The brief
The Boys’ Brigade is a Christian youth organisation which enables young people aged 4 to 18 years old to learn, grow and discover in a safe environment.
In March 2023, following Government funding, The Boys’ Brigade appointed Refresh to help increase awareness of the organisation within local communities, while also encouraging more people to get involved with The Boys’ Brigade.
With this in mind, the core objectives for the campaign are to:
- Raise awareness of The Boys’ Brigade at both national and local levels
- Facilitate the smooth running of the PR campaign, in order to generate the maximum results possible
- Develop clear and consistent messaging that can rolled out across all of The Boys’ Brigade channels resulting in clear outcomes
- Help encourage people to consider joining The Boys’ Brigade either as a volunteer or member
12k+
engaged volunteers
73%
increase in social engagement
1,000
new followers
The campaign
We developed a multi-pronged campaign which focused heavily on owned content, showcasing the varied activities those who attend The Boys’ Brigade get involved with, while also shining a light on how the organisation supports those within the local community more broadly.
Given the campaign focus was engaging with both internal and external audiences, we knew the activity needed to have a number of layers and feature a range of communication tactics.
To do this, we have designed and implemented a campaign with two core workstreams. Firstly, we focused on laying the foundations and ensuring that those within The Boys’ Brigade were involved and invested in the PR and communications activity which was being rolled out. This included creating resources – such as template press releases and social media guides – for BB volunteers to use throughout the course of the year, as well as drafting articles for the organisation’s magazine.
The second layer of the campaign, which is still in motion, focuses heavily on increasing awareness of the organisation externally. This includes generating engaging social media content and eye-catching assets, as well as media relations and influencer activity. In tandem, The Boys’ Brigade celebrated its 140th anniversary in October 2023 so part of the campaign focuses on raising awareness of the event and milestone. This is happening via social media activity, capturing engaging video content and media relations around a new research report.
The results
To date, the campaign has:
- Engaged 12,000+ volunteers
- Generated 73% increase in organic social media engagements
- Led to almost 1,000 new followers on BB social channels
- Included key messaging throughout
Services delivered include:
- Strategy and planning
- Content development
- Video filming
- Video editing
- General copywriting
- Influencer management
- Social media management
- Measurement and evaluation
“Following on from the successful ‘Benefits and Barriers’ video project earlier in the year, we were confident Refresh was the right agency to work with on a wider campaign. It feels like the team have quickly become an important extension of our own small internal BB team and we really value the creativity, enthusiasm and flexibility from Refresh. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for our partnership.” Director of Development and Communications, The Boys’ Brigade