The latest campaign by North West Durham based marketing specialist, The Virgo Consultancy – an initiative for County Durham Probation Service – launches in March 2009.
A pilot project will be trialed in parts of the county over a three month period and if successful, could be rolled out nationwide.
‘Doing More to Keep you Safe’ is designed to highlight the work done with adult offenders. It is the first proactive campaign delivered with the support of external marketing specialists ever undertaken by the probation service in any of its 42 areas in England and Wales.
Aimed at the general public, it is designed to illustrate lesser known areas of the service’s work, including support for the victims of domestic violence, unemployed offenders and perpetrators of violent crime.
It will initially feature on illuminated bus shelter posters in prominent locations throughout Darlington and in ambient advertising in washrooms of pubs and bars. This will be complimented by an advertising campaign in the local and regional press and the local council newsletter. Further poster and press campaigns will follow in East and North West Durham. If successful, the Durham model may be applied in other service areas.
David Virgo, Managing Director of Virgo, commented, “This has been a very different but exciting campaign to work on. Our team didn’t realise beforehand just how much, and varying work County Durham Probation Service does with both offenders and victims of crime.
“This was also borne out by research we undertook before planning the campaign in which the biggest challenge was devising imagery and copy, which gets the message across without creating a fear of crime among the target audience.
“With the help and support of the probation service I think we’ve managed to strike that balance and I’m sure awareness of the fantastic work it does will be raised among the public.”
Russell Bruce, Chief Officer, County Durham Probation Service, says: “This is an exciting step forward for us as it is the first time we have promoted ourselves in such a visible and proactive way. There is more to the service than unpaid work in the community and supervising prisoners on licence, but few people realise this.”
Sebert Cox, Chairman of County Durham Probation Board, adds: “Through this campaign we hope to raise our public profile so that we are on a level with our criminal justice agency partners, such as the police and the courts. For a long time we have been the silent service, working behind the scenes with adult offenders using programmes and supervision to address offending behaviour and reduce re-offending. The Board and I share the Chief Officer’s excitement and optimism as we move forward into this new way of marketing our service.”
Virgo is a design and marketing agency based in the North East. For help and assistance with your marketing support please contact Saul Gowens on 0845 2415252