Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A p ril2 0 1 0
W o rkin g fo r a fa n ta stic
ca u se
•G ru p o R u a s e Pra ça s ( G R P )
You’re out of the office for a whole MONTH?! I need to do it all in Portuguese
One of my initial realisations at this point was that the process would be just
as important as the final output. The experience of learning from each other, in a
way, mattered as much as what we produced. A key factor of development is about
listening to all perspectives and gaining consensus more than being single-minded
to achieve a goal.
We did plenty of discussions about how we were feeling about the project.
Through that, I saw how nervous everyone else was feeling – both Inata students
and GRP participants so I knew it was important that I stayed positive from the
start.
We did lots of group exercises
where we thought about what would
be important to remember
throughout the project, how we
should behave etc.
The project timeline
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
(3 days)
•Training •Preparing •Concept •Design &
•Bonding brief development finalise •Final
•Visiting/ •Briefing •Creative pieces of presentation
observing •Brainstorm development campaign •Evaluation
GRP •Thinking of •Explore •Handover
future media costs
projects
Risk of drugs
No money
Risk of prostitution
Bad education in schools
Violence
We lent our cameras to some of the children while we were there. They went off
photographing us, themselves, each other, the plants and animals of the site. When I got
home, I realised some had even made this little film recording! It was a real reminder to
me that the situation of the streets, not the children themselves, is the thing to despise .
GRP - the facts
As well as visiting in the flesh, we also did an overview of the brand, understanding it’s
history, objectives, work and structure. We went through piles of old reports to find the few
statistics they did have, to help prove their success and spoke to many people within the
organisation to hear their thoughts.
•The mission: ´To educate children and adolescents in the streets and
squares of Recife and to stimulate their desires and dreams. To
promote citizenship and the construction of new lives for a better
future.
GRP’s 4 programmes
Street
education
Political
Family social work
Articulation
Vida Nova
Educational Centre
Street Get to know the history and lives of the children and adolescents through cultural
Education and educational activities in the streets and squares of Recife.
Family Encourage children and adolescents to reintegrate into their families. The families
learn about their rights and are guided towards public services so as to guarantee
Social Work their citizenship.
Rural space where children and adolescents participate in an educational
Vida Nova process with learning workshops (farming, art, music, school) and receive
Educational therapeutic assistance too. 2 day, 5 day, residential and reintegration
Centre processes.
Political Intervene and propose quality public policies and guarantee the rights of
children and adolescents through participation in advisory councils, forums
Articulation and partnerships.
The programmes are
successful
Between 2005 – 2008:
•GRP helped over 1462 children and adolescents on the street
and at the site.
•They helped over 660 families.
•They helped over 489 children and adolescents to get shelter
and return home.
Tone of comms is always purely factual with little appeal for help/emotional
pull.
= good relationship
= some relationship but could be grown
= no current relationship, communication priority
We analysed GRP’s audiences to identify priority targets. They have good relations with those directly
involved in the issue, but more distant audiences, eg those from more affluent backgrounds/business etc had
not been involved despite being able to potentially help a lot. Given the need for funds, this was therefore the
priority area.
Longer term we gave some advice on making use of broader audiences, e.g. International donations from
individuals and throughout the rest of Brazil.
B ra zils
’ m id d le cla ss
Key learnings from the survey (respondents were Brazilian, middle class, living
in Recife)
•55% said that ‘family’ was the most important thing in their lives.
•The majority of people voted ‘6’ on a scale of 1-10 in terms of how optimistic they felt
about the future of Brazil.
•85% said they liked Recife.
•The majority of people said that if they could change one thing about Recife it would be
safety.
•When a street child approaches them in the street, the majority of people feel
uncomfortable.
•When asked what they do when asked for money by street children, the answers were fairly
divided, the majority answering that they do not give money but they do apologise
(29%).
•Most people said that they hadn’t ever thought of helping an NGO.
•
Key Insights from Target
• This topic makes them feel uncomfortable
• They see the negatives of the situation(personal safety, guilt, fear
of assault, beggar children) but not the positives lying beneath
(the personalities of the children, their hopes etc).
• They don’t know how to/don’t think of helping
• They haven’t heard of GRP.
