Foreign Office appoints Weber Shandwick for ‘Know Before You Go’ Campaign 

Weber Shandwick has been appointed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to implement its award-winning ‘Know Before You Go’ travel safety campaign.

The campaign aims to better prepare British nationals before they travel abroad, by providing helpful information and advice, in order to ultimately reduce the number of ‘preventable’ problems encountered. 

The year-round PR campaign targets all British travellers, but particularly aims to reach out to groups of travellers considered most at risk.  Key audiences Weber Shandwick will be engaging with their multiple campaigns include: British Minority Ethnic groups; C2DE travellers; those travelling to watch sport e.g. football fans; older travellers, including those visiting friends and family and those thinking about living abroad, as well as younger travellers including those considering gap years. 

The account will be led by Emma Thompson, director in Weber Shandwick’s consumer practice.  In response to the specific brief reaching key audiences, the agency team is made up of a combination of consumer and digital experts as well as team members from MCC, Weber Shandwick’s multi-cultural practice. Weber Shandwick was appointed following a four-way pitch.

Emma Thompson commented, “I genuinely believe that Know Before You Go is one of the best government communication campaigns around, so we are delighted to have the chance to work with the FCO to help the campaign go from strength to strength.  Whilst some may think that travel safety messages are not the most exciting to deliver, the campaign’s challenge is to constantly find innovative and creative ways to deliver these messages and most importantly in a relevant way that will really drive behavioural change. Our integrated, inline approach and audience specialists mean that Weber Shandwick is ideally placed to deliver against this challenge – we’re looking forward to it.”

The campaign also works with nearly 300 travel industry partners to communicate its messages. 

For more information please visit www.fco.gov.uk/travel