Amnesty International

Strategic Development

In the year of 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Amnesty wanted to see if it was possible to explore whether they could take their trademark human rights perspective, and apply it broadly to other areas such as poverty.  This was a highly strategic piece of work with consultations being undertaken in 8 countries with high level decision makers, human rights stakeholder groups, public supporters and rights holders themselves.  Our research took us from Rio’s infamous City of God to the slums of Egypt, India and Sierra Leone. The outcome was a global campaign strategy and identity for Amnesty surrounding poverty and rights: the Dignity campaign.

Tower Hamlets PCT

Social Marketing: Breast Screening

We worked with Tower Hamlets PCT to understand the psychology involved in increasing the uptake of breast screening services. We consulted with middle-aged Bangladeshi and white British women about the motivators and barriers surrounding breast cancer screening programmes. Using a social marketing techniques we were able to understand the culturally specific approaches that would be effective for the audiences with which we were working; the outcome was an award winning information campaign, and a marked uptake in the breast screening services in Tower Hamlets.

ICI Dulux

New Product Development

ICI Dulux invited us to undertake a series of NPD research projects to guide the development of their new environmentally friendly paint application methods – both the electrostatic paint gun for metal painting, and the innovative paint-pod for indoor home use. This series of projects involved consumer product testing at the R&D headquarters, working with a team of product designers on ergonomics and safety issues, and liaising with the marketing department on the positioning of the product. Our attention to detail in understanding consumer needs was instrumental in assisting ICI Dulux to broaden their product portfolio.

Product video

Samaritans

Campaign Development

Over a period of 4 years we undertook national research for a series of campaigns that tackled mental health issues during the winter months, a time when depression and suicide levels are at their highest. We consulted young people to understand both the context and the psychological variables that affect seeking support in times of mental or emotional distress. We worked with the creative team to develop a campaign language that would speak to young people through images that match the emotional state of people in distress, and as a result made the Samaritans brand more relevant to youth audiences.

Campaign video

Department of Health

Stakeholder Engagement and Service Design

There has been good evidence to suggest that people from different cultural backgrounds are not treated equally when it comes to the provision of mental health services. Our consultative research with Mental Health Professionals and Service Users generated the insights needed to guide the strategic and creative development of the campaigns to support the Department of Health’s Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care (DRE) five year action plan. Our work focused on how to engage mental health professionals about the role they can play in improving services for Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) patients.

ActionAid

Campaign Development

Hunger and access to food remains a major challenge in many parts of the world. We worked with ActionAid to develop an understanding of the issues and implications surrounding the often misleading associations with the Hunger challenge. By looking at the interpretation and meaning of ‘hunger’ across a spectrum of countries, with a variety of stakeholders, we came up with ‘Hunger Free’, a campaign designed to work cross-culturally to convey the issues while simultaneously respecting and engaging all stakeholders on a country-specific basis. The project was international in its scope and involved consultation with stakeholders in the UK, India, Nepal, Uganda, Brazil and Italy.

Campaign video

Vodafone Foundation

Reputation Evaluation and Brand Identity

Vodafone UK wanted to know how they could become the leading UK corporate foundation.  Their aim is to contribute to the community through partnerships with charities that make innovative and lasting interventions with people in need. We undertook qualitative research with industry leaders and stakeholders to identify the key criteria to measure success and developed a quantitative brand tracker that was used over a three year period to assess the impact of Vodafone’s charitable activities on perception of the brand among senior decision makers in charities, fundraising, and youth work.

WaterAid

Customer Satisfaction and Supporter Journey Mapping

We worked with WaterAid to help the charity to understand how to engage their supporters or ‘customers’ more effectively and encourage their participation in activism and fundraising. Our approach focused on understanding the motivations for supporting WaterAid, and through this we were able to develop an understanding of the supporter journey. The result was a tool that helped WaterAid to understand supporter engagement and retention, including the best ways to liaise with supporters in terms of language, types of communication and frequency of contact at different stages of the journey.

St John Ambulance

Stakeholder Engagement and Audience Segmentation

When the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) announced the biggest change in the First Aid at Work regulations in 25 years, St John Ambulance realized they needed to lead the way in reassuring and communicating with their customers in order to protect their leading market position.  We undertook a national piece of research to understand customer’s concerns about the impending changes, and developed a customer segmentation model that identified the information needs of different customer groups, thus enabling St. John to develop more targeted and relevant communication.

Meaning in work

Human Resource Development and Employee Engagement

This project involved collaboration with a number of organisations to explore issues surrounding employee and employer conceptions of how people find ‘meaning’ in work. We identified the key criteria that encourage a sense of meaning in the workplace, and developed models to demonstrate the impact of increased meaning for organisations in terms of attraction and retention of employees. As a result of our research we were able to advise organisations on the need to engage and retain a ‘knowledge’ workforce and create a culture of meaning in work.