City to Sea

After the success of the award winning ‘Sort **it out’ campaign created for BCP Council, Make Studio were again approached to pitch a campaign identity for a new initiative between environmental organisation City to Sea and BCP Council to stop plastic pollution while inspiring behavioural change and ultimately help protect the 15 miles of local coastline.

The challenge was to redesign the choices presented to consumers, promoting refill and reuse over single use, and to drive behaviour change to affect the dominant throw away culture and establish a new norm.

Sustainability, litter, recycling and re-use all form part of the same narrative, so we decided to adopt a similar look and feel to our previous ‘Sort **it out’ campaign – giving BCP Council a recognisable and ownable campaign aesthetic. 

Our research into cognitive dissonance showed us that people didn’t want to hear that their behaviours were bad, as it suggested they were a bad person. Positivity was much more likely to encourage positive behaviours. With this insight we decided to adopt a softer tone of voice for all campaign communication. Targeting visitors and locals alike was key to the message that plastic pollution and throwaway, single use culture was a shared problem – not applicable to any one audience.

Our approach was to get everybody on side, working towards a common goal where real change would then be possible. This positive, optimistic and witty tone of voice would guide the look and feel for all aspects of the campaign creative, from photography choices to typefaces and colour palette.

The upbeat tone of the campaign became the direct language that enabled us to make that connection with our audience. With the aim being to unite instead of single out, and praise instead of scold, ‘Rethink it together’ became the call to action at the centre of the campaign. A mantra that resonated with our audience who often felt their singular environmental efforts wouldn’t affect great change but instead our message aimed to make people feel proud to be doing their bit, belonging to a much larger movement.

Repetition of further ‘re-’ messages through the campaign aided audience memorability and recognition. This environmental ‘movement’ was given a clean and confident colour palette as well as a bold, characterful typeface chosen for its personal qualities as well as its ability to stand out in a crowd. Loud and proud as they say. Because as ambassadors of our local area we are passionate about its future.