Heart To Expand Brand Beyond Radio

Radio network Heart will shortly launch a new multi-million pound campaign to position itself beyond the platform of radio, building Heart into a lifestyle and entertainment brand.

The push will involve television and cinema ad campaigns with high profile media and retail partnerships, as well as special events, master classes, brand extensions and station-led promotions, together with guerrilla marketing and PR.

“Whilst it is important for us to maintain our challenger status, we also need to behave like a leader brand. Feel Good is the vehicle which we are using to move the Heart brand into a totally different space, one that is very distinctive and sets us apart from the rest,” said managing director Barnaby Dawe.

“This is the first phase in a campaign to build the Heart brand beyond radio by using more than just the music as the basis of the strategy.”

Stage one of the campaign carries the tagline “Heart – You Can’t Help But Feel Good”, with the creative using a hula hooping girl as the focus of a series of 60, 30 and 10-second adverts.

The Hoop Girl campaign will include a series of special masterclasses by the US expert that is featured in the commercials, together with Heart Hula aerobics classes in association with a major fitness chain and a host of other spin-off activities.

Heart will also team up with Yahoo! for the campaign and Dawe has commissioned a major new demographic insight project into the lives of women aged 30-39, which will survey more than 1,000 women on various aspects of their wellbeing. The results of the study should be published later this year, with phase two of Heart’s new strategy breaking early next year.

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