First PR Alliance Member, DOK30 Communicatie, which is based in The Netherlands, has won the Gold SABRE EMEA Award for best Benelux campaign. The SABRE EMEA Awards are handed out each year to the best PR and branding campaigns in the region and are organized by The Holmes Report.

An international professional jury selected DOK30 to be the 2019 Benelux winner. The award was won for a campaign the agency had run for a pressure group defending the interests of Dutch physiotherapists.

Next to the Sabre Award for best Benelux campaign, DOK30 Communicatie also won an IN2 Sabre Certificate of Excellence in the category of Best in Digital / Print Consumer Media (Earned). The IN2 SABRE Awards recognize superior content and innovation in PR campaigns that run in the EMEA region.

International recognition

“I am elated that we got to bring home no less than two awards,” says Sabine Steen-Lakerveld, owner of DOK30 Communicatie. “Our goal is to develop campaigns that make for changes in the market, with consumers and in society. I am proud that our novel, integrated approach to campaigning received international recognition.”

About the campaign

DOK30 Communicatie developed an integrated campaign in order to raise awareness for the ‘red tape’ Dutch physiotherapists have to deal with on a daily basis – at the detriment of both their own interests and their patients’ –  and move policy makers and insurance companies to introduce the necessary simplifications. By means of two high profile public statements, the strategic use of social media, the mobilization of both the physiotherapists and their patients, and the generation of a great amount of media attention, the Dutch agency managed to trigger a public debate on the issue at hand. The campaign also successfully targeted policy makers: several political parties ended up using the campaign’s points as ammunition to subject the Minister in charge to critical questions in Parliament.

Dutch DOK30 Communicatie is one of 16 global PR agencies that make up First PR Alliance. In the last few years, DOK30 has worked closely together with other First PR Alliance member agencies on important customer initiatives, including one in which it worked with a Finnish cybersecurity firm on a Benelux PR campaign (see our case study).