Organisers: British Red Cross, TikTok
What it is:
To increase awareness of basic first aid methods and to help reduce the strain on Britain’s National Health Service during lockdown, the British Red Cross teamed up with TikTok to create an instructional channel with short educational clips showing vital first aid skills. The channel is part of the #LearnOnTikTok programme launched by TikTok in 2020 and features contributions from popular TikTok doctors.
Why we like it:
The video campaign has one key message – that first aid is easy to learn, and that anyone can do it. The choice of a social media platform such as TikTok reinforces this notion of accessibility, suggesting that you really can learn the basics of first aid while scrolling idly through your phone. The participation of popular social media doctors is a great way of ensuring that the videos are fun, catchy, and understandable. Given that first aid is fundamentally so easy to understand, low awareness is the main obstacle to learning – and this eye-catching visual campaign was a great way of spreading knowledge.
PR Guru comment:
“This is great! There’s never enough good education in the field of first aid. These videos are clear, concise, and to the point – but most importantly, they clearly show that first aid is not complicated. They break down the biggest obstacle to people providing help: the feeling that they don’t know exactly what to do, so they’d rather do nothing. And the form goes hand-in-hand with the message: uncomplicated and open to anybody, just like shooting a video for TikTok.
“I was slightly hesitant about the choice of platform – “TikTok is just full of challenges and dances, and is mainly watched by children,” whispered the Husák’s child – and the traditional offline “PRist” – in me. I wondered whether another channel might be more appropriate for the campaign. But last year’s data shows that over a third of TikTok users in the UK are aged 18-35 – hardly “small children”. And besides, children can save lives with quick reactions – unlike many adults, they tend not to doubt themselves, but to act. And first aid is really not complicated – a message underlined by the choice of platform."
– Daniela Chovancová