Further inspiration
We also did an analysis of previous campaigns in this category, from a range
•
•
STAGE 4: THE BRIEFING &
•
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
T h is w a s a ch a lle n g in g p h a se ! In co n tra st to th e w a y th is p ro ce ss
n o rm a lly w o rks, th e re w a s e n d le ss d iscu ssio n a n d co n ve rsa tio n a b o u t
w h a t th e m o st im p o rta n t e le m e n ts o f fo cu s w e re a n d w h a t a p p ro a ch w e
sh o u ld a d o p t. O u r b rie fin g se ssio n la ste d n e a rly 4 h o u rs d e sp ite m y b e st
a tte m p ts to re in it in ! B u t it w a s a n im p o rta n t p ro ce ss, e sp e cia lly fo r th e
G R P te a m to a ctu a lly re fle ct o n h o w th e y w a n te d to b e p e rce ive d vs th e
In a ta te a m a n d m yse lf tryin g to re m in d th a t ce rta in p e rce p tio n s &
p re ju d ice s w o u ld exist a m o n g th e ta rg e t, h o w e ve r u n a p p e a lin g th a t
O u r S tra te g y
• To raise profile of GRP:
• Raise awareness of it:
• Raise trust in it
• To show that GRP represents hope and positivity for individuals and for the
city of Recife
•
• To empower young people through comms:
• Involving them in process
• Creating positive images that do not reinforce stereotypes & giving them a
voice
•
• To make it easier for target to get involved:
• Appeal in a non-confrontational way
• Make the problem feel individual and achievable, not complex and
overwhelming.
The summary of the brief
To appeal to the middle classes of Recife in order to:
Key outcome: Bring them closer to the issue. Make them feel they can make a difference.
Mandatory:
•Must have a call to action
•Must create positive images of the children
Campaign Structure
We needed to think about the levels of interest of our audience and take them on a journey
of persuasion. We had to be realistic about the fact that most people would see, some may
want to read more and only a few would actually help.
We agreed that the first two were immediately achievable but the latter was more of a long-
term task.
I want to do
something Define simple & convenient ways that people can help.
THE BRIEFING!
Our concept
• After some brainstorming and creative exploration back at
Inata HQ, we considered a few creative routes, before
jointly agreeing on our final route:
• THE FUTURE
PROGRESS
POTENTIAL CITIZENSHIP
“ You can ’ t change their past , but
you can change their future ”
Show that street children can have a future, that is it possible to
help them, that all is not lost and that they can learn and grow in
life too. They have a role in society and can pursue their dreams.
And people can help to build the future and realise the dreams of
these children through Grupo Ruas e Praças.
Style considerations
• After some discussion, we decided to adopt a cinematic look & feel
to the work.
• Target feels detached from the topic, so we could play with that sense of
distance.
• Cinema is a key part of middle class life (especially in Recife with its
burgeoning film industry, festivals etc
• Allows us to be eye-catching, and use surprise.
• Associations of dreams, fantasies, possibility.
• So we explored the visuals & language of the film world to try and
emulate it in our work.
•
S TA G E 5 : C R E A T IV E
D E V E LO P M E N T &
P R O D U C T IO N
T h is w a s m a n ic a n d w h e re th e la ck o f tim e re a lly h it u s. W e b a sica lly h a d
a w e e k to m a ke e ve ryth in g ! B u t so m e h o w w e p u lle d it to g e th e r.
We made use of some of the other departments at Aeso, to use free TV and
radio recording equipment and expertise, plus editing software, a voice-
over artist and film crew, which helped us enormously!
Deciding on the campaign
pieces
• We only had R$2,740 to work with, so we couldn’t be overly
ambitious in terms of what we created.
• We measured what we wanted to do against our key objectives:
• Raise profile of GRP
• Empower the young people
• Make it easy for target to get involved.
• We also knew we had to be as clever with media as possible. We
set about contacting media/print companies to see what deals
we could negotiate.
Our creative tasks
Element Why Cost
Redesign logo Raise profile/credibility of GRP Free
We wanted to maintain the essence of the logo (it had been created by GRP themselves & people
working for and with them knew it well) but wanted to give it a more professional air of authority to help
them with future fundraising.
