The annual Veterinary Marketing Association (VMA) awards is an event the Pinstone team look forward to every year as it is a high profile way to put a spotlight on client projects and initiatives that aim to help improve health and welfare of animals in the farming sector.
This time around, following a win and several highly commended results in 2024 , we had entries in two of the most hotly contested categories – the PR award and the integrated digital award.
It was as special an event as ever with the great and good from the animal health sector in attendance at the Royal Lancaster with guest host Matt Baker.
Award recognition
Pinstone’s entries this year were for long-term client, Elanco, as well as a collaborative entry for AHDB and Ruminant Health & Welfare (RH&W).
Getting a clean sweep, with both the highly commended entries in the PR category coming from Pinstone, was a proud moment and recognition of our work for Elanco and RH&W. Our success continued in the integrated digital category, with our bluetongue campaign for RH&W and AHDB also earning the highly commended award.
PR campaign snap shots
In partnership with independent livestock health information service, NADIS, Elanco launched the Blowfly Watch service to equip sheep farmers with real-time localised blowfly risk warnings. The campaign combined digital strategies with earned media to maximise awareness and drive preventative action using CLiK., a well-established Elanco brand.
Elanco’s Blowfly Watch campaign was launched with an online, targeted press briefing, followed by geo-targeted press releases delivered as blowfly risk alerts updated throughout the season, ensuring timely, regionalised coverage.
This approach kept regional media engaged and local farmers informed, helping them to act preventatively at the optimum time.
Online, Elanco used clear impactful messaging to deliver live risk alerts via Elanco and NADIS’ websites, email, Google display and YouTube Ads, Facebook and X, making timely preventative advice easily accessible. Elanco’s distributors were also provided with social media assets and pre-drafted posts to encourage their own customers to sign up for the service.
Digital tools were optimised for geo-targeting to reach the right farmers at the right time as the risk was updated, to inform prompt and effective on-farm decision-making. The team further enhanced reach through SEO optimisation of YouTube content and strategic ad placement.
The Ruminant Health & Welfare – bluetongue campaign was to raise awareness of the new strain of bluetongue, and the emerging UK BTV-3 outbreak situation, providing urgent updates and guidance to ruminant owners through a reactive, collaborative and coordinated multi-channel campaign. Success was measured by the number of stakeholders who engaged with the campaign and cascaded information to their networks.
Digital channels were used to provide quick-paced updates and a depth of information people can engage with, from online webinars to digital PR and social, responding to the situation as it developed. Success was measured via targeted website traffic to the bluetongue hub, webinar registrations and media impressions.
The campaign key messages to farmers and their vets throughout the campaign remained three-fold – and also used ‘BTV’ as an acronym:
- Beware when buying animals in,
- Take action to report any signs, and always, remain
- Vigilant and monitor livestock closely
Messaging with strong calls to action was framed with urgency, empowering the farming community to ACT decisively through:
- Awareness of vector-borne transmission
- Caution against misinformation
- Tactics to protect their livestock from midges with the limited options available.
Team effort
Nina Stewart – who works at Pinstone and is part of the RH&W communications team – said:
“A huge amount of work goes into entering the VMAs behind the scenes to ensure all our entry boards pop visually, as well as making it super easy to show judges our campaign SMART objectives and the impact made.
“We feel passionate about the animal health sector – who doesn’t – so we are really proud to have this opportunity to package up all the hard work we achieve together with our clients for awards like this.”
Strengthening livestock presence in vet awards
Pinstone marketing director, Hannah Lloyd, has been intrinsically involved in the awards for four years since joining the VMA committee and now looks forward to joining the board as vice chair.
Hannah who will be sitting alongside the new chair Will Peel who took over the role from Ian Morris at this year’s awards said:
“Given we live, breathe and work with livestock – at home and in the industry through many of our clients – I am delighted to be given this opportunity to join the VMA board and make my mark.
“I want to use this chance to bring more initiatives to the table that highlight the important work going on in the farming sector to the wider veterinary industry,” adds Hannah who lives on a mixed farm in rural Shropshire with her husband and children.
Follow Hannah on Linkedin to catch the latest news on the run up to the next VMAs.
