For assignment 1 (Briefing Case) you will start in a team with another student and continue individually. You will receive a briefing from a client for which you will develop an advertising campaign. You will learn what roles communication goals, strategies and concepts play in developing a campaign. You will deliver three campaign images with a well thought out substantiation.
Beau Brouwer & Katriina Mansikka
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Amsterdam Rainproof came to us with a challenge: “how to get people to remove their tiles and rainproof their garden”. Rainproofing means making the city more forgiving to water. If the city is only stone, the rain doesn’t have anywhere to escape to and eventually too much water will cause flooding.
Amsterdam Rainproof is a platform by the people of Amsterdam that provides initiatives to handle the effects of increasingly frequent downpours. It is about doing something together because everyone can do something, even if it is small. On the platform there are a lot of initiatives that support that, everyone can pick what they can contribute.
Insights
Climate change is causing more extreme weather situations and Amsterdam Rainproof is actively providing solutions to the people of Amsterdam to make sustainable and safe choices.
Why aren’t people rainproofing their gardens?
- They are not aware – How to make them aware that they can contribute to a safe and sustainable environment. Everyone can make a difference, together we can build a better future.
- It costs money – how can people save money while improving their garden?
- There is not a lot of space in the garden – so does that little change make a difference? Even with a small garden, you can make a difference.
- People have other problems to worry about – everything gets more expensive, but then again, can we help them by rainproofing their gardens? Use that water to save some money.
- Scared that the roof collapses if they put a green roof on it. Some people don’t trust rainproofing, it’s just another thing that the ‘woke’ side wants.
- People want to make a change, but they don’t know where to start.
Idea
Making people more aware of the sustainable solutions for increasing rain downpours. How that affects our city and how we can fight against it in an easy and affective way so people don’t get too overwhelmed.
2 RESEARCH
If the ground is only made of stone, the rain doesn’t have anywhere to go to, and it will flood. Heavy downpours are only going to become worse in the following years, so it’s important to actively make better choices and make Amsterdam a long-lasting city (Door Redactie Rainproof, z.d.).
Currently, most of the gardens are paved with stone, the city is covered in asphalt and buildings so raindrops can’t seep through effectively. The rainwater flows directly into the drains. After a while, the drains will not be able to handle it, and the streets will flood. People might not be aware of the consequences of a stone-paved city and how a greener city would help. Amsterdam Rainproof has the knowledge and great ideas on how to improve people’s spaces and environments.
A lot of people were working on their homes during the pandemic. But if you change something, why not make it rainproof? Doing it together with your neighbors can make an even bigger change. Rainproof wants to connect everyone, to start new initiatives and projects. Together we can transform Amsterdam into a rainproof city that catches rain and uses it effectively for things like flushing their toilet and watering their garden.
Examples of easy and cheap solutions to rainproof your garden and to utilize rainwater for your advantage. From the Amsterdam Rainproof websites blog.
- Make a walled garden, most of the time it is free. You are responsible for maintaining your little garden.
- Put a barrel in your garden to catch the extra rainfall and water your garden/flowers with that. You can even connect it to your toilet, and flush it with rainwater.
- Redirect your rainwater flow so it goes into your garden and not to the street. (Door Redactie Rainproof, z.d.).
Client
Amsterdam rainproof, that is you, we, and everyone from Amsterdam. We have one goal: making Amsterdam rainproof, resistant against the heavy rainfall. We want to use the water that we get for free since that goes to waste now. The rainfall causes a lot of damage, for example because of our paved gardens. Together we take measures to make Amsterdam more rainproof (About Rainproof | Amsterdam Rainproof, 2022).
Amsterdam Rainproof is a platform by the people of Amsterdam that provides initiatives to handle the effects of increasingly frequent downpours. It’s all the people of Amsterdam working together. They want to make people aware that it is easy to make better use of the free rainwater that currently flows directly into the drains.
Amsterdam Rainproof has many sponsors, one of them is Municipality of Amsterdam. For example, they help with taking the stones from people’s gardens. Amsterdam Rainproof gives the people the information how to do it and the people of Amsterdam do the actual rainproofing (About Rainproof | Amsterdam Rainproof, 2022).