We also included the name of the NGO and their slogan since these were sometimes absent from the
logo. (NB: Slogan underneath means ‘restoring citizenship’)
We also changed the direction of the road so that it reflected our concept of the future – the children are
heading forward towards a brighter place.
This logo will be used on all future comms, on their staff uniforms (which are currently being reprinted)
and on all brand properties.
Radio
We’d hired the university recording studio plus we found a volunteer voice-over
student with some experience. We needed a VO for the film, but we also used
the opportunity to record a quick radio clip, for future use if more comms budget
arose (as client had advised it may do in following months).
‘Many people live on the streets without protection but with many dreams. Grupo
Ruas e Pracas works to help young children and adolescents on the streets.
Help GRP to give this story a happy ending. Make donations, rescue lives.
Grupo Ruas e Pracas, restoring citizenship (+ phone + URL)
Poster
NB: Man featured is Luan, who passed through the GRP process and now has a
•
the final edits and the link will be added here when complete.
•
•
Press Release
Translation:
•
street children and adolescents The NGO uses arts and culture to help
build citizenship, helping the children create new activity in their life for a
better future. Currently there are 4 areas of activity in the NGO: street
education, socio-familial work, the Vida Nova education centre and political
articulation.
During the month of April, Inata, experimental advertising agency of AESO-
•
Barros Melo University, together with the social enterprise TIE and UK
communications professional Micha Colombo, created a communication
plan for GRP. This project was carried out to demonstrate the role of the
NGO in society and to encourage people to help, because the future of
these children depends on us and our willingness to help them.
A campaign is being launched by GRP to show that these children can have a
•
future, that they just need to be given a chance. It includes interviews with
people who were street children and who now have stable lives, thanks to
GRP.
GRP needs people to give what they can, be that money, clothing, food or
•
other items. For more details, visit our site www.ruasepracas.org. For those
wishing to learn more, you can also watch our video on YouTube by
MY PRESENTATION
During the project, I also gave a presentation to the university
•
16 - 20 / 05 / 10 23 - 27 / 05 / 10
Give posters to restaurants, bars, shops,
independent cinemas/theatres near All team members send Youtube link to
GRP/appropriate to target + send to friends & family
contacts in local unis Send tweets about campaign launch
Create facebook page & all facebook
Give leaflets to partners & try and place members add link to profile
in local restaurants (with bill)
Send press release to all media contacts +
link to film (and send to list of local
bloggers too)
contained:
• Communications overview including: role of comms, objectives, audiences,
assets, evaluation techniques & criteria
• Projects for the future, with advice on how to get started:
• Rolling out the new brand
• Content creation
• Facilitating individual donation (including Paypal)
• Building local partnerships with restaurants & supermarkets
• Pitching to the private sector for funding
• Creating an evaluation process for all comms activity
And there are lots of things I would like to have done better on the
project!
GOING HOME
M y O w n R e fle ctio n s
•Some of the things I came away with:
• You can overplan. Sometimes it’s best to just wait and see.
• Be empathetic to the needs/motivations of others first and foremost.
• Be positive in the face of it all. See the funny side (otherwise you cry).
• Be clear, specific and directional when allocating tasks.
• Find ways to get work straight out of your system (long runs along the beach at
sunset did the trick I found! Either that or a strong caipirinha).
• Learn how you like to work – I need time to reflect before giving opinions so I
learnt to plan that into schedules.
• Explain things as simply as you possibly can. Jargon stinks, no matter what the
language .
• Be yourself and let others be themselves (I learnt you can’t change someone’s
approach to punctuality, no matter how hard I tried...).
• Be approachable, be organised, be open, be humble.
I honestly can’t say enough how fantastic this experience was. I hope I made an
impact. I know it made a massive impact on me.
•
What next?
• I am still chasing the teams to just finish off the final tasks in
order for the campaign to launch, we are really nearly there!
•
Want to know what you can do?
•
•
1) Visit their site and donate if you wish. www.ruasepracas.org
•
3) Go over to Recife and help out – you know you want to....
•
•
THE END?