Transparent Crisis Communication
| On behalf of | Stadt Leipzig – Department of Communication |
| Partner | Lots* Gesellschaft für verändernde Kommunikation GmbH |
| Period | November - December 2020 |
- Campaign planning
- Graphic design
- Implementation
As a bidding consortium under the direction of Lots* GmbH, we developed a communication campaign to motivate citizens to (continue to) comply with the Corona protection measures in Leipzig's urban area. Since the topic affects society as a whole and thus each individual across milieus, the challenge was to understand the multitude of individually different concerns, needs, and ways of dealing with them. The task was to develop a message that would convey the city's stance and persuade as many people as possible to follow suit.
The campaign was planned and designed at short notice to be implemented at the beginning of November before the second hard lockdown. The various motifs were then disseminated over five weeks in the run-up to Christmas in Saxony on city-light-posters, advertisements, large digital screens and screens in Leipzig's city center and at the main train station. As accompanying measures, a 40-square-meter banner was attached to the New City Hall and the messages were scattered on the city's social media channels.
„A first collaboration with a new partner? Dealing with a sensitive topic under high time pressure? That could have gone down the drain! Instead, we realized a highly professional and smooth project at eye level. Five stars!"
Franziska Morgner, Executive Director Lots* Gesellschaft für verändernde Kommunikation mbH
During a comprehensive kick-off meeting, we jointly narrowed down the communicative goals and attitude of the city administration. From this, we developed the core message of the campaign and weighed up several possible communication approaches: What role does the sender take? How is it spoken? What is appealed to? What currently motivates people? And what tends to frustrate them? Together with the communications department, we decided on a line, according to which we then derived and formulated the core message on several motifs.
The focus of the design is on the quick and unmistakable comprehensibility of the messages. This goal was achieved through the large-scale use of the characterful Canton Gothic from La Bolde Vida on an intensely color-changing background. In the background, a medical respirator mask is indicated, which unobtrusively but nevertheless clearly underlines the request to comply with the protective measures.
We are grateful that the city entrusted us with such a responsible communication task and that we were allowed to develop and implement the motivation campaign together with Lots* Gesellschaft für verändernde Kommunikation. Likewise, we are also grateful to Lots* for this first joint project! We look back on a purposeful, constructive collaboration and optimistically into a (hopefully near) future after the pandemic. Until then: Keep together and stay healthy <3
