Bhive GCB
The Brief
Raise Birmingham’s desirability as a great place to live, work and visit by improving its green credentials. Gain 5 places in Mercer index. Encourage use of public transport, bikes & car shares. Encourage business’ to go green, e.g. Local suppliers. Encourage green living for current resident e.g. recycling, energy usage and car emissions.
Audience: All 1 Million current Bham residents, 42,000 companies, the surrounding area.
Deliverables: Name, Brand Identity, Print Ads, Outdoor/Viral Ads, Web presence.
Tone of Voice/Target market: All ages, both genders and many ethnic backgrounds.
Solution
To answer the brief I came up with ‘Green Collar Birmingham’. GCB is a campaign aimed at the people of Birmingham who are currently out of work, to take part and do their bit to aid the environment both in and around the City. Some positions will be paid, some voluntary.
The aim is to increase the awareness of environmental concerns, encourage businesses to thrive within our City and in turn, create more jobs within Birmingham.
By doing this we will decrease the rate of unemployment, contribute towards saving the environment and create a cleaner, greener Birmingham to live in.
I devised a range of headlines to knit together unemployment and some key points that will feature in the Green Collar Birmingham plan. I played on phrases that are commonly heard whilst being fired and edited them so that they have a double meaning, referring to both being sacked and helping the environment e.g. ‘on yer bike’ could be used to both fire someone and to suggest a greener form of transport.
Somewhere that most unemployed people will visit from time to time is the job centre. Therefor, to get our message out we thought instead of littering the waiting room with flyers (wasting paper!) we’d go a bit more digital.
Having a section on the job centre machines will provide all the information they need to get involved with the scheme at the touch of a button. A banner advert that appears on start up/as a screen saver will ensure that anyone using the machine will be well aware of the scheme. They will be informed about how the campaign will provide an invaluable addition to their CV, provide a job for them to attend in the short term and inevitably contribute toward a healthier place to live and work.
Outdoor/Viral
Alongside print/billboard adverts, the outdoor advertising will consist of the GCB logo being pressure washed onto pavements around the city centre. This will not only give exposure for the brand but also draw attention to how filthy the streets are.
To give the brand a big boost, in the middle of the night a team of volunteers will lay turf in a large area surrounding the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham. This will act as a viral campaign to get people interested in the scheme.
Green Bikes
Free Bike Hire! To encourage commuters to go green, GCB would install several bike shelters across Birmingham. Users could pick up bikes at one destination and leave them at another, making their commute much simpler. You would need to use the touch screen display to unlock a bike by typing in your username and password. This would allow the bikes to be tracked should any go missing. It will also give good feedback to GCB to show how the bikes are being used. The bikes being green all over would promote the brand on it’s own, however there is the option to put adverts on the bikes/shelters.
The screens at the bike shelters would show the GPS locations of all the bikes, updating in real time. It would also have a display showing the effects the bikes are having e.g. how many miles of driving the scheme as has saved so far.
Website
The website will be a great resource for potential contributors to find out about Green Collar Birmingham’s aims, and how to get involved.
The different sections will include an overall description of the campaign, info. on recycling, info. on energy saving, info. on transport and details on how to get involved.
Taking the idea further, businesses could be rewarded for keeping green. This would increase awareness of GCB as well as increase the business’ profile. A third party GCB representative could be employed to ‘green up’ companies and then monitor their progress in the future.
*Print ads coming soon* Copy for print ads:
Been given the sack? – Super, you’re half way there.
Been given the elbow? – Great, we could use some elbow grease.
Been told to get on yer bike? – We can give you a leg up.
This brief was set by B-Hive
