4.5 million
Impressions across social media
1.1 million
TV ad views – 20% of the Scottish population!
19,208 signatures
for the petition
Shelter Scotland
Shelter Scotland exists to defend the right to a safe, secure and affordable home for everyone. They provide practical support and advice to people experiencing bad housing or homelessness, and campaigning for legislative change. That's where we come in. Shelter's latest mission? To push the Scottish government to increase the rate at which they are building social housing. Shelter challenged us to secure this commitment at a time when governments were struggling with the impact of COVID and economic recession.
Social housing was not firmly on the Scottish political agenda. With the looming financial instability created by Brexit and COVID, and a climate of over stretched public services and diminished funds, politicians' minds needed to be changed.
A Scotland in which every political party commits to building 37,100 homes over 5 years. This target would ensure supply could keep up with the demand for safe, secure and affordable housing.
We built public support with an emotive broadcast advert supported by a digital campaign, putting real faces to the issue. The campaign successfully mobilised the public to apply pressure to SMPs pre-election, resulting in every political party announcing their commitment to social housing in their party manifestos.
Working towards the following SDGs
Our Work
The success of this campaign relied on emotively engaging the Scottish population. To build a narrative that really resonated we tested a number of themes, which informed our approach: delicately balancing the public’s need for a hopeful outlook against the urgent need of the housing crisis.
The broadcast advert, released digitally as well as on prime-time TV, led the emotive charge. This was followed with a targeted digital strategy which educated audiences with real human stories and hard hitting stats.
We launched #BuildScotlandsFuture before Christmas, preempting a shift in the audience’s mood in the New Year. So we created content with adaptable endings & varying moods. This meant we could pivot swiftly from positive pre-christmas messaging to a harder hitting tone in January and beyond.
We had a multichannel strategy, with traditional broadcast media, targeted digital ads and shopfront installations. It reached 25% of Scotland’s entire population, and inspired 20,000 petition signatures and over 2,000 letters sent to SMPs.
Leveraging this public pressure, we turned to pledge banners and cards that pitted parties against each other pre-election. They made social housing the issue to be seen supporting, and notable SMPs put their name to the campaign.
