Sectors: Housing,
Services: PR & Communications,
George Clarke is one of Britain’s most recognised architects and television presenters. Through his work on Channel 4 and beyond, he has championed thoughtful design, sustainable living, and the transformation of forgotten spaces into extraordinary homes.
We have worked with George on a number of projects, including a campaign for his charity MOBIE (Ministry of Building Innovation and Education) as well as with his production company Amazing Productions.
To mark the centenary of the Addison Act, which initiated large scale building of council estates, George Clarke launched a campaign to force social housing up the political agenda.
Spearheaded by a Channel 4 documentary “Council House Scandal”, Social was tasked with a post-programme multi-channel campaign brief as a continuance of its call to action, to urge the UK government to build 100,000 council houses every year for the next 30 years – through people power.
The campaign featured research and insights gathering, stakeholder communications, social media engagement, traditional media and digital communications to create a voice for people in need of social and affordable housing – spanning age and diversity and across the UK, reaching both urban and rural communities and neighbourhoods.
All tactics pushed towards one goal – to gather signatures on an online petition with change.org to get the cause recognised by Government (at 10,000 signatures) and heard by Government (at 100,000 signatures).
The petition was one of change.org’s strongest campaigns of 2019 and the fastest growing at the time it went live with 100,000 signatures generated in the first five days.
Senior politicians from all major political parties contacted the campaign, including the Mayor of London, Minister of Housing, Shadow Minister of Housing and the Lib Dem lead. All broadly supported the campaign’s aims.
The campaign amassed 269,000 signatures with George invited to give evidence to a cross party group of MPs in the House of Commons about the systematic failure of the state to build homes for those most in need.
Across social media, the campaign organically generated 1,528,000 impressions, 56,570 engagements, 21,500 profile visits, 1,950 mentions, 3,775 new followers and the #CouncilHouse100 hashtag was used 6,500 times. We also ensured the campaign organically trended number one in the UK on Twitter and ninth globally.
Social received two AMECs in 2020 for Council House Scandal: best use of integrated measurement and best first step on a measurement journey. The campaign also won gold in the Chartered Institute of PR Pride North West awards in 2021 for best integrated campaign and best not-for-profit campaign and silver for the community relations category.
