OmniGov @ MGOMD – GambleAware
In the UK, 59% of the adult population gamble each year, and one in 10 people who gamble experience harm from this. However, the shame and stigma associated with gambling often prevents those affected from seeking help. GambleAware is dedicated to keeping people safe from gambling harms.
As empathetic experts, the charity was seeking to help those experiencing gambling harms to self-identify and seek support. GambleAware also wanted to increase awareness of gambling harms and to improve accessibility and effectiveness of the National Gambling Treatment Service.
Research revealed a key challenge to GambleAware’s vision of keeping everyone safe from gambling harm: 75% of people experiencing gambling problems feel stigma and shame. With the importance of clever and sensitive communication, GambleAware created the ‘Let’s Open Up About Gambling’campaign to tackle social norms and help those experiencing gambling problems to open up and seek help.
The campaign had two strands: impactful formats at scale to bring to life the experiences of those facing gambling harms in order to build empathy, as well as being present in the spaces where those at risk were likely to be most vulnerable. Environments with sports coverage were identified as being crucial to catching those most-at-risk at the most critical time.
GambleAware recognised news brands as a trusted source of sport information for those disproportionately vulnerable to gambling harms as well as being effective in boosting campaign awareness.
Therefore, it became a key channel within a broader multi-channel media plan. GambleAware used the news space to educate readers at scale, harnessing news brands’ contextual power to deliver greater impact and relevance to its campaign, and intercepting gambling operators’ advertising at source.
GambleAware concentrated its campaign on the sport sections of popular and commuter titles such as The Sun, Sunday Mirror, Metro and Daily Star. Furthermore, activity was focussed on key sporting moments such as the Champions League final, with GambleAware running ‘bookend’ format ads to impactfully bring to life the feelings associated with gambling harm and nudge sufferers to seek help.
The news brand print campaign reached a massive 1.9 million people in GambleAware’s target audience, attracting coverage from the nation’s media (Daily Mirror, Evening Standard, Daily Mail, Channel 5 News, Good Morning Britain) and 41,000 mentions on social media. Recall for the print campaign was 22% better amongst the core target audience than for other aspects of the plan, demonstrating the effectiveness of GambleAware’s contextual strategy.
The campaign made a real difference to people’s lives, with 160,000 people visiting the website (a 43% increase), 22,000 using the self-help tool, and 8,016 calls to the helpline.
1.9m
people reached
43%
increase in website visits
