Scottish Conservatives - Case Study
In January 2007, Fruitful won a pitch to create the Scottish Conservatives campaign for the Scottish Parliamentary elections, against three well established agencies from Edinburgh and Glasgow.
OTHER CASE STUDIES
|
|
|
|
|
|
Limited Resources Made Focus Essential
Due to the budget available, we couldn’t afford to fight a conventional war on all fronts. We needed to ‘look big’ and concentrate activity where it would matter most - in key constituencies and regions. We identified five key battlegrounds: Dumfries, Eastwood, North Tayside, Perth and Roxburgh & Berwickshire.
Little and Often
Limiting the number of messages offered greater scope to get those messages through. We concentrated on three main policy areas, all of which were high on voters concerns and policy was strong enough to stand up to scrutiny.
VIEW LARGER IMAGE
Creating Our Own Media Space
Effective regional press titles and target postcodes (for direct mail) were easy to define, but the key battlegrounds had a distinct lack of outdoor media. So, we initiated an inflatable poster ‘roadshow’.
VIEW LARGER IMAGE
Manifesto
We created a CD Rom manifesto, which helped to portray the Scottish Conservatives as a modern, forward thinking party. By including a 24 page booklet within the packaging we were able to focus readers on our three key policy areas.
VIEW LARGER IMAGE
Party Political Broadcasts
Three Party Political Broadcasts strengthen the ‘Your Voice In Parliament.’ message. We also posted the them on You Tube. The ‘Ask Jack’ film received over 1,500 viewings.
VIEW LARGER IMAGE
Topical Leaflets
We created a range of DL-sized mailers focusing on various topics that cropped up during the election period. These were offered to the constituencies via an email order form. In total, over 175,000 leaflets were ordered.
VIEW LARGER IMAGE
Election Campaign Website
We used the ‘Your Voice In Parliament’ endline as the url to a dedicated election campaign website. This allowed us to keep the visitor concentrated on the key policy areas.
VIEW LARGER IMAGE
Virals
During the election period, Westminster announced their intention to extend road toll plans. As the only party against more road tolls, we used virals to react quickly and take advantage of this news.
VIEW LARGER IMAGE
Courting The Press
To make sure that key policy launches caught the imagination of the media, we escaped from the meeting room and used relevant settings/backdrops.
VIEW LARGER IMAGE
Spoiling Tactics
Media stunts were devised to take attention away from the other parties' 'big days'. For example, this advan allowed us to follow Tony Blair and Gordon Brown around, when they made their visits.
VIEW LARGER IMAGE
Being Talked About
Media coverage was very high and encouragingly positive. The use of eye-catching visuals meant that an unusually high proportion of the news articles were accompanied by pictures.
VIEW LARGER IMAGE
Results
There is no denying that the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections belonged to SNP. Having said that, we can claim some victories for the Scottish Conservatives:
• The Scottish Conservatives were the only other party to win more constituency seats than they held in 2003. Their total increased from 3 to 4. This is the most constituency seats they have held since devolution.
• The extra seat - Roxburgh & Berwickshire - was one of the five target seats we had identified.
In this constituency, the Scottish Conservatives increased their number of votes by a massive 55%.
• Three of the other four target constituencies also saw increases in the number of votes.
Eastwood by an impressive 38% and Perth by 13%.
•
Annabel Goldie herself was another beneficiary of our campaign. Her constituency vote increased by 21%, from 6,867 to 8,289.
•
And, the three existing Scottish Conservatives MSPs all enjoyed increased majorities.
•
The Scottish Conservatives consolidated their position as Scotland’s third biggest party and increased their overall vote.
Happy Clients
“A successful agency needs to produce great ideas and give them practical implementation – Fruitful have proved themselves in both areas.”
Peter Duncan - Party Chairman
“Fruitful is simply the most professional and amenable agency I have ever worked with.”
Andy Maciver - Head of Communications
|
|
|
|
|
