Even if it might not feel like it sometimes, we’re currently living through a climate emergency.

For some of us it may feel blindingly obvious that we’re not doing enough to meaningfully tackle it, but with an issue as huge, systemic and complex as climate change it’s no surprise that those just coming to terms with everything get stuck on where to start.

For us, in the lead up to the recent general election, it was the perfect time to run one of our biggest campaigns yet: #ItsOurTime.

Together with The Comms Lab, Julie’s Bicycle and an amazing team of incredible individuals, we set an open challenge to the creative industries to mobilise young people who care about climate to register to vote in the 2019 UK General Election. In the fight for our future, democracy is a key component for survival, and the response we got showed a hunger for change and a drive to work for it.

CHALLENGE

The Climate and Ecological Emergency is the defining issue of our times. It’s already disrupting lives around the globe and its solutions lie squarely in a place that empowers and protects our most vulnerable.

In 2019, young people put climate on the agenda via global strikes, marches and activism. Yet almost a third of 18-30 year olds in the UK were not registered to vote. With the risk of these young people not having their voices heard, #ItsOurTime sought to galvanise as many people as possible to use their influence, creativity and networks to reach young, unregistered voters wherever they were.

APPROACH

For us at If Not Now, this meant taking the lead on everything digital, including running the advertising campaign, influencer marketing, content creation and publishing on social media channels.

In short, we made sure that engaging #ItsOurTime content got seen by the right people.

This meant a lot of frantic designing, messaging, posting and scouring of the internet for the gatekeepers to communities of young people who care about climate change, but (up until that point) may not have felt empowered enough to register and make their voices heard in the general election.

Brandless campaigns like this one leave a space open for people to get creative in their own ways, helping to spread the message further and more effectively than other campaigns with a strict brand to adhere to.

RESULTS

We’re incredibly proud to have been part of such an amazing team effort, not just as part of #ItsOurTime but also in terms of the wider campaign efforts around getting young people to vote.

In the end, nearly 2.5 million people aged between 18 and 34 registered, smashing our target of 2 million and breaking youth voter registration records.

Between the 1st and 26th November, we gained over 12 million social media impressions, more than half a million engagements on the campaign, and drove over 150,000 people to the government registration site from campaign channels alone.

It goes without saying that we’re chuffed with the results of this far reaching and engaging campaign, and there’s something to be said for allowing people the space to get creative in their own ways around the issues close to their heart.