BT Openreach

BT Openreach & Leicester Mercury find real ‘local heroes’.

BT operate a team of 25,000 Openreach operatives who are available around the clock, in all weather conditions to install, connect and fix customer's phone and broadband connections.

They came to us because they wanted to increase local awareness of the great work that these operatives do across the UK particularly in terms of keeping people connected.

BT chose Leicester as one of three ‘priority’ areas in the UK to be targeted and an exciting creative community focused campaign idea was developed - the ‘Openreach Extra Mile Awards’.

The awards were designed to encourage local people to nominate local heroes so that they could recognised for the great work they do and the extra mile that they go to. For example, it could be a lollipop lady who always has a smile at work , a Postman who always stops for a chat or someone who puts themselves out through charity work.

BT provided a prize fund of £5000 to be allocated across 10 categories of winner.

The Leicester Mercury team has many years of experience in local community-led competitions and promotions and could therefore bring huge value to the campaign planning in terms of maximising awareness.

More than 60 ‘local heroes’ were nominated from the Leicester area and 50% of these were nominated using our online voting mechanism at www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk.

Each winner received £500 and featured in a raft of editorial coverage both in the Leicester Mercury and on ‘thisisleicestershire.co.uk’. BT received ongoing value and longevity from the campaign via ‘follow-up’ stories on individual winners.

Ultimately, this campaign made it possible for a big national brand such as BT to ‘get under the skin’ of its audience locally and helped them associate their Openreach operatives and brand with real local heroes.