Together we are Amsterdam Rainproof.
Service
Giving insight on how to rainproof the city. Amsterdam Rainproof has a website where they explain rainproofing and its effects and how you can rainproof your surroundings.
Amsterdam Rainproof is all about community so they also show where the people of Amsterdam have rainproofed their city to give this feeling of togetherness and showing that every little change matters (Door Redactie Rainproof, z.d.)!
Market
People that are interested in sustainability. People who want a better future for their kids. People that speak Dutch, on their website is only one page in English, about what they do. If you want to take on action, you need to speak Dutch. This is something Amsterdam Rainproof should work on, making it more accessible for more people.
Competition
Amsterdam Rainproof is one of a kind, they don’t have anything totally similar to them. There are organizations that also preach about sustainability, but they concentrate on different things or more generally about sustainability in Amsterdam and big cities. Sustainable Amsterdam is a similar organization to Rainproof Amsterdam because they have lectures how to make a sustainable city but not necessarily about rainproofing.
What other organizations are working on a sustainable Amsterdam?
- Sustainable Amsterdam
- Gemeente Amsterdam
- Schoonschip Amsterdam
- Twenty50
- 020groen.nl
Current visual communication client
Conclusions
Amsterdam Rainproof has a cohesive look to its website and its contexts. The logo is quite busy and colorful, it gives the impression of teamwork and togetherness under the same agenda: rainproofing the city. The copy on the site is inspirational and clearly written. The website displays what other people have done to rainproof their gardens, surroundings or the city and how they did it. People searching for solutions can gather inspiration or tutorials how they could do it too.
A lot of people don’t know about Amsterdam Rainproof and the problem that they are fighting against.
Current visual communication relevant competitor
Conclusions
They want to make big changes and focus on big groups to educate them about sustainability.
Sustainable Amsterdam focuses on corporations, businesses, apartment complexes and people building houses or adding/renovating their apartments, wondering how they could do better and greener choices. Their biggest service is giving lectures about sustainability and how to make a greener city. Sustainable Amsterdam is more about teaching whereas Rainproof Amsterdam is more about giving actual information and the tools for people make the changes themselves.
Their site is more inclusive because everything is written in English.
Target audience
The target audience that we picked for our campaign is people from Amsterdam with young children. From one of our insights, we know that people want a better future for their children. There are around 320.787 people living in Amsterdam around the age of 25-45 which is the biggest group as our main audience (Gemeente Amsterdam in cijfers en grafieken (update 2022!), 2022).
If the kids are excited about sustainability and rainproofing it can inspire parents to do something about their garden and make it a fun and interactive thing to do with your family. Parents can make a better future for themselves and their kids by improving their gardens.
Barriers
- People are not aware that they can contribute to a better environment
- It costs money, which people in these times don’t have.
- People have other problems to worry about, like the electricity bills.
- They think their garden is too old to change, scared of the roof collapsing if adding a green roof to it.
Communication goal (knowledge/attitude/behaviour)
Amsterdam Rainproof wants to motivate people and communities to improve their gardens and make them rainproof. Together small changes make a big change. Their slogan is “Elke druppel telt” = Every drop counts. The communication goal is changing attitude and behaviour.
2 MOST IMPORTANT INSIGHTS FROM RESEARCH
Insight 1
People don’t know rain is an issue or that a greener garden can make a difference. Some people don’t know the benefits of a sustainable garden, they are against the idea because they only see the bad things. “I don’t want a green roof because the roof is old and I am scared it will get damaged, people only want to make money so they don’t care about my roof”. What these people don’t know is that a green roof can make your roof more long-lasting. It protects your roof and saves you money in the long run.
Or on the other side of the spectrum they might be sustainable people and already have solar pannels and other sustainable solutions but they don’t know they could also improve their gardens.
Insight 2
People want to live more sustainably but they don’t know where to start. Making big changes is overwhelming. They want to be more sustainable but have not had the time to investigate it. Also people have other problems to worry about so rainproofing your garden is low on the to-do list.
