A tale of Heroes and Halos

In March 2020, Halo PR and Communications received a call from their long standing clients, DOOH.com, a London-based out of home advertising agency. DOOH.com wanted to turn the out of home platform into a public service channel during the pandemic and, with such a huge platform, both creative forces knew this was an opportunity to turn their efforts to good.

Working with fellow agency Kinetic Worldwide, DOOH.com contacted media owners across the UK and Ireland with the idea. Within a week, the #MyHeroes Campaign was live on  1292 screens across the two countries with the likes of JCDecaux and Clear Channel UK joining the movement.  

#MyHeroes shared the thanks of a nation in lockdown, celebrating key workers across the country by lighting up screens with their pictures - sharing their stories and photographs of everyday individuals from nurses and farmers, to delivery drivers and teachers.

Alongside consulting on the creative and conceptual framework of the campaign, Halo created an accompanying social media and press campaign, urging the public to come forward and nominate one of the 14.5 million key workers keeping the country running. The message called for tweets including #MyHeroes, nominating heroes with their unique stories. These stories were published and then fed back into the social media loop with an image of the tweet in situ on the streets, creating a community of content.

The nominations quickly rolled in and the results were incredible - connecting people across the world in a real and tangible way. The MyHeroes hashtag received 2,603,454 impressions in the UK and Ireland and has since reached 105,849,775 impressions worldwide.

To map the journey of the campaign, Halo collaborated with design studio Lyon & Lyon on a campaign video featuring some of the incredible stories of the key workers and their families who sent tweets of thanks. As a testament to the powerful connection the campaign provided, #MyHeroes has begun to take the media awards season by storm, picking up a smattering of high profile awards.

The campaign has now won: Campaign Media Week Awards: Media Collaboration: Covid-19, The Drum Out of Home Awards: Grand Prix and Covid-19: Best Use of OOH Media for Good and the Highly Commended Award for Covid-19: Best Collaborative Campaign - it has also been listed in The Drum’s New Years Honors for 2020.

One of the key judges at the Drum Out of Home awards commented: “This work was in a category about collaboration - and it's a true example of working together. Recognising that we're going through a difficult time with Covid-19, they showed their ability to get a message out across the land, but the message itself was very meaningful. An empathic and moving campaign, that will stand the test of time.”

Andrew Newman, CEO of DOOH.com said: “This campaign has been a rollercoaster of emotions, we knew we needed to do something when the world plunged into these awful circumstances. At that point we didn’t realise the impact this campaign could have and the power it had to inspire our industry peers.

“To win the awards that we have has been incredible but the biggest takeaway for us is being able to give a voice and a platform for the immense gratitude we all feel for the key workers that have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic, we can’t thank Jess and the Halo team enough for being with us at every step of the way.”

Jess Ratty, Founder of Halo commented: “When we first started talking with our friends at DOOH about this campaign, our first thought at the start of the pandemic was to understand how we could use our platforms and our creativity to do good. I’m beyond delighted that Andrew and the team at DOOH.com trusted us to stand with them at the helm of this campaign and spread the word about #MyHeroes to a global audience.

"This campaign was never about us, or the brilliant teams that came together to make this happen, it was all about sharing thanks, love and care for those on the front line, keeping society as safe as possible - as relevant today as it was in March 2020. To have received the recognition and won these prestigious awards off the back of a campaign that was created purely for the people of the UK and Ireland is humbling.”