An Award Winning Year : Cubs100

It is always good to work on a successful long term project but even better when the outcome is recognised by others. In 2016 I worked with the Scout Association media team on their campaign to promote the 100th anniversary of the start of Cub Scouts in the UK. This week that project was awarded Communications Campaign of the Year in the prestigious Third Sector Awards.

It was an exciting and demanding year for all of us. I covered a number of the events that were organised for Cubs, starting with a launch at the ZSL London Zoo with the Cubs working with some of the animals and having a sleepover in the Insect House. This was a brilliant event for the young people but with all of the usual challenges of working with children and animals in an environment that we had little control over. Working around excited Cubs and inquisitive penguins gave me the opportunity to get shots that were used in national and local media outlets to promote the start of the birthday celebrations.

Later in the year I covered a Cub Scout meeting in East Anglia where The Duchess of Cambridge joined the young people for their weekly meeting. It was clear that this was going to generate a significant amount of media interest and for us the challenge was about ensuring that the pictures circulated were as “on brand” as possible. Having worked with the Duchess on previous occasions we knew that in addition to me getting some great shots the trick was for the team to manage the content and to get our approved pictures out on social media as fast as possible. More details of the process in another blog but it was an extremely successful evening with my pictures being used across a large number of outlets including national press and another spread in Hello! magazine. A really successful evening with some very excited Cub Scouts, a relaxed Duchess, some great pictures and a very happy client.

The campaign year ended with a media event at the Natural History Museum. A brilliant location for a Cub Scout meeting in the huge Hintze Hall just before it was closed for renovation and “Dippy” started his new career. Again this was a real photographic challenge, the hall is normally well lit but this event was timed for live input into breakfast TV programmes. We started work before dawn and the only light was provided by some architectural lighting and the occasional lights added by the TV crews. Pushing the camera speed and adding a bit of flash meant that I was able to get some quite dramatic shots.

What a great campaign year and the award was a tribute to all of the hard work by the Scout Association’s media team and their volunteers.

If you want to know more about how to plan and run a successful anniversary media campaign have a look at Simon Carter’s guest blog at Zoe Amar Communications.