On the 6th September, with Liz Truss having recently been appointed as the new Prime Minister, and following a media frenzy due to recent energy price surges that would be nothing short of a disaster for thousands of small businesses, Croydon BID decided to act immediately on behalf of its levy payers and other BIDs. They asked us to quickly create a campaign mark and materials to help them launch a government-targeted campaign, asking it to address the imminent plight of small businesses at this crisis moment under the banner of ‘Business SOS’.
Morse code to convey the severity of the situation
Working with Matt Simms, the Chief Executive of Croydon BID, we visualised the campaign slogan ‘Business SOS’ as an instantly recognisable, impactful graphic that got right to the heart of the severity of the matter. Our play on the use of Morse code as an ‘SOS’ call-out to government, summed up the urgency and immediate threat to small businesses across the country, whilst also acting as a simple ‘call to action’.
A three-point plan to save small businesses from disaster
The #BusinessSOS campaign warned of mass closure and redundancies if effective action wasn’t taken, it would affect over 150,000 businesses from across the UK. It urged Government to act on spiralling energy costs which could prove to be more detrimental than the pandemic crisis to small businesses. The campaign represented businesses across retail, leisure, hospitality, and tourism and hinged on a three-point plan to help support them. This involved, asking government to take the following action immediately:
1. Reduce VAT
The headline rate reduced from 20% to 12.5%
Business energy bills reduced from 20% to 5% to match domestic billing
2. Business Rates Relief
100% rate relief until 31st March 2023
3. Energy Rate Relief
A discounted kWh price on all business energy bills
We created graphics that supported each individual ask and a hero graphic which contained all three. The colour palette of red, black and white was specifically chosen to reinforce the ‘SOS’ message with the final three dots of Morse code highlighted in red to represent each of the three key points.
A social media campaign
The campaign, launched via social media and predominantly via the use of Twitter and LinkedIn, encouraged other BIDs to follow suit and get behind the campaign to help raise awareness of the desperate plight of small businesses across the country.
The Business SOS campaign now represents over 150,000 businesses across the country as we look to lobby at a time of great challenge and uncertainty amid the cost of living and cost of doing business crisis. The strategy has always been to regionalise the message, to develop a creative toolkit which all of our partners could access easily that delivered clear and consistent messaging. Our relationship with the team at To The Point, their understanding of the need and the speed in which it was required allowed us to create a creative package that was not only simple In design but effective in conveying the very Important messages and asks we have of our government today.
Matthew Sims, Chief Executive of Croydon BID and founder of the Business SOS campaign
This isn’t the first quick turnaround campaign we’ve worked on with Croydon BID to support businesses in Croydon and beyond. From our work on the ‘Raise the bar campaign’, followed by ‘Bounce back better’ these campaigns have brought BIDs together across the country to lobby the Government to act fast and help. This has made the comms with BIDs and activation of the campaign far quicker this time. The campaign went out a week before the sad news of the Queen’s death. It had started to make an impact and we hope, like many other campaigns for good, will start to become newsworthy again to help make a difference.
Simon Hutton, Managing Director, tothepoint