Inspiring Action With An Animated Social Media Campaign
350,000 people live within the Borough of Cheshire West and Cheshire. Many more travel into or through it each day. The Council wanted an active conversation with the public about the future of transport, especially in an “underheard” audience - people who don’t typically, or ever, interact with them. To help Tell It Better, we devised a series of short, catchy videos for social media to get the attention of Gen Z, the elderly and everyone in between.
The opportunity
The Council had created their manifesto for their vision of the future of transport in the borough of Cheshire West and Chester. They wanted to hear the thoughts and opinions of the people who live there, and travel through it each day. A series of 4 in-person meetings were to be delivered across the region to give more information and collect feedback from the public. How could we inspire as many people as possible and get them to these meetings?
There was also a very specific audience. People who don’t usually, or ever, get in touch with the council. Nevermind debate them on their transport policy. How could we get feedback from the under 18’s predominantly using buses. How could we collect feedback from people with socioeconomic difficulties who walked to work or used cycle paths? This was the challenge presented to us, and the crux of our winning bid.
What we did
The thinking for anything social media marketing is that it needs to be short and snappy. It’s not an incorrect theory, but people will give their attention to longer durations. The key to social marketing is to have an extremely powerful hook. Something that grabs their attention by the scruff of the neck, makes them stop and think “huh” or “wow”. It doesn’t call them to action, it rallies them.
We created 5 short animations for social media that threw a big, weighty statement at them. Something like “transport is one of the biggest polluters in our borough”. Then we resolved this for them stating a goal or target. Finally asking them for their insight, contribution, feelings. Have your say. Get involved. Let’s talk.
The outcome
This campaign delivered the highest levels of engagement ever for the Council on a project like this.
They received 400% (4x) the number of respondents they see on average.
Not only did they receive vastly more engagement from viewers and significantly more respondents to the campaign. Crucially they saw uptick in the types of responses they were targeting - their “underheard” communities. As such, the project was a great success.
Jack Hubert-Mayhew
Policy Lead
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