Latest Entries
Collaborative Change tackle social smoking
Collaborative Change have been working in close partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Health (MoH) and BBDO to design behaviour change communications for a particularly hard to reach group, young social smokers. As well as providing invaluable audience insights that were used to guide communications, the co-creation phase of the Collaborative Change process revealed a key challenge for the project, “how can we encourage people who don’t identify themselves as smokers, to quit smoking?
Collaborative Change worked closely with audience members, the MoH team and BBDO to translate this key challenge into an opportunity to break new ground—by changing the behaviours of an often overlooked group of smokers. The ‘Quit The Denial’ campaign, centred around a series of viral videos and a strong social media presence, aims to communicate one clear message—social smoking is still smoking.
The campaign, which compares ‘social’ smoking behaviours to a range of unflattering and ridiculous activities (farting, earwax picking, etc.), aims to reframe smoking behaviours in the minds of the audience and wider community—transforming social smoking from an acceptable and innocuous activity, into a social faux-pas.
Hailed by CNN as what might be “the best public service announcement ever…”, our work with the MoH and BBDO is a clear example of how powerful audience insights, co-creation principles and partnership working can transform a seemingly insurmountable challenge—encouraging “non-smokers” to quit—into an opportunity to effect real change amongst hard-to-reach audiences.
Friends don’t give friends Chlamydia!
Building on the success of the Collaborative Change fancyaquickie.org.uk and get-on-top.co.uk young person’s sexual health projects in the UK, the team have been working with Ontario Public Health and Rain 43 to develop a new approach to increasing Chlamydia screening rates across Toronto.
Placing co-design principles at the heart of intervention design, Collaborative Change worked with partner agencies and audience members to deliver insight work used to shape a new information campaign devoted to increasing the diagnosis and treatment of one of Canada’s most under-diagnosed sexually transmitted infections.
With more than 36,395 Ontarians contracting Chlamydia from a “friend” in 2011, the “Friends don’t give friends Chlamydia” campaign uses a series of short videos, posters located on college campuses, and a dedicated website to inform young adults about the disease and help them avoid the shame of passing it on to an unsuspecting partner.
As well as raising awareness of sexually transmitted infections, the scale of the issue, and the need to use barrier contraceptives with new partners—sign-posting to local sexual health services is also a key component of the communications, breaking down barriers to access and encouraging regular screening behaviour.
The project is one of two ‘showpiece’ campaigns presented as best practice by the Ontario Minister of Health at the 2013 World Social Marketing Conference.
Collaborative Change for Creative Industries
As part of our ongoing mission to make the power of co-design available to a wider range of practitioners, we have developed a Collaborative Change plug-in service specifically for design and advertising teams.
As the appetite for co-design strengthens amongst commercial brands and public sector organisations, creative agencies are looking for cost-effective ways of offering co-design to clients, without the risk and cost of building in-house capacity. We have recently undertaken a range of projects with North American advertising agencies and public sector bodies based on this exact model and are now looking to roll the same offer out to the UK creative community. Continue reading…
Collaborative Change on Innovation
We attended the Nesta roadshow in Manchester on the 8th November. Our Director, Steven Johnson was invited to comment on the nature of innovation and how Nesta could play a role in driving it forward.
Considered Creative: Ready for Launch!
We’d like to take this opportunity to share a sneak preview of a major new project we’re gearing up to launch over the next few months. Considered Creative is a manifesto, a rallying cry and a resource designed to galvanise the creative industries as a catalyst for positive social change.
In the run up to the D&AD White Pencil Symposium and awards evening on the 27th November, our Director, Steven Johnson was asked to write a piece for Creative Review outlining the significance of social change and sustainability for the advertising and creative industries. Part 1 of the article was published in Creative Review on 18 September, with the second available on the D&AD website. This post combines the full text from both parts. Continue reading…
D&AD White Pencil Symposium
Our Director, Steven Johnson, will be Chairing the D&AD White Pencil Symposium as part of the White Pencil awards celebration on 27th November. In this post he outlines the background to the event. Tickets available here, by the way
EVENT DETAILS
Where and when?
Tuesday November 27th 2012. 19:00 – 22:00
The Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 Albemarle Street, London,W1S 4BS
Chair
Steven Johnson, Director, Collaborative Change
Speakers
Paul Bennett, Chief Creative Officer and a Managing Partner at IDEO
Kim Slicklein, President of OgilvyEarth Worldwide
David Jones, CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide and One Young World
Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever Continue reading…
I’m from Shadsworth…
Our founding Director, Steven Johnson grew up on Shadsworth, the subject of last night’s Panorama documentary on BBC1. He dedicated his career to social change as a result. Here he discusses what was so wrong with the BBC’s portrayal.
I grew up on Shadsworth. My mum still lives there (a few doors down from one of the families featured last night), as does my sister, her husband and my nieces and nephews. As a direct result of this experience, I’ve dedicated my career to positive social change.
If you watched last night’s Panorama, you’re probably expecting me to wax lyrical about how the wretched depravity I experienced inspired me to fight for a better world. In fact, I’m not driven at all by the thought of bringing a little light to dark hole, a little hope to wasted life. What drives me is the humanity, the compassion and spirit of places like Shadsworth and the massive potential of the people that live there. Continue reading…
Do you want to ‘Change the World’?
In partnership with the University of Chester we are searching for a third-sector organisation to collaborate with up-and-coming creative talent on an exciting new behaviour change initiative.
The ‘Change the World’ project is designed to help a charity, social enterprise or community interest company benefit from a pro bono collaboration with advertising students. In return the partner organisation provides a brief for them to work on and experience of a live industry project.
