CEGB Nuclear Power

We won the business against pitches from four of Britain's largest agencies.

The brief was to support the CEGB nuclear power stations and their staff and to counteract the mass criticism of nuclear power directly following the Chernobyl disaster. A tough order.

After extensive research AJD concluded that there was no value in emphasising the relative merits of cheap electricity from nuclear power, in a situation where people were in fear for their lives and their health. We therefore recommended that the campaign objective was to counter concern about the safety of CEGB reactors, explaining clearly what is involved in the generation of electricity from nuclear power and why the process is fundamentally a safe one. The creative stance had to be a straight, factual, 'public information' approach.

The CEGB's own research by Gallup produced an awareness level for the campaign of 46% and definitely changed people's perceptions of nuclear power. It also achieved one of our other objectives and that was lifting the morale of the workforce, which following Chernobyl was exceedingly low.

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