Government Communication Service

Anthony SimonHead of Digital Communications, 10 Downing Street and Cabinet Office

June 2014

What does GCS do?1. We base our government campaigns on research and evidence and use this to

inform our campaigns and segment audiences

2. We are clear about the story our government agency is trying to tell, and can express it in a way that makes sense to citizens

3. We have the confidence of our political and/or organisational leaders

4. All our major communication activities that they have a defined strategy and outcomes (approach, messages, audience, milestones)

5. We run campaigns on government and public service priorities that have milestones and use multiple but integrated media channels including social media

6. We routinely evaluate and measure our work and can identify the change in awareness, understanding and behaviour that has resulted from our work

7. Government departments and agencies works together to achieve these goals

Membership

Each government communicator automatically becomes a member of the Government Communication Service Core – Any professional civil servant communicator Associate – A non-professional civil servant communicator in

a communications role Affiliate member – All public service communicators not

working in central government

Decreasing trust in the EU, national government, and political parties

4Source: Eurobarometer

Decreasing trust in media, including the internet

Sep-0

6

Dec-0

6

Mar

-07

Jun-

07

Sep-0

7

Dec-0

7

Mar

-08

Jun-

08

Sep-0

8

Dec-0

8

Mar

-09

Jun-

09

Sep-0

9

Dec-0

9

Mar

-10

Jun-

10

Sep-1

0

Dec-1

0

Mar

-11

Jun-

11

Sep-1

1

Dec-1

1

Mar

-12

Jun-

12

Sep-1

2

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

The internet

TV

Radio

The press

I would like to ask you a question about how much trust you have in certain institutions. For each of the following institutions, please tell me if you tend to trust it or tend not to trust it?

EU % of ‘tend to trust’

Trust in…

Source: Eurobarometer

Trust in online comment is high – especially trust in friends’ comments

Source: TNS digital life

Poland Italy Spain UK Germany France Netherlands Romania0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

58

47

55 55

43

50

56

51

46 45

40 41

33

41

35 36

Friends

Strangers

% internet users who trust comments people write about brands

ABC of communications1. It’s about the Audience not the organisation

2. Brevity and impact in the moments that matter are necessary to be heard in the conversation

3. It’s a conversation where Content is king. It is no longer good enough to broadcast material.

Presentation title - edit in Header and Footer

Great campaigns

Presentation title - edit in Header and Footer

EVALUATION: Breast Cancer: saves 70 lives pa. Identified need, creative implementation and robust evaluation

OBJECTIVE: Blood Donors: Generates many thousands of blood donors, at a campaign cost of £4.60 per donor

IMPLEMENTATION: Pub Loo Shocker. Drink Drive campaign. Video because target audience watch YouTube, 11 million views

INSIGHT: Potential recruits search from their mobile so we know where they are. We learn that most recruits come from areas with a naval history or know someone in the services

STRATEGY: Brilliant, bold images to sell GREAT Britain

Setting objectives

9 Presentation title - edit in Header and Footer

Campaigns should move audiences from awareness of an issue through understanding that it matters to them to changing their behaviour to address the objective of the campaign

The Government Communications Plan for 2014/15: what’s different?

For the first time this year’s plan takes a pan-Government view of communications

Together building a strong economy, a fair society and a secure country

Economic Confidence

Fairness and aspiration

Britain in the World

Three cross-government campaigns

EconomyThemed weeks• Infrastructure – “We’re

#BuildingBritain”• Employment –

#GetBritainWorking• Plus, events like Budget

Economy dashboard• top themes discussed by

peaks and volume• compare to previous activity

– Budget 2013• pre-defined list of influencers

to check if our messages featured

• most read and shared owned content and assets – looking for our content to appear in top 10

#BuildingBritain

• A week-long campaign from No10 highlight infrastructure projects up and down the country.

Those involved in infrastructure projects were invited to tweet/send pictures from on site with the slogan ‘We’re #BuildingBritain’

• Influential contributors from construction companies such as Skanska, BalfourBeatty, Kier and industry professional bodies, like RICS and the Institute of Civil Engineers

• 3,900 tweets from 2,260 contributors

• Tumblr blog featuring photos from the activity

The photos

The results

Numerous construction firms, major projects, and industry bodies joined the conversation, including:

3,870 - #BuildingBritain tweets8,420,000 - people who could have seen the hashtag

2,260 - different people who joined conversation1,200 – visits to We are #BuildingBritain Tumblr (1,910 page views)

550 – shares of the two flooding Vines online

Analytics and evaluationFollows: 44,500Unfollows: 12,100Mentions: 13,400Total 2,546,549 +31,542

New likes: 1,359Unlikes: 300Follows: 204,003+1,059

Case study - economy core narrative Determine the extent of use and pick-up of the government’s core narrative on the economy

Search core phrases across• Government – are depts

using the narrative on web and social?

What’s the pick-up?• Local media• Economists• Financial journalists• Lobby Journalists

Dementia campaign

Identify advocates

Life sciences

Actionable insight

Monday

Tuesd

ay

Wed

nesday

Thursd

ayFri

day

Saturd

ay

Sunday

39,00035,000 36,000 36,500 34,000

41,00046,700

10 Downing Street Facebook page

People reached Average post reach

FacebookReach• Status posts reach double

number of people than a photo or a link post

• On average, posts on Sunday reach 27% more people than on a weekday – schedule more posts at weekends

• Engagement also higher at weekend – more time to click, read and comment?

• Shorter messages= increased engagement.

Actionable insightWebsite - SEOMake it easier for people to find your contentChange page name and URL for main page on economy from ‘Economic growth’ to ‘UK economy’ to reflect higher volumes of search traffic.

Result: search traffic to page up 50% since change made

Used data from:• Google Adwords – search volumes• Google Trends – interest over time• Hitwise – UK specific search data