Life stories

Client: South Ayrshire Council

Task: Create and manage promotional campaign to recruit foster carers

In 2009 South Ayrshire Council's Fostering & Adoption Team entrusted Ocean to take charge of their most extensive promotional campaign in recent years. Aimed at recruiting more foster carers for children and young people of all ages, the Ayrshire-wide campaign needed to be honest, encouraging and, above all, highly impactful.
 

How we did it
First hand experiences were seen as the key, so we began by meeting with foster carers and young people in foster care to talk to them about what it was really like. Using their real-life stories, we developed the campaign 'Anyone can change a life'. Vivid colours were matched with bold, brief copy to get the message across quickly but effectively on transport and outdoor advertising, promotional leaflets and posters. This was backed up by local press features offering more in-depth information and a series of radio ads which 'spoke from the heart'. A highly satisfied Fostering & Adoption Team later confirmed a good response rate from people across Ayrshire. Following this success, Ocean delivered a second, similar-scale campaign in the spring of 2010, this time focusing specifically on fostering teens.