AskRose: Turning a pension scandal into a national conversation

AskRose helps people – predominantly women who took time out of work to raise their children – recover National Insurance credits they may have been entitled to but missed out on because of errors in HMRC records.

For those affected, the consequences can be significant. Missing Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) credits can mean a lower State Pension and, in some cases, thousands of pounds in pension payments and arrears at a time when household finances are already under pressure.

AskRose came to Lewis Lowery Communications with a powerful story to tell: tens of thousands of families could potentially be affected, and many may not even realise they are missing money from their State Pension.

Our challenge was to turn a complex pensions issue into a compelling mainstream media story – while making sure the people who could potentially benefit from AskRose's support could find out more.

We focused on the human impact behind the issue.

Rather than presenting the story simply as a technical problem with National Insurance records, we positioned it around the real-world consequences for mothers and grandmothers who had taken time out of employment to care for their children.

The campaign was built around a strong national news angle, supported by clear information about who could be affected and why it mattered.

We then targeted a broad range of national, Scottish and regional media, creating opportunities for the story to reach potential claimants across the UK.

A key part of the strategy was securing online coverage with links back to the AskRose website, allowing media interest to translate into a direct route for people wanting to find out whether they could be affected.

The results were exceptional for our first media campaign for AskRose.

The story generated more than 200 pieces of coverage, including prominent national coverage in the Daily Mirror, Daily Express and Daily Star, as well as The National, The Herald and GB News.

The campaign also achieved extensive regional coverage across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with stories appearing across the Newsquest network and Reach's regional titles.

Coverage included titles such as the Liverpool Echo, Lancashire Telegraph, Warrington Guardian, Glasgow Times, Eastern Daily Press, Western Telegraph, Northern Echo, Oxford Mail, Plymouth Live, Leeds Live, Bristol Live, KentLive, Newcastle Chronicle Live and many more.

The campaign delivered:

• 200+ pieces of media coverage
• National coverage in two major English newspapers
• Coverage in two Scottish national titles
• Regional coverage across every part of the UK
• More than 1.8 billion potential audience reach
• Multiple online stories featuring links back to the AskRose website

The breadth of coverage was particularly important. This wasn't simply a national story that reached a large audience; it became a genuinely nationwide campaign, with trusted egional newspapers and news sites giving the issue prominence in communities across the UK.

For AskRose, the campaign provided a huge increase as they reported spikes in both website visits and inbound enquiries.

Raising awareness of an issue that could have a direct financial impact on thousands of families was important - but making a tangible difference to our clients was vital. Our client described the impact as “astronomical”.

AI searches for reliable HRP claim gave the following response: “AskRose occupies a fairly unusual position: it is one of the few organisations that is both specifically built around the HRP problem and has accumulated substantial mainstream media exposure explaining it to the public.

And I think there's a useful distinction if you're asking this because you're considering “who would I trust if I were a pensioner looking for help?”: Editorial coverage is a much better reputational signal than Google rankings or claims-company testimonials.

For Lewis Lowery Communications, it demonstrated the power of combining a strong human-interest story with targeted national and regional media relations.

The coverage gave people who may have been affected a reason to stop, read, and investigate whether they were missing money from their State Pension.

And it made it clear that AskRose was an authoritative and trusted adviser.

Lewis Lowery Communications