Freshfield awarded Highly Commended accolade at PRCA National Awards for Covid-19 business support campaign

Freshfield has been highly commended at the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA)’s National Awards for its work with Lancashire County Council’s £6m Business Growth Hub to support the Lancashire business community through the Covid-19 pandemic.

#AskForHelp was a campaign devised and ran by Freshfield from the beginning of lockdown to the end of 2020. It helped transform the Growth Hub (Boost) into a support service dedicated to helping worried business owners impacted by coronavirus.

The campaign was Highly Commended in the Public Sector, Value for Money category at this year’s PRCA National Awards 2021, held on Tuesday night in London.

It is the latest in a string of awards and recognitions for #AskForHelp, which prompted more than 7,000 people to access Boost services for business and wellbeing support throughout Covid-19.

#AskForHelp also won Best B2B Campaign at last year’s Northern Marketing Awards and was Highly Commended at the Prolific North Awards 2020 as well as being shortlisted for several other high profile marketing awards.

Simon Turner, chief executive, Freshfield said: “The team is thrilled to be recognised amongst the leading professionals in the UK PR and communications industry. It is testament to the hard work of the Boost partnership and the Freshfield team.

“We love working in the business support arena as we get to see the true impact strong business support can have on leaders, employees, livelihoods and the economy. It’s powerful and we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this important campaign.”

The fully integrated #AskForHelp campaign included repositioning Boost’s website to include a business advice hub and a multi-channel marketing campaign to encourage people to ring Boost’s support helpline and ask for help on issues surrounding finance, continuity, staffing, leadership and supply chains.

The campaign was created and launched in just four working days.

Andrew Leeming, programme manager, Boost, said: “The impact of the #AskForHelp campaign has shown how powerful the Growth Hub can be in supporting Lancashire business owners whatever their circumstances.

“#AskForHelp was centred on a simple, powerful message which resonated with the Lancashire business community, and the speed this campaign was launched meant Lancashire business owners knew they had a place to turn from the very first day of lockdown.”