HOW A SCRIPT THAT WAS TURNED DOWN BY THE NHS AND PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND BECAME THE BIGGEST ‘MEDIA ROADBLOCK’ IN ADVERTISING HISTORY

You have probably seen the finished film that the health communication bureaucracy turned down. More than 10 million people saw it on Thursday 18th February when it was simultaneously broadcast on ITV, Sky, Channel 4, Channel 5 and eight other commercial channels as well. As well as being splashed all over the BBC, who couldn’t run the full 3½ minute film for legal reasons.

It was the launch of #TakeTheVaccine featuring 24 ethnic celebrities puncturing the myths stopping many in those communities from taking the vaccine. The film, scripted by Adil Ray and Samir Ahmed, with opening titles and a closing slogan by myself, was very powerful.

Its back story is as follows: Adil and Samir were so frustrated by the NHS/PHE refusal to run the film that they produced their own 5-minute online version. They attracted 500,000 – one of which was mine. I first saw it on 4 February and thought: this brilliant film deserves a much bigger audience.

By good chance, I knew the heads of the BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4 well enough to ask them to run this 3½ minute film for free at peak time on their channels.

Which they did. And I even knew the CEO of Clear Channel well enough to be given 72m digital super posters on the Cromwell Road to promote the broadcast. The BBC provided endless coverage of the film, both on radio and television channels on the 18th (their charter forbade showing the actual 3½ minute commercial itself).

We had the media, but we still needed a finished film. For this to happen, we needed a great ad agency to put it all together. I happen to know one, called Engine – I founded it back in 2003.

A brilliant team took the raw iPhone footage and made it into broadcast quality. They rushed it through the television clearance, despite all sorts of controversial issues. And then they produced two blockbuster posters which ran in parallel on the Cromwell Road.