Advertising and Creative agencies join Facebook to back campaign that tackles stigma of living in social housing

A cross-agency multi-discipline team of expert volunteers from advertising agencies BBH and AMV BBDO plus creative strategists and planners from Facebook have developed a new campaign designed to tackle the negative stereotypes of social housing tenants and make a difference to Soha Housing’s communications in just one day.

The campaign, which was developed in March during Advertising Week Europe 2017, was the result of a challenge put down to the agencies involved, by communications charity, Media Trust.

Briefed by three of the project partners, Soha Housing, Town and Country Housing and Tpas, the team of media volunteers were given a shoestring budget and just one day to devise an ingenious campaign to wow the charity and their industry peers and most importantly, change the perception of social housing tenants.

The presentation of the campaign concept, Benefit to Society was unveiled at From Brief To Output In One Day: The Results – a well-attended session at AdWeek Europe 2017, during which Facebook immediately offered creative input and advertising support to help Soha Housing and its partners to develop and deliver the campaign.

Richard Peacock, Chief Executive of Soha Housing said, “We started to think about this issue last year. We’ve brought together twelve housing organisations and raised some funds. Soha has done some work around this, with our Real People True Stories work. My hope is that the creative and financial backing of this wider project will really help us to reach outside the housing bubble.”

Frances Lang, Interim CEO, Media Trust said, “I was bowled over by the campaign ideas generated in such a short amount of time. The creative output generated as a result of this challenge really demonstrates what can be achieved when media professionals volunteer their time and expertise to help a charity raise its profile. The collaboration between the housing associations, Facebook, BBH and AMV BBDO encapsulates what Media Trust is here to achieve, creating real impact for charities combined with meaningful engagement for the media industry.  I will be watching with anticipation to see how this campaign develops and unfolds.”

Lise Pinnell from Facebook said, “The team hugely enjoyed learning more about the work that these organisations do and supporting the event with Media Trust at Ad Week Europe.We will be providing ongoing access to our creative team and advertising support so that as many people as possible can learn more about the great work Soha and the other housing organisations are doing.”

The campaign is part of a wider project, which will also involve research to understand the source and impact of stigma around living in social housing.

A third strand will see work with the media industry to help journalists to access helpful images of social housing and tenants