Due to the delicate nature of the subject, we knew it was important to tread carefully with this campaign. Understanding that the subject of race and racism is wide and far reaching, we knew that tackling racism in the workplace would need to be a fully-rounded approach that tackled multiple areas at once.

The audience was a complex one, made up of those who have experienced racism, those who have witnessed it and those who’ve either never thought about the issue, or don’t see it as important. The campaign would also be speaking to those who've perpetrated racism – either intentionally or unknowingly. With this in mind, we wanted to make it easy for people to get involved – regardless of where they were on their own learning journey.

Our discovery phase began with extensive research, building upon the findings already gathered from our clients’ initial survey. We then held a focus group with members of the potential audience, asking a specific set of questions that would help us determine the direction of the campaign. We distilled all of our insights from our research and the workshop into a presentation that we delivered to the project team.

The campaign concept ‘Act against racism’ explored the idea of opposing forces working against each other. Racism is a social ill which, unless directly pushed back against, will persist. Using directional cue, our design for this campaign marque demonstrated how ‘act against’ is the prevailing forward force, while ‘racism’ is the way backwards.

We rolled out the new campaign identity across a range of different deliverables, including a guidance document (to be used by mental health trusts across the country) on how to tackle this important topic. This document was created by the RCPsych Tackling Racism in the Workplace working group – a group made up of psychiatrists. This document now essentially acts as a ‘bible of progress’ and includes a maturity matrix that allows stakeholders to review their progress and go through manageable steps to eradicating racism in their workplace.

We also produced video content for the campaign, recording the 15 action points from the guidance document by filming the working group in the college itself. We also recorded an interview of Dr Adrian James (the outgoing president) and Dr Lade Smith (the incoming president) - discussing the importance of stakeholders adopting this guidance, wherever they were in their journey.