Processions

for RBS Group

BRIEF:

 

The bank sponsored the 14-18 NOW art project PROCESSIONS, which celebrated one hundred years of votes for women by organising simultaneous walks for women through the centres of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London. As proud sponsor, the bank wanted to show customers and colleagues that they shared the Suffragettes values of fairness, equality and progress.

 

EXECUTION:

 

Although the bank remains strongly committed to gender equality, their 37% gender pay gap will not be closed until 2030. Sponsoring PROCESSIONS sends a clear message, but the bank concedes there is a long way to go.

 

With this in mind, I came up with the campaign line: Our Procession Has No Finish Line. Sponsoring a walk to celebrate gender equality is fantastic, but it's just the start. By aligning their sponsorship to the line, and that thinking, the bank pledged to customers and colleagues their intention to keep on making progress.

 

Taking inspiration from the Suffragettes - themselves masters of marketing - we designed branch posters to look like century-old banners. These were done in three brand colours.

The final designs needed to better reflect the individual bank branding, but remained striking and progressive. Each one clearly showed the three Suffragette colours of green, white and violet; so chosen because their first letters stood for 'Give Women Votes'.

OUTREACH:

 

As women across the country attended banner-making workshops in advance of the walk, we rolled our designs out on social media so that even if they couldn't attend, women (and men) could show their support.

 

And we created social posts that opened a wider conversation around the bank's support of women.

We placed pop-up video boards at each event to create a never-ending virtual procession, which we stitched together. This procession really did have #nofinishline.

 

 

In London and Cardiff, we brought back Emmeline Pankhurst and Millicent Fawcett to applaud and cheer those attending PROCESSIONS.

10th June 2018. Thousands of women - over 80,000 in 4 cities - walk wearing green, white and violet scarves, and carrying banners. Including one with our slogan!

WINS:

 

  • Posts and digital screens reached almost 4m people
  • These were viewed over 400,000 times, generating 4,100 likes, shares and comments.
  • #PROCESSIONS trended for 12 hours.
  • #nofinishline featured in 73 social conversations.