Skip to main content
Commsy creative stuff straight to your inbox

Blog

Necessity is the mother of invention: Storytelling in the time of Covid

< Blog home

Necessity is the mother of invention: Storytelling in the time of Covid

Back in March, the Coronavirus lockdown created common challenges for all of us.

For organisations and communicators, it created some more unique ones.

For charities like the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), where I work, it meant traditional income streams throttled or stopped. Events were cancelled and campaigns were pulled or radically rethought. Staff were furloughed. At the operations end, volunteers faced new rules and restrictions around training and personal protective equipment (PPE) while still being called on to save lives.

 

Looking out for ourselves and each other

Covid-19 also meant the RNLI’s roll-out of its seasonal lifeguard service to UK beaches was much-reduced. We quickly devised a new safety awareness campaign to encourage people to look out for themselves and one another where lifeguards couldn’t.

Our marketing and media teams also needed to adapt and approach the way we generate content and communicate with our audiences from different angles.

As one of the UK and Ireland’s larger charities, we are fortunate. Many of our volunteer lifeboat crew members wear GoPros on their helmets and our lifeboats carry fixed cameras. Our network of over 100 volunteer press officers upload the footage from rescue ‘shouts’ to a central system to be moderated by the media and operations teams ready to publish. As well as being a brilliant resource for responsive news and social media content, the footage also forms the backbone of Saving Lives at Sea, our BBC TV documentary, currently in its fifth series.

 

Keeping the stories coming

And as our volunteer lifeboat crews and paid lifeguards have adapted to the new ways of working to continue saving lives at sea, so the stories have kept coming, too. Summer is always our busiest time, with our lifeguards on duty alongside our lifeboats. From May onwards, as restrictions in England eased, people headed to the coast and, inevitably, some needed our lifesavers’ help.

In January, which feels a lifetime ago, I became the RNLI’s first ever case study manager. I prefer to use the term stories to case studies: they are people’s to tell, not impersonal subjects to be studied. I am privileged. I get to meet (virtually) and build relationships with people who agree to share some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. They might have been moments from drowning, or have tragically lost a loved one. Or they could have been the person who made a split-second decision, factoring multiple dynamic risks in a chaotic environment, to save someone else’s life.

 

Telling your story takes courage and trust – trust we have to earn

Our duty of care to our storytelling volunteers (which is what they are – donors, too) comes first. We are mindful that the lifesaving gift of their story means giving a very personal piece of themselves.

I am lucky, too, in that my job straddles various teams and disciplines. While its ‘sits’ in the media engagement (comms) team, I support, and collaborate with colleagues across social media, fundraising, marketing and internal comms, and particularly our own in-house creative team of account managers, copy editors and videographers, to find and tell stories via the gamut of paid, earned and owned channels.

 

Covid has made collaboration, agility and creativity essential for content creation

It has been frustrating at times but also freeing. Not being able to do things the way we’ve always done them has nudged us into innovating when we may not have previously.

When I joined the RNLI in 2017 from local government comms, I was in awe of its small team of talented, in-house filmmakers and their editing suite (plus two drones!), who produce professional-quality videos.  But having them also meant we didn’t need to employ the smartphone video skills I’d been practicing through necessity at the council.

In the last six months, restrictions meant we couldn’t send a team to, say, northern Scotland or the west coast of Ireland to film at a lifeboat station or in a rescue storyteller’s home.

 

Finding new ways to reach our people

Early on, the alternative content ideas may not have been ground-breaking, but they did mean we could bring our audience of supporters closer to our lifesavers. Our social team used Facebook Live to broadcast ‘Cuppa with the Crew’ chats with lifeboat volunteers and a virtual pub quiz hosted by a game crew member. And Liam from our regional safety team became the RNLI’s own Joe Wicks with his Water Safety Wednesday sessions (below) for home-schooling kids.

Inspiration was ‘borrowed’, too. Via a network of fellow third sector ‘story gatherers’, I heard of other charities using Zoom to capture to-camera interview pieces. After some weeks of mulling, we took the plunge.

The result was a video featuring storytellers whose own lives or those of their loved ones had been saved, telling their stories straight to our supporters.

Marking a change in style and tone

At the same time, a PR colleague in Cornwall recorded a virtual reunion via Teams between a widowed mum and the lifeguard team who saved her from a rip current, preventing her son becoming an orphan.

