Casestudy:Courageousleadershipacrossfournations

The Black Leadership Group (BLG) chose 21 March 2024 for its annual conference, the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Tracks, Trails and Threads: Courageous Leadership in a Fractured World was designed to bring people together in each nation of the United Kingdom and beyond, to discuss and shape actions for an anti-racist society and ethnic equity for all. In BLG’s own words, the event needed to be “much more than a talking shop; it would be a platform for progress.”

The Board created a format that matched that ambition. Five physical venues ran across the UK alongside a virtual event, with some sessions shared by every audience at once and others running as breakouts in their own locations and online. All made possible by a tech-enabled link-up.

Branagh PR was commissioned to provide the communications strategy and its delivery, covering the marketing of the event, support for the organisers and the promotion of outcomes.

Building the audience

The marketing task was a UK-wide campaign on a defined budget, aimed at senior audiences. BLG wanted headteachers, FE chief executives and vice-chancellors from higher education in the room, alongside employers, industry bodies, HR professionals and people working in diversity, equity and inclusion.

The strategy segmented those audiences and drove tailored content through the channels that reach them. Work was organised around what each audience needed to do next. Some were being asked to buy a ticket. Others were approached to sponsor or partner the event, while a wider group was equipped to pass the word on. Content was pitched by role. A piece on the HR manager’s part in moving from DEI to anti-racism, for example, went to HR-titled audiences through targeted comms.

Delivery ran off a conference comms timeline and regular content meetings, working across paid, earned, shared and owned media.

A single conference narrative, setting out the detail, themes and background, became the source for everything that followed. It was written up as a press release built so editors could take as much or as little as their word counts allowed, then used to pitch journalists for coverage or for a tailored feature.

The same narrative fed social posts with visuals for LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, advertising in FE News, boosted social activity, a news item on the BLG website and three newsletters reaching members, affiliated organisations and stakeholders. Partners and members were given shareable content for their own channels, and the sponsorship offer was revised and put back out to companies. Two sponsors came in, worth £6,500.

Earning the platform

The clearest example of earned media doing its job came with an article by Lord Simon Woolley, the keynote speaker, published in People Management under the headline “HR professionals can lead in embedding an anti-racism culture.”

It put the conference’s argument in front of exactly the audience BLG wanted, on Lord Woolley’s terms. “If we have the power and influence to effect change, ethically we are duty bound to use it,” he wrote. “This may be a tough message for some, but it is something I firmly believe.” He was candid about what the work asks of an organisation. “Is it difficult to become an anti-racist organisation? Yes, it can be an uncomfortable journey.”

He grounded the case in evidence, citing a Catalyst survey of more than 5,000 employees from marginalised racial and ethnic groups across six countries. Six or seven in every 10 had met racism during their career, and around half were facing it in their current role. His conclusion was an invitation. “Anti-racism ultimately brings people closer together.”

The article closed on his book, SOAR: My Journey from Council Estate to the House of Lords, which he spoke about in opening the conference.

An unforgettable event

This was an event well worth the effort it took. It gave an argument about racism at work a platform in every nation of the United Kingdom, on a date the world set aside for exactly that purpose, and it sent people home with something to act on rather than only something to think about. Branagh PR was glad to help make it happen, and flattered that the client trusted us with a job that carried this much weight.