By Jenny Clarke, Associate

Let’s take a closer look at our work at RBWM

We recently detailed our comprehensive high street reopening campaign during our 18-month engagement with the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in our case study. In this three-part blog series, we explore how this programme addressed public health, economic rejuvenation, and community building using our three-pronged approach.

What were RBWM’s goals

DigiKind was engaged by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead during the first national lockdown in 2020. The Royal Borough was faced with a national problem: declining footfall on the high streets, exacerbated by Covid-19 and a lack of confidence in face-to-face shopping and tourism.

Getting to the heart of the problem, we developed a three-pronged strategy to address the key issues. Combining creative communications, digital community building, and tailored support for local businesses DigiKind saw impressive results: an uplift in footfall of 315% in Windsor when we reopened, coverage in national and international media, and a very strong local business community.

The creative campaign was just one of the elements of DigiKind’s strategy, but at a time of unease it worked to unite shoppers, visitors and business owners alike, and it became the jewel in the crown of the Royal Borough’s transformation.

An evolving campaign

Initially, the creative campaign was designed to help build confidence about safe shopping, and carried a strong public health message. Research showed that big corporate messages weren’t successful in engaging the public or building trust, so instead we created hand-drawn illustrated communications with a friendly tone of voice.

Alongside this DigiKind developed the online hub My Royal Borough to act as a digital ‘one stop shop’ bringing the local community and businesses together. We developed an identity system and style guide which worked across both the website and the campaign, using our own unique hand-illustrated assets.

The campaign was so successful that we were asked to extend this into linked campaigns as the pandemic progressed: ‘support local, shop online’ (during lockdown), ‘pledge to shop local’, and then ‘following government guidance.’ The friendly, and less corporate, imagery was well received by the local community and was shared widely online by brand ambassadors.

Don’t let your guard down

Based on our success DigiKind was asked to extend the activity for the phased high street reopening in March 2021. We used the same recognisable image style to create the ‘Don’t Let Your Guard Down’ campaign. As well as digital assets, we also created on-street artwork featuring life-sized cold-stream guards carrying social distance and safe shopping reminders. This highly distinctive campaign was well loved and was picked up by the media.

A royal success

Working alongside our other activities, our creative campaign hit the mark. The friendly and reassuring look and feel appealed to people during a difficult time and the feedback was overwhelming. Many people shared our campaign content, with over 5,000 user generated content posts on Twitter and Instagram alone. Our campaign was loved by the media, receiving national and international recognition from Sky news, the Guardian, the New Scientist, the BBC, and the Times. And ultimately we connected with businesses, their customers, non-profits, leaders in the community… and brought them together around one cause: to champion their high street.

“Your campaign is brilliant. I love the soldiers. They’ve brought colour, vibrance and hope to the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead during the dark days of the Pandemic. Very well done.”

– Maureen McLean, Professional Photographer/Photo Journalist

Next week, we will share the second instalment of our 3-part series, where we will discuss how community building was pivotal to our strategy, and underlies nearly all of the activities which led to the Royal Borough’s transformation.