These pieces – turned around in a few days from conception to publication – marked a change in style and tone from our usual social videos. But the feedback from our community, colleagues and the sector was overwhelmingly positive.

 

The learning curve has been steep

With only a single dry run, we were experimenting on the hoof and the quality was, to be honest, variable.  We found Zoom produces high-quality audio but lower grade video, though better than Teams. And we hadn’t worked out how to record with just the interviewee and not the interviewer on screen. We’ve since discovered a fix in Zoom.

Part of the journey has been to bust comfort zones and consciously drop the quality bar in exchange for simple, affective storytelling.  Online and traditional broadcast media were well ahead of comms teams in getting this. We were all used to stuttery live Skype feeds and up-nose laptop angles on the TV news even pre-Covid.

 

Being content rebels to our own self-imposed rules is liberating and fun

It’s also yielded results. In August, we produced our most viral video ever, using content entirely sourced from frontline responders. We collaborated with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) who kindly shared the audio from a real 999 call by a 17-year-old called Alfie, who had become separated from his paddleboard off the North Wales coast and, in his own words, was drowning.

 

The power of story driving tangible outcomes

Our editor spliced the nerve-shredding conversation between a terrified teenager and a super-humanly calm call-handler with footage from the HM Coastguard helicopter and our Abersoch lifeboat to tell the story of his rescue. Alfie’s life was saved thanks to carrying a means of calling for help – his phone in a waterproof pouch – one of our key safety messages.

With the MCA, we used the film to promote a giveaway of 7,000 free pouches. All were snaffled within 24 hours: the power of story driving potential lifesaving.  If that’s not a tangible outcome, I don’t know what is.

Of course, not everyone has access to helmet cams or national TV shows to share their stories. But most of us have readymade tools like Teams and Zoom, as well as our trusty smartphones, at our fingertips to create viable and engaging content in response to fast-changing events.

As ever it’s the story that counts not the way you tell it. So, go on and tell it.

 

Mike Carhart-Harris, Case Study Manager, RNLI

@mcarhartharris

 

“The guys at Alive understand the complexities of our business which means we don’t need to explain the detail of every project or design piece – they’re already on it, which keeps things moving and delivers the results we need.”

Emily Stoten — Head of Marketing, Selecta

“I feel like they own and care for the project as much as we do! I would not use anyone else for my creative work and think Alive is ahead of the game.”

Jo Hobbs — Communications Manager

“Thanks for all your help. We are delighted with the campaign, both in terms of the creativity and messaging but also the thought taken over the rollout of the materials. All looks absolutely fabulous!”

Sarah Crowdy — Campaign and Media Officer Communications, South East Water

“We went to ‘Alive’ for ideas on how to run a specific employee program in Europe. Alan and his team were brilliant in coming up with fresh, creative and practical approaches. The team took charge and executed brilliantly. We are pleased with the progress made so far and hope to have the same level of partnership and commitment going forward.”

Sobha Varghese — Tata Consultancy Services

“‘The short animation developed in co-production with clinicians and young people is outstanding! Informative, developmentally appropriate, vitally fun and engaging. We are really grateful for the expertise of the Alive with Ideas team for their innovative approach in building children’s health literacy.'”

Kath Evans — Director of Children’s Nursing at Barts Health

“Our mission was to update the DASA brand visuals to better reflect our innovative and forward-thinking organisation. After receiving numerous pitches from different branding agencies, Alive stood out with their clear passion and understanding of our identity and goals. We thoroughly enjoyed working with the Alive Team who provided expert guidance and injected some much needed creativity into the project; resulting in an accessible and engaging new brand that we are immensely proud of.

Thank you again for all the work you have done with us!”

Lianne Springer — Communications and Engagement Lead - Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA)

“Alive wowed us during the pitch process and they didn’t stop wowing us throughout the whole project. Every person we worked with at Alive were so friendly, knowledgeable and clearly passionate about what they do. They have worked with us to really understand what we do and have created a new brand and website that really stands out from our competitors. Thank you!”

Louise Burnard, Head of Marketing and Communications UK — Be | Shaping the Future

“I think the team have done such a brilliant job, particularly with responding to our requests. It's one of the best mental health videos I've ever seen. Very proud to be associated with your exemplary work. Thank you so much.”

Dr Anna Batho — Clinical Psychologist – Critical Care, UCLH

“We have worked with Alan, Caroline and the wider Alive With Ideas team for many years. In that time, they have provided a dedicated service that is second to none. We appreciate their attention to detail and creative approach to bringing our brand, communications and stories to life. And would recommend them to anyone looking for creative communications support.”

