The approach

We built a strategy to ensure all protected characteristics were represented in the campaign and focused on achieving the following core objectives:

• Educate: For those who experience, witness and enact microaggressions to engage with the campaign and learn from it, leading to a decrease in microaggressions at work.
• Collaborate: To co-produce the campaign’s look and feel with the EDI steering group and staff network representatives with lived experience, leading to positive responses about co-production in the next internal survey.
• Communicate: To be trauma-informed and explain the campaign’s intentions ahead of launch, to stay true to our EDI commitments.

The creative process

The insight showed us that people found the term ‘microaggressions’ insufficient but that it was an important part of the educational aim. We also discovered that people wanted real examples, so we experimented with different ways of bringing these to life.

Next, we designed and facilitated a virtual workshop with the EDI steering group and staff networks representatives to playback what we’d heard and present our three creative concepts.

The first concept is emotive and illustrative, the second is character-led and very on brand, and the winning route is typography-led with bold, thought-provoking and unapologetic statements at its heart.

Throughout the session we broke into smaller groups to discuss each concept in detail. How do they make you feel? What’s the impact? What three words would you use to describe each? What do you like or dislike about them?

Using the insight, we developed the winning concept further to make it more accessible and introduced more copy options. To our delight, the response was extremely positive!

Women’s Network representative

“It’s clear that Alive really listened to our feedback and incorporated it into the campaign.”

 

The toolkit

We also put our EDI, culture and communications expertise into action and developed a microaggressions toolkit.

From offering key definitions and empowering people with different activities, to signposting support and providing extra resources to watch, read and listen to, the toolkit supports people to navigate microaggressions constructively and create an inclusive environment.

Chief Operating Officer

“This is a really great campaign with some very strong tools and resources.”

The impact

Bold. Impactful. Educational. Effective. That penny drop moment brought to life. These are just some of the words used to describe the campaign.

The deliverables were rolled out across multiple channels and ‘microaggressions’ became The British Red Cross’ top trending internal conversation! Leaders are now using the toolkit to run their own lunch & learn sessions and the positive feedback has been incredible.

Claire Fox, Interim Senior Director of People

“I wanted to say a huge thank you and well done for the tackling microaggressions campaign that you have all so brilliantly developed and delivered. You’ve helped educate and inspire people, you’ve delivered great materials, and you’ve shone a light on the conversation and journey that we need to make ongoing.”