A Cambridgeshire police crime-reduction campaign has won a national award.

The Get Closer campaign, which tackled shoplifting, saw off competition from national campaigns for American liqueur Southern Comfort and Channel 4 in the “data and planning” category of the Brand Republic Future 5 Awards.

The short-listed campaigns were put to a public vote and the force produced a video, published on its YouTube page and featuring Detective Chief Superintendent Jeff Hill, to promote the bid.

The campaign highlighted the use of shoplifting analysis, which identified two main types of thief - prolific and juvenile, first-time offenders – as well as the goods being stolen and from which shops.

Banners and posters were positioned in shop entrances and shelf-edge artwork in aisles where the most commonly stolen goods were being taken.

The analysis also indicated juvenile first-time offenders usually achieved good grades and shoplifted for fun, so advertising was placed on toilet doors in schools.

Facebook advertising was targeted at pupils in schools with the most offenders and radio adverts were broadcast during the school run saying “it doesn’t matter how many A*s you get, no one wants to employ a thief”.

All the key crime trends identified by the campaign fell during 2012/13.

Chief Constable Simon Parr added: “This is a fantastic achievement for a police force on a limited communications budget that was up against nationally-recognised brands such as Channel 4 and Southern Comfort.

“The Get Closer campaign is about making sure we get the right crime prevention messages out at the right time in a targeted way so people can take action and make life as hard as possible for criminals.”