Category: Insights

A large part of the work we do for our clients is helping them to make the most out of their social media presence. This often involves developing creative campaigns and achieving reliable results.

While it is important to create content that resonates with your audience, it is equally important to publish content in an efficient and effective way.

At the end of 2020 Twitter began overhauling its verification process with a view to launching the new and improved version early this year. It’s a move that’s long overdue and will improve trust between organisations and their audiences by defining what verification means, who is eligible and why some accounts might lose verification.

This year has taken us on quite a ride hasn’t it? Things kicked off with devastating bush fires in Australia whilst Prince Harry and Meghan Markle upped sticks to America and it wasn’t long before Covid-19 arrived, the stock markets crashed, Black Lives Matter protests flooded the streets and life as we knew it changed forever. 

If you work in an advertising, marketing or design agency, creativity is part of the job. But what if you’re a membership organisation tasked with needing to ‘be creative’? 

Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence are everywhere. For most people working in communications we’ll already be aware of them and what they do, but a tweet by the Chair of the CIPR’s AI in PR Panel, Kerry Sheehan made me stop and consider what the wider implications of the use of these technologies are now and what they will be in the future.

All communications professionals can all agree on one thing – a marketing campaign needs to provoke an emotional response.

Shitposting masterclass or just a plain shitshow? That’s the question that everyone is asking after the design horror show in the government Covid-19 public health campaign. And it’s not only communications professionals.

Wondering how film and video can help you engage your audience and deliver your key messages? We’ll be holding an Instagram chat with DTW’s film production team where you can get answers to all of your questions.

Very occasionally we see an advert or campaign that stops us in our tracks: something that resonates, speaks our language, and makes us sit up and listen.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t happen as often as it should – especially when the aim is behaviour change.

Maybe that’s because there’s so much noise out there: we have become partially deaf and blind to the millions of messages we see every day.

Perhaps, many are bland, exactly the same as what’s gone before. Or, perhaps, they are not actually speaking our language at all.

Hats off then to City of York Council, which has knocked the ball out of the park with its anti-litter campaign.

Bold, brave and brilliant, it talks directly to the litter louts, uses a language they recognise, and ultimately shames them into changing their behaviour.

Hitting the right buttons

This campaign does everything a good campaign should. It:

• Identifies its audience ✅
• Understands how they think ✅
• Speaks their language ✅
• Uses clear messaging ✅
• Tells people what to do ✅
• Results in a change of behaviour ✅

Most people want to do the right thing and want to be seen as a good person. We want to fit in.

Nobody wants to be classed as the village idiot, or a ‘tosser’, as in this case. It’s just not cool.

And nobody wants to be the butt of the joke. And with this campaign, litter louts are certainly that.

It will have a far greater impact than simply asking people to put their litter in the bin. 

Dare to be different

Direct, head-turning campaigns, such as this, are more common in Australia and New Zealand, especially around road safety and public health. But in the UK, we have been too risk averse to adopt them, perhaps fearing a public outcry from a minority.

It’s refreshing to see a local authority – normally the epitome of straight and proper – talk in our language, confront the offenders, and use humour to get their message across.

Big round of applause to the City of York Council teams that created this campaign, and then gave it the go ahead. 👏🏼

We hope to see more of it!