After its most successful year to date, our Heating Installer Awards’ Back with a BANG! campaign was named best integrated campaign at the coveted 2022 CIPR North West PRide Awards.
The Heating Installer Awards (HIAs) is owned and run by our team here at Refresh. Established in 2015 to raise the credibility and celebrate the achievements of UK plumbers/heating installers, every year we aim to create a positive talking point and promote excellent service in the installer industry – which can often go unrecognised.
A bit about the campaign…
The primary objective of the campaign was to come back stronger with a bigger-and-better awards than ever before – which of course paid off and the proof of this success is in our new shiny award!
This past year, as the awards turned six, we faced a huge challenge. The previous year’s awards had largely been run online due to the pandemic, with large parts of the campaign unable to run in the same format as usual.
An integrated communications strategy was designed to streamline activity on it’s in person return, while increasing awareness among the target audiences, building campaign credibility and providing more value to sponsors.
To continue to innovate and evolve the awards, we launched a new category (most sustainable installer), with its own entry criteria built with support from sponsors and former winners. We also added an interactive trade show stand at Installer2021, where the ceremony took place and winners were announced. Plus, we collaborated with influencers in the plumbing sector to amplify activity.
Creating a successful integrated campaign like this gave our team real insight and chance to exercise our muscles beyond just ‘traditional PR.’ The team enjoyed the variation of work including conceptualising and developing the exhibition stand, rolling out engaging and impactful social media campaigns, collaborating with leading influencers across the sector, attending exciting events and meeting people from across the industry.
The results…
The campaign was measured and evaluated in-line with objectives and really did come back stronger, with a bigger-and-better awards than ever before! Beyond this:
- Our sponsorship value continues to grow year on year
- Awards ceremony inside Installer2021 was attended by 150+ people
- Social media following increased by 11%
- Social media engagement increased by 32%
- Web visitors increased by 46%
- Votes for the awards’ winners increased by 162%
- Entries grew by 20% year on year
- Our owned database of installers grew (now at 11k+) with hundreds added, creating an enviable and unique database of installers
Visit The Heating Installer Awards’ website here to see what we have in store for 2023 and if you’re also interested in discussing integrated campaign ideas with Refresh, reach out.