Design Challenge and Design Ideas

The Limerick Integration Working Group (IWG) worked with Piquant to develop a 4 week campaign with the aim of sending a strong and clear message of solidarity with people who have experienced racism in Limerick, while also communicating that racism is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in our city and county. The IWG is responsible for coordinating the development of migrant integration strategies in Limerick City and County. We started by refining the brief and developing the campaign concept, conducting in depth audience analysis and research. The result was the Root Out Racism campaign, which centred around the key action of ‘having a conversation about racism’. The campaign encourages audiences to listen, learn and talk about racism, using conversation prompts and learning resources we developed. The campaign aimed to positively influence individual attitudes towards people from a migrant background by focussing on internalised and interpersonal racism. We identified the need to develop an action oriented campaign in order to affect genuine, positive change and impact.
This was the impetus behind the ‘have a conversation about racism’ call to action – an action that anyone can take to help inform and educate themselves and their peers, family or co-workers about issues surrounding racism in Limerick. We knew that in order to facilitate this conversation, we needed to provide education resources to help people listen to stories, learn, and inform others. To activate the campaign, we developed a visual identity, which was used to create a wide range of campaign materials, including both social, digital, and print. The identity included an overall identity logo and a campaign logo, as well as a suite of illustrated elements designed for the social media space. We also produced a suite of videos for release
across social, and designed and activate a mural in Limerick city.

Involving affected individuals was a key strategic consideration and essential starting point for this campaign. We met with a group of young people, and a group of adults, to get their feedback on the campaign concept, and record stories and experiences of racism in Limerick. These stories informed our concept development and content as part of the campaign. A key aim of the campaign was to generate engagement from the public, both online and in person. We wanted to inspire people to engage with the campaign by actually having a conversation on World Diversity Day and beyond, especially workplaces, sports teams and classrooms. The campaign generated genuine engagement both online and offline – high profile groups took the campaign action of having a conversation, and shared their action online, including Limerick GAA, UL, MIC, Tusla and more.

How the brief was fulfilled

A campaign mural was designed and planned for execution in a central location in Limerick City. The concept for the mural was a participatory format with a community focus, with members of the public invited to take part in the creation of the mural, ultimately revealing a message of solidarity: Diversity = Strength.
A campaign microsite was developed as the destination for all campaign content. Piquant worked with the IWG to create valuable, educational content for this website, including educational resources to learn more about racism, and conversation prompts to facilitate discussion.
Piquant created a suite of video assets to promote the campaign on social media channels. As part of the production of the video, we met with a group of young people and a group of adults to get their stories and experiences of racism in Limerick, which formed a central part of the campaign video concept. Taking an approach that allowed us to create content specifically designed for the social media space, we developed a video concept that resulted in a suite of conversation snippet style videos, as well as a campaign promo video. With the backdrop of the mural being painted, passers-by were paired up for a quick conversation, mediated by a presenter, and participants were presented with quotes from stories based on people’s real-life experiences. The call to action encouraged viewers to start a conversation about racism. On social channels, we focussed on generating educational, valuable content that people would be inclined to share on Instagram stories and on Twitter. We worked with the IWG to create a large amount of educational resources to help audiences understand what racism is, the different forms, and how to respond. We also created resources to support audiences to use the information learned to have a conversation about racism with friends, family and colleagues. We condensed this information into short, digestible, and educational content that was ideal for Instagram. The aim was to post graphics with short, valuable content that people would be inclined to share to their story, which proved effective.