British Heart Foundation

The heart health charity has enlisted former footballer Vinnie Jones to help it spread the message that people who aren't trained in administering the kiss of life should use chest compression instead

Former footballer Vinnie Jones appears in a video for the British Heart Foundation

What is it?

The British Heart Foundation has launched a health awareness campaign that suggests that people who aren't trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, should just administer chest compressions to try to save the life of someone who has had a heart attack, rather than trying to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

What have they done with it?

The mainstay of the campaign is a humorous advert and an instructional film featuring the former footballer Vinnie Jones demonstrating how to administer CPR. It tells people to administer chest compressions to the beat of the Bee Gees song Stayin’ Alive. The adverts will be run on national television during January and can be found on the video-sharing website YouTube. The charity has paid for the hashtag #hardandfast – the advert says chest compressions must be done "hard and fast" when someone has had a heart attack – to be listed as a promoted item among the trending topics on Twitter. It also paid for its content to appear as promoted material among Google searches.

Watch the video here:


Why have they done it?

"We had known for some time that one of the barriers to people to carrying out CPR was a reluctance to do the mouth-to-mouth aspect of it, particularly among people who are not trained," a spokesman for the charity said. "New evidence has emerged about the value of just doing chest compressions; even if people do not do the mouth-to-mouth part, the chest compressions are still valuable and can keep people alive until emergency help arrives."

Who is behind it?

The creative agencies Grey and Glue worked on aspects of the advert and the media agency PHD dealt with media buying.

Third Sector verdict

The advert works well and gets its message across in a funny, yet memorable way. The campaign was trending on the Twitter site when it was first launched earlier this week, which is good sign of success, and the charity boosted it by paying for its hashtag #hardandfast to be promoted the site. Tweets from some people using the hashtag  - " Am In the only one thinking bedroom?", for example - indicate they were expecting something different. But presumably some of them also clicked through to the video, which can only be good for the charity.

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