Help Gran Stop Spam

Information Commissioner's Office

Millions of us are pestered by marketing calls every day. They’re a nuisance. But when the ICO found that companies were deliberately targeting people aged 65+, and they saw the impact of these calls, they knew they needed a new phrase. These weren’t nuisance calls, they were predatory calls.

That’s why the ‘Help Gran Stop Spam’ campaign was born, to empower people to protect themselves by reporting cold callers and registering with the TPS (the UK’s ‘do not call’ list), resulting in: - 15 companies fined a combined £1.3m - 10,000+ people signed up to the TPS - 48,000+ nuisance calls reported to us The Help Gran Stop Spam campaign is a stand-out example of public sector communications at its best. Even without big budgets, the campaign had a strong creative hook, integrated execution and – most importantly – delivered tangible benefits for the communities we serve. For all the outputs and outcomes, there's always something special when a friend says they saw your work on the telly (thanks Rip Off Britain) and spoke to their grandparents about registering with the TPS as a result. Ultimately, more than the stats and successes, that's what this campaign was about.