As life gets more on the move this week than it has in months, our founder Neil looks back on the Huge Media NHS Gratitude Campaign.
Casting my mind back to March and the lockdown announcement …. the bewilderment it bought! Plus a whole week of feeling completely unreal and a ton of indecisiveness about what to to next. Advertising ground to a halt but we knew we had to do something.
Team Huge Media decided to show its appreciation to frontline heroes of the NHS and all keyworkers who were helping to fight the onslaught of COVID 19.
One of our Mobile Digital Screens would be the fastest and most efficient way to do this. We quickly planned to take one of our vehicles on a tour of local NHS Hospitals. We’d give family and friends of NHS and Frontline workers the opportunity to send a messages of love and gratitude. We put a call out via the media, including The Guide Liverpool. And you did not disappoint. The nominees came through thick and fast and all the messages and images were grouped by hospital.
Easter Sunday was the first day of our Merseyside tour. We planned to spend an hour at each of the five Merseyside hospitals displaying the messages that we had received. At each venue, images and messages of support were made into a short video that we could play on the big screen at each hospital upon arrival.
The soundtrack was the latest NHS Version of ‘Thank You Very Much’ by The Scaffold who had reformed to release a reworked version of their 1967 hit record. Huge Media downloaded this several times to support the NHS. All money raised by the single goes to NHS Charities Together to support staff and volunteers working on the front line of the coronavirus pandemic.
Easter Sunday 12th April 2020 arrived, and our driver Andy set off to visit St Helens and Knowsley Trust Hospital, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Aintree University Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital. We were well received at each facility and many of the NHS staff and keyworkers came out to spot pictures of themselves and colleagues. We were all over social media!
Our efforts were so well received by the public that we decided to offer our services again and create a presence before and during the evening ‘Clap for Carers’ on Thursday 16th April. We were inundated with requests and unfortunately, we were unable to show everybody’s nomination due to the increased demand. We were again well received at each hospital and welcomed by all of the NHS staff, members of the public and keyworkers.
Huge Media are proud to have supported the NHS at this challenging time and happy to provide all of our services pro -bono in support of everybody who is working at the frontline during this difficult time. To find out more about the Huge Media NHS Gratitude Campaign get in touch here.
