Childcare Offer for Wales – A Public Awareness Campaign

Freshwater was appointed by the Welsh Government to deliver a bilingual campaign to promote awareness and uptake of the Childcare Offer for Wales.

Freshwater was approached to develop an integrated campaign promoting the Childcare Offer for Wales. With the broad aim of encouraging more eligible parents to take up the offer – thereby returning to work and increasing their disposable income – the Welsh Government’s target was for 65% of eligible parents to apply for the Offer.

Freshwater identified two key audiences for the campaign: transactional and life-change. The transactional audience included parents of two to four-year-olds employed at least 16 hours a week and already accessing childcare. Communications with this audience would leverage awareness and make the Offer discoverable. The life-change audience was parents of the same age group who worked fewer than 16 hours and were unlikely to be using paid childcare. Freshwater sought to engage this audience emotively, raise awareness and provide practical information.

Freshwater based its campaign on the behavioural theory of “loss aversion”, motivating eligible parents to improve their financial status by claiming what was theirs. Freshwater also created a ‘What Would You Do?’ theme, asking children how they would spend extra cash each month.

Freshwater oversaw a high-impact four-month launch delivering tailored messaging to both audiences, using radio, television, cinema and digital advertising. Freshwater broadened its reach through blogger outreach and a toolkit for partners, including local authorities and childcare providers.

Within the first year of the campaign, Freshwater achieved excellent results, with eight Welsh counties hitting the government target of 65% or higher uptake. Wales Omnibus research showed that awareness of the Offer increased across Wales. In the launch month alone, over 600,000 impressions were achieved across all media channels.