With research showing that relationship abuse is most prevalent among 16-24 year olds, Westminster City Council wanted to help young people find their voice and speak out about unhealthy relationships. Communications account manager Klara Nordstrom explains how they used creative thinking to engage this often hard-to-reach group.
In 2015 a central London consultation with 55 young people found that 61 per cent of them had personal experience of violence against women and girls. That included 25 per cent who were survivors themselves. The consultation also revealed that the internet was the top place that people would go to look for relationship information, with friends and less authoritative sources also considered as helpful places to get information on sex and relationships. As Westminster was part of this consultation, we wanted to use this information to develop a campaign that would empower young people to talk openly about healthy relationships and have the confidence to correctly identify and challenge unacceptable behaviour.
The plan
Our aim was to raise awareness of relationship abuse among young residents by developing a digital communications campaign that could also be used in schools. We wanted to set it apart from other campaigns by making sure that our messages were aspirational and had a positive call to action.
Our specific objectives were to:
- engage 60 young residents in the development of a digital campaign on relationship abuse, which would include a purpose built website and video element.
- reach 1500 website views and 2000 video views within six months of launch
- deliver sessions on relationship abuse based on the campaign materials in 50 per cent of Westminster secondary schools before 2018.
Surrounding all of this was a strategy focused on making sure that the campaign reflected the reality of young people’s lives. We wanted to work with young Westminster residents at every stage of the campaign to make sure that we addressed the specific issues they needed information on, and created material that felt authentic to them.
The execution
We began by meeting with local young people to get their thoughts on intimate relationships, which revealed that relationship abuse had become normalised, with a lack of information about how to act once abusive behaviour had been identified. We then worked with a smaller group of people to turn the consultation outcomes into a campaign that would use video, be driven by facts, have a visually interesting look and a social media personality to boost interest and engagement.
From that work our #SpeakSense campaign was born. We created a mobile-first website with up-to-date facts on relationship abuse, expert advice on what to do if a friend is being abused or is abusive, and contact details for support services. We also created a short film to challenge the myths surrounding relationship abuse, which was produced and edited by the young people we worked with. The film starred local actors and YouTube star and social media influencer Hannah Whitton, who is famous for her positive videos on relationships, gender and sexuality. The final aspect of the campaign was a social media element. We ran website infographics and edits from the videos across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram throughout May and September 2016 (to coincide with the campaign launch and start of the 2016/17 school year). We also used tweets from Hannah Whitton to extend our reach.
The impact
We greatly exceeded our objectives. Between May-October 2016 we achieved 2500 website views and 4000 video views. 55 per cent of all #SpeakSense tweets in September 2016 came from retweets and 80 per cent of surveyed campaign participants said that they would now know what to do if a friend was being abused or being abusive. The campaign also received praise from organisations such as Citizens Advice and Action for Children and we were shortlisted for the European Digital Communications Awards alongside brands such as Vodafone, Kelloggs and HSBC.
Why it worked
It worked because the reality and opinions of young residents was at the heart of the creative development. They bought authenticity to the visuals and key messages and helped us to harness the power of social media influencers, which would have been impossible to achieve without them. #SpeakSense was a campaign for young people but young people.
From a council perspective, everyone who worked on this project was fully supported to spend as much time as necessary to get it right – which meant we could really focus on delivering the best possible campaign. People invested so much energy and enthusiasm into it.
Lessons learned
If we were doing this again I think we would allocate more time for video production as trying to shoot footage at two locations in one day was complete madness! We would also create more short edits rather than longer footage as the shorter clips were used far more frequently. From a social media perspective I think we would spend more of the budget in social media advertising to attract an audience who might not be following the council’s own social channels.
Want to know more?
For more information please contact Phil Scullion, account director, Westminster City Council.