News | PPC106

As the weather turned colder, press attention invariably shifted to the critters – cockroaches, fleas and the like – that decided to move into homes and businesses for the winter.

Regional newspapers across the country covered stories from BPCA on a range of insect pests in the last quarter of the year, helping push out key messages about pest awareness and broadening understanding of the value of professional pest management.

Top 3 headlines:

• Vampire flea hell for Brits
  Daily Star
• Prepare for Boom Town Rats
  British Farmer & Grower (South East)
• ‘Bloodthirsty’ squirrel attacks 18 people in a small Welsh village in a two-day Christmas rampage
  Evening Standard

Articles to date: 476

Circulation: 926,716,391

BPCA continued to hit the headlines nationally, with mentions in the Daily Express and World News, amongst others.

There was plenty of coverage for ‘Six signs you may have fleas in your home’ followed later in November with ‘False black widow sightings on the rise’, ‘Beware the heat-loving pharaoh ant’ and ‘Top five tips to stop rats and mice this winter’ featured in December.

BPCA’s focus on sector-specific titles also proved successful through the latter part of the year, with coverage in titles across the food chain from farmers and growers, to processors and producers.

In the autumn, press releases issued to the regional and national press focused on raising awareness around fleas, zoonosis in rats and mice, false widow spiders, cockroaches, pharaoh ants and red spider mites with an article on woodlice finishing off our planned PR for the year. 

While false widow spiders was a hot topic in The Sun, the BPCA’s press release about the ‘six signs of fleas’ also gathered plenty of coverage.

BPCA’s focus on sector-specific titles also proved successful through the latter part of the year, with coverage in titles across the food chain from farmers and growers, to processors and producers.

However, reporters at the Daily Mirror and the Daily Star must have been getting in the mood for Halloween; both reported on ‘vampire fleas’ in their headlines.

And other journalists enjoyed some alliteration in their headlines, with both ‘pesky pests’ and ‘pesky pigeons’ in December and a savage squirrel who claimed the final headlines of the year after ‘terrorising’ 18 people in Wales.

As well as targeting the regional and national press, some of our general awareness articles were adapted to specific markets, so pharaoh ants had a version for hospitals and bakeries, while cockroaches were tailored to the hospitality sector.

This approach helps underpin the value of professional pest management in different sectors, and resulted in requests for in-depth articles from sector-specific titles including:

• Country Smallholding
• Facilitate Magazine
• Tomorrow’s Cleaning.

Read all about it!

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