Case Study - Extra Time

Background:
It's the most exciting time in any sporting competition - Extra Time - you are never more alive than when you get a second chance... and so it is for those who are alive today because of emergency blood transfusions. Giving blood is a simple act, its profound consequences are only discovered when those who've survived meet those who saved their lives.

The etv media group was brought in by media agency, Drum PHD, to work with them to devise TV formats for the National Blood Service. The project was commissioned by COI Communications as part of a public service campaign to encourage blood donation from likely donors.

Objectives:

• Create a series of short TV formats which would effectively demonstrate the need to give blood
• Use the TV formats to thank those who had already, and continue to give, blood
• Specifically target 25-45 year old men as they were identified as a group inclined to give blood

Mechanic:
We created a short series of programmes which were aired on Five in December 2003. The programming, called "Extra Time", was a series of two minute shorts that ran across Five's sports output.

The programmes took a sports theme themselves and included inspirational human interest stories of how people have come back from life saving blood transfusions to achieve great things. One story featured a policeman, who was seriously injured in a motorbike accident, talking to blood donor and Gladiator's TV star "Rhino", about how a blood donation had saved his life. The programmes were designed to work on both an emotional and factual level and included details of how to give blood.

The etv media group developed and produced the creative for the programming and worked with Drum PHD and Five to secure the broadcast deal. The programmes were promoted via press advertising and direct mailouts.

Results:
The campaign was considered a great success in terms of viewer response and since then, etv was commissioned by COI Communications to produce other public information programming.

We believe the potential of using a public service message via commissioned programming is a template for future media campaigns and demonstrates the growing interest in long-form television by advertisers and agencies and its ability to truly engage and inform the viewer.