UK charity British Heart Foundation (BHF) has highlighted the importance of CPR knowledge in case of an emergency outside of hospital by collaborating with social and creative agency eight&four. The campaign was scheduled to coincide with 'Restart a Heart Day.’

‘Restart a Heart Day’ is an annual event. For this year’s event BHF collaborated with the Resuscitation Council (UK), British Red Cross, St John Ambulance, Yorkshire Ambulance Service and UK Ambulance and Fire and Rescue Services to educate and train the public across the UK to perform CPR, increasing the chances of people having cardiac arrests outside the hospital to survive.

Simon Gillespie, chief executive at the British Heart Foundation, says, “The BHF is striving to improve survival rates by creating a Nation of Lifesavers through our CPR training programmes. By raising awareness on Restart a Heart Day, we hope more people will see that CPR really can be the difference between life and death and that doing something is always better than doing nothing.”

To reach as many people as possible, providing them with the skills of recognising the symptoms of a cardiac arrest and understanding how to act on it, the campaign compared a number of low-risk scenarios, such as the consumption of coffee when one is fully aware that it is too hot, to the realistic chance of of someone dying from a cardiac arrest, due to not having received CPR.

The campaign consisted of five similar situations, which were features across all BHF’s platforms and touchpoints, including the organisation’s website, social media, print and digital advertising and Spotify audio ads, among others. 

Amy McCulloch, joint managing director of eight&four, says, “The creative concept we’ve devised aims to drive home the message that doing something is better than doing nothing. Without CPR, the chances of surviving cardiac arrest are zero so we’ve highlighted a series of everyday low risk situations as a comparison via a simple, yet impactful creative execution.”

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