'Hate Hurts' tackling hate crime marketing campaign 2024: evaluation report - September 2025

4. Campaign creative and channels

The total budget for the campaign was £389,690 (across two financial years) to cover development, production, usage, public relations, website, partnerships and paid-for media.

As noted, the campaign creative focussed on educating the audience on the different forms that hate crime can take, driving home the devastating impact that it has and encouraging reporting, with the call to action ‘if you witness a hate crime to report it’.

The campaign creative consisted of a long version of the ’Hate Hurts’ film as well as short version edits depicting varying characteristics protected under the hate crime law. Alongside this were various outdoor executions, social media and digital assets.

40” Film: Hate Hurts - 40 Second Film

Media

The campaign ran for three weeks from 11-31 March across outdoor, digital and social media channels as well as video-on-demand.

PR and Partnerships

The paid-for media activity was supported by PR and partnership marketing to extend the reach of the campaign.

PR focussed on messaging and content that educated the audience about what hate crime is, what it can look like and the impact it can have. It also encouraged those who have witnessed or experienced a hate crime to report it and aimed to increase awareness of the different ways in which people can do so, including directly to Police Scotland or through a third-party reporting centre.

As part of the PR work, content was created in partnership with Police Scotland.

Film in partnership with Police Scotland - Hate Crime - Report it to stop it

Campaign materials were shared with a targeted stakeholder list of 379 contacts via email communication achieving a direct partner open rate of 27% and a partner forward rate of 23%. This resulted in partners downloading a total of 644 assets. Stakeholders contacted included all libraries across Scotland, Health Boards, Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue, Community Centres, Public Health Scotland and the Local Authority Communications Network and Education. The campaign was also shared with the Scottish Government’s Hate Crime Strategic Partnership Group.

Alongside this, key partnerships were developed with universities across Scotland which carried the messaging on campus as well as on their social media channels and key transport partners such as ScotRail, First Bus, Citylink and Edinburgh Trams all of whom were key in sharing messaging across their online platforms as well as carrying printed materials, extending the reach of the campaign messaging by over 500,000 people.

Website

People who saw the campaign were directed to safer.scot where dedicated pages were hosted on hate crime. These outlined hate crime legislation in Scotland, detailed the various in ways in which you can report a hate crime (whether that be to the Police, anonymously through Crimestoppers or via a third party reporting centre) and provided a dedicated section on where to get support if you are the victim of a hate crime - listing 25 different support organisations and their contact details.