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Responsive reporting for Croydon BID

We have been working with Croydon BID for a number of years on brand evolution and producing most of their marketing and promotional materials. We also design their corporate reporting documents, including their Annual Report, for the purpose of distributing financial accounts and raising the profile of their many achievements during the year. This year, in addition to the Annual Report, we were asked to create a unique interactive document for their levy payers that specifically outlines how the BID has responded to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, helping both local businesses and the community of Croydon.

This year’s Annual Report demonstrates the BIDs continued commitment to their 5 core pledges: safer streets, greener spaces, helping people in and around the city, helping local businesses and improving how the town is perceived both locally and nationally.

The Covid-19 strategy document supports this further by outlining how active and instrumental the BID has been in helping the local community and businesses cope during these incredibly challenging times, providing support through specific strategies they have implemented with speed and efficiency.

It was important to ensure that the two documents could creatively be considered as siblings, to be connected in style but easily differentiated. 

The ‘Raise the bar’ campaign

One specific strategy that gained huge traction was the BIDs ‘raise the bar’ campaign. This initiative responded to local businesses complaining of a lack of government support for companies that sat between the £51K – £150K rateable value threshold, and eventually became a national campaign through the grit and determination of the BID CEO, Matt Sims.

The ask was simple – to expand the rateable value threshold for all retail, hospitality and leisure businesses from £51,000 to any business with a rateable value up to and including £150,000, allowing 54,638 businesses the opportunity to access a £25,000 grant. Overall, the cost to central Government of Raise The Bar was calculated at £1.365bn.

The campaign quickly received political support from all sides of the divide. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, publicly backed the Raise The Bar campaign integrating the ask into London’s lobbying to central Government. We played a small part helping with the digital side of the campaign, the website:

Annual Report

The Annual Report utilises the five core pledge colours to highlight how the BID has attempted to deliver on all of its promises over the last year. It also outlines the value that organisations like Croydon BID bring to towns and cities across the country at a time of such need. Information graphics and typographic stats and figures conveyed how pro-active they have been in representing businesses, not just locally, but across the country too.

Annual Report section dividers

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Annual Report fact-based, text-heavy spread

Large double page divider spreads break up the document into bitesize chunks for the 5 core pledge activities: Investing in your safety; Delivering brighter streets; Creating a great Impression; Helping you in and around; and Bringing businesses together.

Annual Report – infographics and stats & figures

Response and Strategy Report 2020-2021

The Response and Strategy Report is only being distributed online as an interactive pdf document. It demonstrates the important role the BID plays in representing, lobbying and supporting local Croydon businesses. The impact of Covid-19 has brought to the fore the need to scrutinise, challenge and provide constructive views and opinions to the leaders who make decisions, both locally and nationally. 

The document outlines the BID’s strategy, mission and responses to the challenges that they and local businesses have faced, and will continue to face together over the coming year.

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Once again, infographics and large typographic stats and figures were used to convey the BID’s activity and the value they bring during these challenging times.

Matt Simms, Chief Executive of the BID had this to say:

“It is fundamental for organisations such as business improvement districts to not only underline the value they have delivered but provide a clear and concise insight into their future direction. Our approach to delivering both the annual report and accounts alongside our response and strategy report do just that.”
“The creative approach and style allow the reader to easily digest the highlights and how we have delivered in combination with a forward-looking progressive strategy. The design team have not let us down. To The Point understand our business inside out and the need, especially during these challenging times, to communicate effectively to our membership.”

You can download the Annual Review here and the Response and Strategy Report here.