A campaign that aims to reduce the number of victims of crime in the county has been short-listed for a national award.
Cambridgeshire Constabulary’s “Get Closer” campaign lines up alongside national campaigns for American liqueur Southern Comfort and Channel 4 in the “data and planning” category of the Brand Republic Future 5 Awards.
The awards recognise innovation in marketing and public relations and the short-listed campaigns were selected by judges from those nominated nationally.
A public vote has begun and the force is asking members of the public to show their support and vote at www.brandrepublic.com/future5
Get Closer uses crime analysis to produce a seasonal trend calendar, which allows effective and efficient communications with the aim of reducing the number of victims of crime in the county.
Marketing manager Sarah Cooper said: “We are delighted to have been nominated for this award, in a category alongside two such established and recognisable brands, and we are now looking for as many votes as possible from members of the public.
“The Get Closer campaign has made our approach to communications smarter and more cost efficient by identifying the most problematic crimes through trend analysis.
“By using data to identify victim and offender profiles and locations and times of offences, we ensure we are targeting the right people with the right message at the right time in the best way we can.
“Also recognising the difficult economic times, we identified key stakeholders and partners to help us deliver innovative free or low cost marketing activity.”
The awards are run by leading communications website Brand Republic, published by Haymarket Brand Media, which also produces titles including PRWeek and Media Week.
The Future 5 Awards seek to highlight and celebrate radical and ground-breaking campaigns across advertising, marketing, media and PR.
As the title suggests, it has five categories, which for 2013, as well as “data and planning”, are: “the big idea”, “audience participation”, “brand collaboration”, and “tech innovation”.
Other companies short-listed in categories include O2, Samsung, Mercedes Benz, EDF Energy and the National Trust.
The citation for the Get Closer campaign highlighted the use of shoplifting analysis, which identified two main types of thief – prolific and juvenile, first-time offenders – as well as the goods being stolen and from which shops.
This allowed marketing materials including banners and posters to be positioned in shop entrances and bespoke shelf-edge artwork in aisles where the most commonly stolen goods were being taken.
The analysis also indicated juvenile first-time offenders were usually achieving good grades and were shoplifting for “fun”. Advertising was placed on toilet doors in schools, Facebook advertising was targeted at pupils in schools with the most offenders and radio adverts were broadcast during the school run with the message, “It doesn’t matter how many A*s you get, no one wants to employ a thief”.
All the key crime trends identified by the campaign fell during 2012/13.
The public vote will close on August 26 before a young people’s panel pick their overall winner in September.