Insight 3
Not a lot of people have heard of Amsterdam Rainproof. Amsterdam Rainproof is all about community and being accessible, but not a lot of people know about them. We need to make Amsterdam Rainproof more visible to the people of Amsterdam.
3 PROPOSITION
Help rain find a home.
4 STRATEGY
Current strategy
We chose the strategy Challenge for our concept You can’t fight water with stone since it had a very heroic and active messaging.
We thought our other concept Help rain find a home was an Empathy strategy but in the feedback session it turned out to be Challenge also. Even though the copy in our proposition is more empathetic towards rain, the strategy fit better with Challenge because we want to change peoples attitudes and activate to find rain find a home aka rainproof their gardens.
Our concept Help rain find a home also had Personification strategy, because we are making the viewer feel for the rain.
Proposed strategies
Empathy – we wanted people to feel sorry for the rain. But we also wanted to use this in combination with the children, make them feel empathy for their kids’ future.
Challenge – we challenge you to protect your family. We challenge you to “find a home for the rain” aka rainproof your garden.
Nostalgia – we thought of doing the mobile game app that reminded us of the mobile game called Poo or Tamagotchi where you take care of a little creature. We also had a concept using nostalgic children’s outdoor games.
Chosen Strategy
Challenge – Help the rain find a home. We want to challenge people in helping the rain find a home.
Reasons why you propose this strategy
We want people to be active, to do something. We want them to change their attitude against rain and after that we want them to change their garden. You can do it too!
Reasons why you propose this strategy
We want people to be active, to do something. We want them to change their attitude towards the rain. Help the rain by changing your garden, you can do it too!
Examples that show how this strategy has been successful for another brand
Example 1
Men at Work is a Dutch clothing store and they used challenge strategy for their campaign. Their proposition is “Start Something”. The goal is to empower their customers – a generation of self-starters – to hone their skills, pick up a new passion, or find like-minded people (MEN AT WORK, 2018).
Example 2
DFS makes handcrafted sofas, and they launched a campaign where their proposition was “Don’t Get a Sofa”. Because passion and handcraft together make much more than a sofa “the best seats in the house for a game” “an animal playground” “a love nest” “an extra wardrobe” and so much more. The strategy is challenge because they want people to see sofas as more than a piece of furniture (FLIRT | DFS – Rebranding Strategy & TV Campaign, n.d.).
Conclusions
Challenge strategy works with these campaigns because it is an interesting way to get the customers attention. They flip the proposition into something unexpected. Their campaigns sell their products indirectly (soft selling) because the propositions “Start Something” and “Don’t Get a Sofa” are selling an ideology that they hope customers want to be a part of. They want customers to see their products as much more than just clothes or furniture.
5 CONCEPT
Proposed concepts
Start small
Protect your future
Rain = Money
Grow together
You can’t fight water with stone
Help rain find a home
Chosen concept
Help rain find a home
Reasons why you propose this concept
We chose the concept “Help rain find a home” because we felt it had the clearest message and an interesting way of changing the attitude of the viewer to see rain in a positive way.
We don’t like rain in general, we get wet, the floods etc. But the rain doesn’t want to destroy, it wants somewhere to go. Help the rain!
Examples that show how this concept has been successful for another brand
Example 1
(Omroep Groen, 2020)
Earth seeks attention is a campaign by Kesselskramers. They needed to solve a communication problem and they wanted to include everyone, even the people that turned a blind eye on the climate problem. They approached the Earth as a person that needs some attention because they are in bad shape. Our approach is similar because we also used personification for the rain.
Example 2
ECRAID (European Clinical Research Alliance on infectious Diseases) wants to make infectious diseases more human. Not clinical and complex, but beautiful and human. They speak to their audience and challenge them to be part of the solution (Today – Europese Beweging Tegen Infectieziekten, 2022).
Conclusions
For both of these campaings they used personification to make a big concept into something more easy to understand. For the first campaign, they personified the earth. So, you can clearly feel for the earth and treat it as a person. “Earth is looking for members”. The second one is about making a disease (something scary) more human. That is exactly what we want to do with the rain. These concepts are effective because they make something complicated to something more simple so people can approach it easier and won’t feel overwhelmed. This way people feel for these causes and want to help.
