Sainsbury's was keen to partner with radio to deliver their Christmas strategy of 'owning pantomime' across the country. The initial brief from PHD targeted specific areas based purely on how Sainsbury's allocated media agency could source pantomime tickets. From the original brief four of our stations fell into the catchment areas. Our challenge was to come up with a fantastic idea to increase our share and enhance engagement.

This brief was very straight forward. We could have answered it easily and won a smaller share of the business through pitching a simple pantomime based promotion across the four pre-selected Bauer stations (with the majority share going to our competitor). But, this was about winning a much bigger share, being creative and owning the campaign across Bauer.

Our first reaction to this brief was, 'could we include more stations if we sourced the tickets ourselves?' We contacted all our local stations to enquire about their relationships with local theatre/pantomimes. The feedback was outstanding; this enabled us to pitch the entire Bauer Place Portfolio.

We then developed a further strategy. Through our presenters direct involvement with the pantomimes we could enable Sainbury's to 'own' pantomime within every conurbation at a 'local' level. Our stations are engraved in the fabric of the community, our listeners are the pantomimes audiences and in many cases our presenters are the lead performers in the shows.

By integrating content and providing an opportunity that is community based you can really utilise the relationship that already exists been radio station and listener and add to that experience. Instead of the stranger you become a friend of a friend.