NHS London and the pan-London Cancer Alliances
Four barriers,
five nudges.
Cervical Cancer Prevention Week 2025. We treated a screening campaign as a behaviour change problem, and moved the women other campaigns miss.
14.7%
Year-on-year lift in cervical screening search, causally isolated
6.7M
Paid impressions across nine channels, 124% above target
3.93%
Meta click-through rate, roughly double the platform benchmark
The Challenge
The women least likely to attend a screening appointment are the women most likely to need one. The reasons are not logistical. They are psychological.
<p>Uptake across London lags hardest in low-IMD postcodes and in ethnic minority communities. A woman who knows exactly what a smear test is and why it matters can still not book one, because of stigma, embarrassment, anxiety or fear of what might be found.</p><p>The KPIs were specific and unforgiving. A 10% uplift in screening search during campaign week. At least 3 million qualified impressions at 1.5% CTR or better. At least 30,000 micro-site sessions with 60 seconds or more dwell. And half of all clicks from the 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 bands.</p><p>Funding was pooled across NHS London and the Cancer Alliances, so every pound carried accountability to several commissioners at once. Five per cent was reserved from the outset for carbon offsetting and evaluation.</p>
You solve it with repetition.
You solve it with repetition.
The loudest voices talking Aberdeen down were Aberdonians. Decades of oil-town shorthand had been internalised by the very people who could most credibly sell the place, so any campaign aimed only at the central belt would be arguing against the city's own residents. We built for both audiences at once.
Young people are not looking for the best skyline. They are looking for discovery, authenticity and things worth photographing that nobody has photographed yet. Aberdeen has all of it. It had simply never been positioned as a place you find things, because it had always been positioned as a place you work.
What We Did
Short form video
Carried the discovery
TikTok, Meta and YouTube ran mobile-first films built around reveals rather than claims. The beach nobody knew was there. The café at the end of the lane. The light on the coast at seven in the morning. Every asset was designed to make a viewer say “that’s Aberdeen?”
Creators
Supplied the proof
Local micro-influencers explored the city’s hidden gems in real time, sharing independent eateries, cliff walks and community hubs with their own followers in their own voice. Peer-led storytelling did what no paid asset could.
Outdoor
Put the argument in front of the doubters
Roadside D6 Adshels, mall screens, and digital outdoor in Dundee and Glasgow. We bought the commute and the shopping trip, hitting young audiences in the cities where the stereotype was strongest.
Co-creation
Gave it legitimacy
Content was built local businesses and city ambassadors, so the campaign reflected genuine local pride rather than a marketing department’s version of it. That collaboration is why the work landed with Aberdonians instead of irritating them.
The Results
Attention
YouTube content passed 170,000 views, with 70% watched on connected TV screens. That is not scroll-past reach. That is families watching a city make its case on the biggest screen in the house, which is why the work moved parents as well as applicants.
Intent
Traffic to destination-specific campaign pages surged, with time on site rising alongside it. People were not clicking and bouncing. They were reading.
Behaviour
We ran a Rubin causal inference model across 36 months of search volume for “RGU” and “RGU Aberdeen”, isolating the campaign period against the underlying trend. The lift attributable to the campaign was 31.2%. Not impressions. Not clicks. Demand.
Outcome (Applications)
RGU reported record application levels following the campaign, with growth in business programmes and a seven-year high in applications across Scotland.
Sentiment
Qualitative feedback from students and residents came back in the language of rediscovery and civic pride. The emotional target was hit as squarely as the numerical one.