6 FIRST SKETCHES
We wanted to change peoples behaviour and attitude about rainproofing.
Explanation of the sketches
Start small
Doing something is better than nothing. If everybody does their little part of this problem small changes equal big changes.
Protect your future
This is about protecting your future and really thinking about everyone this affects. The city of Amsterdam, your family, your community. Do your part and protect your future.
Rain = Money
Sustainable choices and good financial decisions go hand in hand. We wanted to say that by making more sustainable choices you will also save money in the long run.
Feedback
We thought about protection, wanting to protect your children. This is from the insight that parents want a better future for their children, it is something that motivates them. How can you protect your family against the rain? Lars and Rob also liked this approach and found it interesting. We decided that we wanted to go further with that idea.
We also got feedback from Lars that we should sketch together next time. Because we made the sketches separately we were a little unorganised. After this feedback we sketched everything together.
BRAINSTORMING
We met up at school and worked on this together which was very motivating and inspiring. We sketched a lot so here are some examples. At this point we were stuck on ideas so we decided to use the crazy eights technique. We did three in total, one for each concept.
OUR THREE CONCEPTS IN THE SECOND ROUND OF SKETCHES
You can’t fight water with stone
These were our sketches for you can’t fight water with stone. In the first image you see a firefighter trying to put out a fire with stones. You think huh, that won’t work right? We thought this would be a good campaign because we could make a series of pictures where something is out of place so the viewer will stop to wonder what is going on in the picture. Then we can prompt the question of why do we fight water with stone. When you think about it is ineffective and damaging that everything is paved because the increased downpour will cause a lot of problems to the city.
With the shield you can see that the greenery protects you while the solid stone side of the shield is not helping at all and the ground has started flooding.
The last sketch is about a person trying to fight the water wave with stones but it doesn’t affect the wave and the person is about to be swept away. We got feedback that we should go back to our original water monster because it is a effective and interesting way of visualizing the problem.
Start small
For these concepts we wanted to show people that doing something is also a thing. The parent and child are watering a small plant that grows out into something big.
The second sketch is showing 3 houses, one is doing nothing, one is doing a lot and the middle house is doing a little, just something is already enough.
The third sketch is just one tile, one tile is better then nothing. We eventually used this sketch for our last presentation.
Grow together
Some parents like to buy a bottle of wine for their children so it can be their special bottle on their 18th birthday. We thought you could also do that with your garden. Name a flower or a tree after your child and let the garden grow with your kids.
In the second sketch you see a metaphor of a kids game of drawings of flowers turning into reality over time.
In the third sketch you have a dandelion you have to care for. We thought making a game would be a fun interactive way of connecting the people and Amsterdam rainproof. In this game the problem and solutions will be visualized in a creative way to make people see the opportunities what you could do in real life.
7 SKETCHES AFTER FEEDBACK
You can’t fight water with stone
At first we were still going for the heroic, fighting approach. But we got stuck on that, and we realised that the rain is a friend, not an enemy. So we came up with a new concept.
This is where we realized that we could take the water monster/rain spirit and change the perspective to a more empathetic approach. We were feeling stuck with our water monster and trying to fit it with our “You can’t fight water with stone” proposition because the poster ideas were too complex. Good design is simple and straight to the point so we wanted to simplify the message so the viewer would get it straight away.
FINAL SKETCHES
Help rain find a home
Rain is falling from the sky and the little rain spirit is lost in the stone paved city until it finds a green flourishing area where it can go rest.
The final concept that we presented as a pair is “Help rain find a home”.
It is based on our insight that people don’t think that rain is a problem, or they don’t know what they can do about the heavy rainfall.
The concept is focused on personification, we want the rain to become something you can clearly see and feel for. Our target group is families with kids so we thought making the water spirit something fun for kids to identify, it would inspire families to get involved. While you’re rainproofing a small part of your garden with your children you can find a home for the rain spirit to rest at on the same time. Therefore we invented the rain spirit.
We want to change people’s attitude towards rain, make them feel sympathy for the poor rain that just wants to find a home. We want to challenge them to make a change and rainproof a part of their garden.
