Can PR amplify advertising?

Julia Cross
May 19
2 min read

Supporting Jacksons of Yorkshire's first ever TV commercial

Generating consumer PR coverage around a brand’s TV advert can be a tricky task (unless you’re John Lewis…and it’s Christmas….) The clue is in the title really, a TVC is, by nature, far too commercial for editorial teams. The secret is to devise a cleverly timed PR execution to coincide with the TVC going live, to achieve maximum bang. However, these rules went out of the window when we sought to generate PR coverage for Jacksons of Yorkshire’s first ever TV ad.

Running with the insight around the Hull-based bakery’s huge significance in the city, our creative platform centred around local people and more importantly, former Jacksons’ colleagues. Whilst the cast and crew already comprised of a raft of Yorkshire folk, our PR activity led with crowdsourcing local people to play the role of extras in the ad. We struck PR gold.

The client made a lovely comment that the day of the shoot was akin to a Jacksons’ reunion, with gathered former colleague sharing fond tales of their time at the bakery. But it was Gaynor and Sean Harkin who stole the show. Meeting as colleagues at Jacksons in the mid 70’s, they went on to marry and are this year celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. Of course, they were front and centre of our story. We achieved four stand-out mentions on BBC Radio Humberside, as well as a range of print and online media, before communicating the ad launch with the trade and business media.