor, experiential and print.

TV campaign

The new broadcast areas match nicely to the ITV macros making TV advertising the perfect cross-platform deliver for a regional message.

Global Radio have remade their existing TV creative to the song of Modjo’s Lady “(Hear Me Tonight)” with a new regional in and out execution.

The ads use the well recognised voice and face of Emma Bunton to introduce the local version and give the brand some big name showbiz bang.

Except for viewers in Scotland who have their own showbiz talent in the form of Scottish sweetheart Jenni Falconer. Nice attention to detail there.

Earshot Creative understands the campaign is flighted over the next few weeks in a variety of terrestrial primetime spots on the major channels.

Print campaign

Global Radio has worked-up a newspaper creative which they feel allows the brand to stand out amongst the clutter of print to really make a shout in the local area. The ads (see the in-situ screenshot) allow Heart to be seen in local and regional press among black and white text only, making it a really intrusive yet effective media campaign.

A variety of local and regional papers have been used. For example “Your brand new radio station for Yorkshire” is in the Yorkshire Evening Post and “Your brand new radio station for South Yorkshire” is in the Sheffield Star.

Outdoor campaign

To support the TV campaign Heart is running a mix of 6 sheets and 48 sheet creatives in each broadcast area. The message is “Heart has Arrived”.

The outdoor work will be positioned across the TSAs within footfalls of high family audiences.

Heart Angels and experiential

Heart is supporting the station launches with a high-impact experiential campaign in each new broadcast area.

Each station has an active presence with promotional staff across the TSA for the next 100 days through events, office drops, shopping centre promotions and more!

On launch day promotional teams were active across the TSA to give listeners a “feel good” (but not a real good) experience with music, dancing, stunts and by handing out station goodies and Krispy Kremes.

Clout

The Heart brand is owned and operated by Global Radio in all areas with the exception of North Wales and Yorkshire where it is franchised to Communicorp. Earshot Creative understands that all marketing is co-ordinated by Global Radio with media agency PHD.

This case study is a clear example of how Global Radio is making sure the new radio stations have some serious clout and support in their new broadcast areas by delivering a cross platform high impact campaign.

To avoid simultaneous competition the recent campaign for Global’s Smooth Radio was purposefully not run in areas where Heart has just launched.

Jonathan Jacob is a Solutions Manager at Global Radio with varied experience across commercial radio S&P, events, marketing and PR. He was listed in the inaugural Radio Academy 30 under 30, is a Student Radio Awards judge and sits on the Events Committee for The Radio Academy. Views are personal.