What will focus minds on helping our planet?

Birds, birds, birds. That’s what people thought the RSPB was all about. To be fair it does stand for The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. But the RSPB is actually focused on helping nature much more broadly.

We helped the RSPB shift its storytelling beyond passive appreciation for nature, towards actively being in its corner. Key to this was showing people-focused action as something fun and energising, directly inspiring more of the same.

Hope shines brightest in the dark, sings Paul McCartney. A lot of communicators feel conflicted about whether to push for tears or cheers. Charities can get particularly tied, with departments traditionally separated across fundraising (tears) and comms (cheers).

But that juxtaposition can be useful. SURI sell aluminium electric toothbrushes. Reusable, recyclable. Their story is best understood in opposition to the 4 billion plastic ones thrown away every year.

Fatigue is a real hurdle with big issues that persist for years. People get tired of thinking and hearing about bad things that don’t seem to improve. What’s needed is continual renewal of the language and visuals.

With plastic, the public have gone on a pretty long journey, and it’s still not ‘resolved’. The campaign example here shows us creating an entire visual language for a couple of years of campaigning, with a typeface made of plastic fragments fished from the Thames.