23 June 2021
Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) is Australia's peak coastal water safety, drowning prevention and rescue authority. It is the nation’s largest volunteer organisation and one of the largest volunteer movements in the world.
SLSA is a not-for-profit that was established in 1907 and has 315 Surf Life Saving Clubs and over 186,000 members across the nation.
Each year these volunteers contribute 1.4 million hours patrolling Australia’s coastline, perform over 10,000 rescues and over 1.6 million preventative actions.
Ahead of the 2019/2020 Patrol Season, SLSA and their state entities recognised that member retention and volunteer numbers may be even more difficult due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the nature of their business.
As such, they had an increased focus on membership retention and recruitment and made the decision to work together to create a single campaign that could be rolled out nationally.
A working group with communications and marketing representatives from all state entities and SLSA was established with all parties having the opportunity to have input into the campaign theme, design and delivery during the regular meetings.
The working group’s main focus was on the campaign creative direction and elements, as well as the channels for communication and promotion.
The collaborative nature ensured efficiencies across all organisations through the combining resources and reduction in both duplication and costs. It also enabled a single consistent message, “call to action” and destination for members (or potential members) to either sign-up or find further information.
Surf Life Saving NSW (SLSNSW) had already begun planning for the next patrol season at the time the working group was formed and shared their initial plans based off research they had conducted at the end of the previous season.
Their research, designed to retain and attract new members as well as improve their membership offerings and services, involved a desktop review, numerous workshops and a psychosocial priorities survey of members.
Key findings included that SLSNSW Club’s were generally considered inclusive and family oriented, with a strong sense of community, camaraderie, and a culture of respect.
The research also indicated that SLSNSW could have delivered activities or services differently to help retain some members. There was a requirement for greater flexibility and for new ways to engage and support members.
When SLSNSW presented their initial thoughts and findings, all state entities agreed, had similar feedback, and could see value in their early thinking and plans.
Taking on board the research findings, then combining this with the overall recognition and agreement that surf clubs are often a hub for local communities, particularly during COVID-19 times; the working group determined that the key theme and tag line for the campaign would be “our club is your club”.
The overall concept was centred around surf clubs being an open and inclusive place. A place where anyone and everyone can have a place and/or role in the surf life saving family.
The campaign aimed to instill both a sense of belonging and pride through various creative collateral with messages like “our club is your club” or “my club is your club” (depending upon the photo attached to the creative i.e. one or two people) to drive home the message that surf clubs are an integral part of Australian communities.
SLSNSW had the resources, capacity and desire to take the lead with the development of the video, photography and graphic design collateral, with each of the states providing input into the type of photos and stories that would best suit their locations, members and clubs.
The collateral created included:
You can view the collateral from the campaign on the SLSNSW dropbox page.
The marketing assets were filmed and photographed at generic locations to make them applicable across all state entities and were created in a way that provided individual clubs the opportunity to customise the various assets to suit their particular club i.e. interchange photo to make it club specific.
All collateral directed members (or potential members) to the same location i.e. single page on SLSA website that provided state specific information and link: www.sls.com.au/join/ , opens in a new tab
The campaign was formally released to the public on November 10, 2020 with a joint national media release and digital assets that were shared across each state and territory social media pages at an agreed launch time.
State entities then had the opportunity and flexibility to market and promote as they saw most appropriate, noting that budgets associated with the campaign were minimal and as such, much of the campaign rollout was via PR and digital owned channels.
SLSA and the states also worked within and across their own networks and stakeholders to access CSA space for the television and radio advertisements to further amplify the message and awareness where budgets didn’t permit.
The campaign was also featured as a part of the inaugural National Water Safety Day on December 1, 2020 at the Parliamentary Friends of Surf Life Saving function which received bi-partisan support and commendation.
Overall Membership numbers were largely retained, if not increased across all state entities.
SLSA Website landing page:
Please note that Social Media statistics and CSA placement was not available from all state entities and is therefore not included.
While only in its first year, the National Recruitment Campaign was deemed to be a success overall due to the member retention and growth across the state entities.
Equally as pleasing and successful was the collaboration between state entities in the development and execution of the campaign, the first time all have combined for a single membership and retention campaign.
The working group with representatives of seven state territories, as well as the national body, came together to determine, produce and deliver one campaign nationally in the challenging COVID-19 environment.
The development and execution were both efficient and effective with plans already underway for how this campaign can be refined and improved for the next patrol season.
The key take-out for improvement is to get to market earlier, as the patrol season had already started in most states by the time this inaugural campaign hit the market.
The working group determined that the key tag line, “our club is your club” will remain with plans to develop additional digital content and stories to help build on the initial awareness to help ensure that the retention and recruitment of volunteer surf lifesavers remains high in order to keep our Australian coastline safe.
If you’d like to know more about this initiative or connect with SLSA contact Michelle Bainbridge at mbainbridge@slsa.asn.au