Case study
Who says a low-budget campaign can’t dominate the news cycle?
pieces of coverage
secured across three years
national news articles
secured across three years
total campaign reach in 2024 alone
up from <100 million in 2022 (source: SimilarWeb)
video views
increase in eBook downloads
year-on-year
new high-profile partnerships
About the client
Parcel Pending by Quadient is a network of smart lockers across the UK that provide people with secure and convenient delivery and pick-up of parcels and other items.
Challenge
Quadient wanted to raise awareness of parcel lockers’ benefits across a broad spectrum of audiences: from consumers tired of unreliable deliveries, retailers seeking more customer options, to local authorities seeking to reduce traffic and improve the environment. But lockers aren’t exactly headline-grabbing, so our challenge was to create a campaign that would bring the locker story to life and make it feel urgent and relevant to multiple groups… and do all this on a tight budget.
Spark’s campaign has succeeded beyond our wildest expectations. We have seen and heard our message and offerings featured across almost all major national media – from This Morning and BBC Radio Five Live to The Financial Times and The Times. This media coverage, combined with wider collateral created by the marketing team, has supported sales conversations on the benefits of lockers and raised awareness of Parcel Pending by Quadient. We have a real opportunity to expand this campaign and look forward to generating even more great results.”
Claire Dodds, Senior Regional Content Manager for UK & Ireland at Quadient
Action
We started by shifting the spotlight from lockers to a problem they solve – doorstep parcel theft. But when we tried to find data on the scale of this issue, we discovered that it simply didn’t exist. So, we set out to create it ourselves and produced the first national dataset of its kind. To do this, we submitted an FOI request to every UK police force, then we combined the results with data from Citizens Advice, the ONS, and, in more recent years, independent consumer research, to map the scale of theft across regions and quantify its financial impact.
Since our first FOI in 2022, we have evolved our survey and sliced the data in different ways, from calculating the size of the UK’s “porch piracy” economy, to pinpointing the worst-hit areas, most-targeted types of residence, and most common times of day for theft. We told a big national story with local angles and all the stats journalists needed, alongside case studies showing the human impact of thefts.
Each year, the campaign launched ahead of Black Friday, when the media is primed for stories about parcels and delivery pressure. Tailored pitches for national, regional, broadcast and trade press tapped into each audience’s specific interests.
With Quadient’s marketing team, we extended the impact across channels with blogs, video, whitepapers and infographics, making this not just a PR campaign, but a lead-gen engine.
Impact
Over three years, the campaign generated 88 pieces of media coverage, spanning national news, broadcast, regional and trade titles – including The Financial Times, Daily Mail, BBC Radio 5 Live, ITV’s This Morning, ITV Evening News, and BBC Rip Off Britain. Media reach grew year-on-year, climbing from under 100 million in 2022 to over 1.7 billion in 2024 (SimilarWeb metric), with coverage continuing to drive inbound interest from journalists and stakeholders.
The campaign helped spark a national conversation around parcel theft, prompting social engagement from high-profile figures including Rylan Clark and Kirstie Allsopp. It also led to public guidance being issued by Avon & Somerset Police. On social channels, the campaign drove 2,600+ video views, 219 LinkedIn interactions, and a notable uplift in awareness and engagement with Quadient’s locker proposition.
Most importantly, the campaign helped position lockers as a mainstream delivery solution. eBook downloads tripled, with confirmed engagement from leading retailers and delivery companies. Quadient has since been selected as a partner by Royal Mail – which featured a locker in its 2024 Christmas advert – and by Morrisons Daily. The campaign also went on to win ‘Best B2B Campaign’ at the 2024 PRCA Awards.