Feedback
The feedback that we got from Lars and Rob is that the message was clear without the rain spirit. Because Beau and I were working on this for long, we found it obvious that it was is rain spirit, but it might be confusing because it isn’t easy to identify as a rain spirit for some. So that is why we might change this part of our concept.
The copy Help rain find a home worked really well with the first poster without the rain spirit and just the simple flower bed in the paved garden. It was an elegant way of messaging the problem, straight to the point in an empathetic and strong way.
The feedback that our classmate wrote down for us.
- Will the campaign stand out and why?
The copy makes me really think of the message behind it. Rain is used as a personality. I like that even the message is really positive and has an ‘awh’ factor, it makes me think and feels like I have to help the poor rain. - Is the campaign original?
Yes, the storytelling and personification are really nice and directly speak to the targetgroup. For me the message was really clear directly, but it still made me more curious to the brand and makes me want to go to their site to get more information. - Is there a ‘Big Idea’ to be found?
? (I personally think the big idea is the personification of the rain) - Is the campaign consistant in the executions ?
In the first and third execution it is, maybe change the second one to one that is more in line with the first and third execution. - Does the campaign fit the brand?
Yes, it is made in the style of the brand. And the solutions you show are also the solution showed by Amsterdam Rainproof.
Collected feedback on presentation
We were well prepared with our presentation and explained all our points to the class (Insights, strategy, concept, proposition). Our copy Help rain find a home was praised for being elegant, concrete and empathetic.
MY FINAL EXECUTIONS
PLAN OF CHANGES
I felt like me and Beau had already come far with our research and thought process, so I didn’t feel the need to change the concept. The things I wanted to change based on the feedback we got, was to make the poster without the personified water spirit. We got such good feedback from our copy that I wanted keep that and try to make it an even stronger element. With these executions I needed to show in a different way of help rain find a home.
Chosen insight
People don’t think that rain is a problem, or they don’t know what they can do about the heavy rainfall.
Chosen communication problem
We want to change people’s attitude towards rain, make them feel sympathy for the poor rain that just wants to find a home. We want to challenge them to make a change and rainproof a part of their garden.
Chosen proposition
Help rain find a home
Chosen strategy
Challenge
Chosen concept
Help rain find a home
New sketches
I had two ideas for the new layout. I wanted to play with the tiles. How can you show a home with raindrops, plants and tiles. I wanted the audience to feel empathy for the rain, there is only one tile removed for the rains safe place, otherwise it’s lost not being able to go through the stone tiles.
In the first idea I have different looking tiles where the middle one is removed for the grass. I thought this would be a fun compositional idea, making the image more of a pattern.
I thought that tiles should be the main focus because I was going for a more of a pattern with the composition. I got feedback from Rob that they didn’t really suit garden tiles because the were so colourful and different shapes.
In the second idea I’m using the composition golden ratio or the rule of thirds to my advantage. One third of the illustration is the world above, flooded with water, and the other two thirds of the photo is the ground underneath revealing the effect that helping a rain a home can have.
ART DIRECTION
What style of photography, illustration etc do you propose and why ?
I propose a cartoony, neat vector illustrative style. I think it fits with the illustrations that Amsterdam Rainproof already has. The help of colours that an illustrative style has, shows the contrast between good and bad things and I feel like that is a key part in my end result.
COPY
Which copy do you propose and why ?
Help rain find a home is a good copy, because it is empathetic, concrete and elegant. It tells a story in only one sentence. I also wrote additional copy to each of the posters to make the message more clear.
- Creating a better future with planting greenery in our city
- Don’t fight water with stone, make way for it instead
- Even the smallest change can have a huge impact
LAY-OUT
Which Lay-out do you propose and why ?
I went forward with the rule of thirds because it shows well the proposition of how rain can find a home.
FINAL CAMPAIGN IMAGES
It’s almost like a point of view for the rain. Above the tiles it is dark, chaotic and rainy, the only colours are the flowers popping out the removed tiles, it’s the hope in the picture. The readers eye follows the bright flowers to it roots underneath the tiles. There the ground is a happy colour showing comforting home for the rain. Above ground the water is in messy puddles but the water is contained nicely in the roots showing the contrast once again.