Member Article

bgroup puts Redcar & Cleveland in the frame

The expertise of a North East communications company has stoked the entrepreneurial fires of an area left in the economic doldrums by the decline of the steel industry.

Newcastle-based communications agency, bgroup, is spearheading the creative drive of the ‘this is all yours’ campaign, which aims to harness people’s love for their locality as part of the £10.9m Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI).

The first phase of the campaign encouraged local residents to submit photographs of their favourite image of the area – and 500 people took part. A selection of shots is available at the campaign website - www.thisisallyours.co.uk. The spotlight was also shone on Redcar & Cleveland via a TV ad campaign which has been airing on ITV for several weeks.

bgroup is now working on the second phase of the campaign, which aims to encourage individuals to take the first steps to running their own businesses and to help existing companies to grow.

bgroup creative director, Diane Gates, said: “People have got to be interested and excited about enterprise and the area in which they live before they will start a business on their doorstep. This has been a fantastic launch and has really set the scene for the LEGI enterprise team to work across the area.

“Encouraging people to submit their favourite shots was a way of building interest and excitement and got the ‘this is all yours’ campaign off to a fantastic start. We will now use this engagement and the awareness raised via the TV advert to really get people excited about starting their own business.”

bgroup’s pre-campaign work showed that many local residents had considerable pride for their local town or neighbourhood but were less passionate about the borough as a whole. The photography competition was aimed at getting people to think more about Redcar & Cleveland as a whole.

Lois Hobson, LEGI enterprise project manager, said: “bgroup has really helped us to understand the feelings and aspirations of local residents and businesses, and has managed to create a brand and campaign that is reaching out and connecting with everyone the enterprise team needs to reach. “We’re looking forward to working with bgroup to take the campaign to even greater heights in the year ahead.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .