A highly successful PR campaign: record number of new community first responders for the Dutch Heart Foundation

For many years, the Dutch Heart Foundation has worked to build and maintain a nationwide Six-Minute Zone – a network of community first responders and automated external defibrillators (AEDs) that can help people having a cardiac arrest within six minutes.

Maintaining this network requires sufficient numbers of trained volunteers and accessible AEDs across the country. Keeping the public aware of that need is crucial, and we worked closely with the Dutch Heart Foundation team to make that happen again.

Our starting point was research. Why? Because combining a compelling societal issue with fresh data creates a strong news story and increases media interest.

Together with the Dutch Heart Foundation, we explored how the Dutch public views CPR, their experiences with CPR training, the barriers preventing them from volunteering, and their overall knowledge of resuscitation.

The findings revealed a clear and newsworthy story. While one in four Dutch adults holds a valid CPR certificate, only 5% have registered as a community first responder. The main reason? An unfounded fear of doing something wrong during an emergency.

This insight became the foundation of the media strategy and provided a powerful narrative for the Dutch Heart Foundation’s press office to take to national media.

Alongside the media strategy, we prepared the organisation’s spokesperson through tailored media training, ensuring they were confident and ready for interviews across television, radio and print.

The call for more community first responders was impossible to miss. National media widely covered the campaign, including NOS, RTL Nieuws, Hart van Nederland and Trouw, putting the importance of community first responders firmly on the national agenda. More importantly, the campaign inspired immediate action.

Where the Dutch Heart Foundation would normally receive around 100 new volunteer registrations per day, the campaign generated more than 2,000 new registrations within just 48 hours – a record-breaking result.