Georgia Beech — Internal Communications Specialist, Ocado Group

“This is brilliant. I wanted to give my heartfelt thanks to all of the team who worked on this. You all understood exactly what we wanted to communicate and why, and then managed to do it in a way that was far better than anything I could have imagined. I’m a bit choked up to be honest!”

Sarah Wright, Head of Communications and Campaigns — NEA

“Each time I work with the team, I am always stunned at the effort and creativity that goes into each detail and am always eager for the end result. The team is extremely accommodating and always provide a fresh approach to our projects that elevates our communications materials!”

Alana Khaytin, Communications Specialist — Braskem America

“What I really appreciate about Alive is that they work with us as partners, and care as much about getting it right for our patients as we do.”

Sara Langston, Patient Engagement & Marketing Manager — italk

“Alive are unique in how much they deeply listen and invest in you and your ideas. I have not come across a company that listens as much as they do to ensure your needs are understood and met (actually - they always exceed my needs and expectations). Everyone I recommend Alive to has an equally brilliant experience. When you work with Alive, you are not only getting some genius creativity brought into your life, you are also hanging out with some of the best examples of human beings I’ve ever known.”

Steph Tranter, Hybrid Exec Coach & Psychologist — StephTranter.com

“Alive helped us create a video of our response to the floods of winter 2019. Our Chief Officer received messages from all round the country praising us for it and was really pleased with both the video and the response to it.”

Alexander Mills, Communications Manager — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“Alive were professional, friendly and great to work with. Most importantly they were creative, helping us to bring an extremely important safety campaign to life.”

Jack Grasby — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“The (Alive) team were able to creatively pull together and document (in just over 2minutes) everything our service has achieved over the last few months, from thousands of prescriptions deliveries to hundreds of phone calls made to the vulnerable. The final product was so powerful and reflective of what our service has and continues to achieve. It couldn’t have been better received within the service – thanks Alive for once again helping us to communicate our vision!’”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire & Rescue

“We worked with the team at Alive to create our staff recognition video.
At a time like this, its never been more important to share the amazing work that our staff have done and continue to do on a daily basis under very difficult circumstances. We wanted to shout about this and recognise that when the time came, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue stepped up to the plate. We didn’t want an ordinary thank you post on social media or a basic email sent out internally, we wanted something special. Enter Alive. ”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“This looks amazing - brought a smile to my face scrolling through it :-)”

Jack Ford, Head of Marketing — streamGO

“Our company is fun, we have great brands, but most importantly we’re all about our people – and I wanted an agency who would understand that and help us bring it to life through our website and other comms. Straight away I felt that Alive ‘got’ us and provided the creative inspiration exactly where we needed it, as well as the technical expertise to deliver a well-functioning website.”

Keren McCarron, Head of Corporate Affairs & Communications — KP Snacks

“Boom!
Thank you so much. Incredible work done at incredible speed by incredible people.
Outstanding work as ever and what a turnaround. As for the concepts – wow. These are that good it would be an insult to describe them as just good. It’s a joke, quite frankly. This is exactly the Alive effect I was after. Right now I feel like I am living in an Alive With Ideas wonderland. Thank you!”

Jack Grasby, Campaigns Manager — SYFR

“If you are looking to improve creativity and build teamwork, I highly recommend a session like this for your team. No matter where you are in your creativity journey, a workshop like this can give your team a boost of energy and ideas to invigorate their creative thinking.”

Amy Lilja, IC Manager — Hennepin Healthcare

“Alive were there to help when we were working every hour to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. They gave us the creativity, ideas and support we needed to deliver campaigns which empowered our residents in the most difficult time most of us have ever seen, personally and professionally. The team understood what we needed, worked closely with us and delivered fast without any compromise on quality. Working with Alive has been a joy in the darkest of times and I have no doubt will have helped to save lives. Thanks team x”

Julie Odams, Assistant Director of Communications & Customers — Derbyshire County Council

“We got 'Alive' involved to help us shift mindsets across our organisation and they delivered! Using simple, clear and creative ideas the team have delivered us a campaign which has seen a dramatic increase in idea sharing and development. They’ve also played a significant role in creating a culture of shared success. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with again, in fact, we already are!”

Gavin Buckle — B&Q
Alive logo