In the most ‘us’ fashion possible, Keep Left took home gold in the ‘Best Non-Traditional Business Opportunity’ category at last month’s Mumbrella CommsCon awards for our work with Guide Dogs NSW/ACT.
What can we say – left-field by name, left-field by nature!
After years spent evolving our traditional PR roots into something a little different and solidifying ‘Embrace Unlikeminded’ as one of our core values, this win was the one we were most hoping for. And it’s especially great to win with our long-term client partner Guide Dogs for a project that has meant so much to us – and to the rest of Australia.
WHAT’S THE WIN FOR?
Our campaign ‘For a Boundless World’ was designed to reposition everyone’s fave charity Guide Dogs as not just a puppy not-for-profit, but a powerful accessibility organisation helping create a world that’s truly inclusive for people with blindness and low vision. To do this, we needed to put ‘traditional’ PR scopes in the bin, and find a way to advocate for real-world change – one that actually involves people with lived experience in the solution.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NON-TRADITIONAL?
When we began speaking to the blindness and low vision community about our ideas, it became clear they didn’t want to see another flash-in-the-pan stunt – they wanted tangible, real world improvements to the barriers and biases they face on a daily basis, and wanted to be in control of their own representation.
So, we designed an education campaign not just with them in mind – but with them. Full stop.
We engaged Guide Dogs clients on a lived experience advisory and creative board to understand the challenges from their perspective, and to achieve real authenticity that would resonate with astute young audiences.
We also extended our scope beyond traditional PR to include everything from ad buys to industry associations. But most importantly, extending our team to co-create all campaign assets with our lived experience board ensured everything we made was relevant and sensitive to the community we were trying to impact. Our Lefties also undertook intensive presentation, production and digital accessibility training to ensure best practice accessibility experiences for all.
WE’RE NOT STOPPING AT GOLD!
We know real-world change does not happen overnight. ‘For a Boundless World’ will continue over the coming years with new work that breaks biases and starts making real changes to improve accessibility for people with blindness and low vision, giving our young, socially-minded audience tangible examples of a Boundless World. And proving that when you embrace unlikeminded and think a little left of field, you can make a pretty big impact.
Guide Dogs – For a Boundless World
