Lawtons Law – Digital PR campaign of the month

The idea

Bike theft has hit an all time high in the past year but shockingly few thieves are actually prosecuted. Distinctly identified a topical digital PR opportunity for their client, Lawtons Law, to highlight this rising issue.

Distinctly identified that the problem was particularly prevalent in London, with half of the top ten worst areas being London boroughs. After collating recent crime statistics from the Metropolitan Police and combining them with local authority recorded crime figures, Lawtons was able to provide practical advice on what victims of bike theft should do and how to increase the chances of recovering your bike. 

The Process

In order to create an authoritative story that would appeal to our target media list, Distinctly crunched the data revealing bike theft statistics up to September 2020. The data encompassed the first 6 months of covid restrictions and the peak spring/summer cycling season. Having collated the data, we were then able to display this information as a heat map, giving the campaign a visual element to make it more appealing to journalists. The visual assets included Lawtons’ website helping journalists add the correct link back to Lawtons’ London page.

Once we analysed the data, we produced a press release identifying the boroughs with the greatest increase in bike theft. This gave us our first target media list followed by contact with local London press, cycling magazines, cycling associations, transport and crime news.

Results

The promotion of the story in March earned Lawtons Law 20 pieces of coverage with 11 links back to their London office page. This included coverage in SW London, Local London and Wimbledon Guardian and cycling publications such as Cadence Magazine and Bike Biz. Our campaign has meant that we can now be reactive to further bike theft cases being reported, continually promoting Lawtons’ expertise and their findings to earn relevant and authoritative results.