In 2021, Northamptonshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (NPFCC) was awarded Home Office funding to invest in the safety of women in the night-time economy. The NPFCC partnered with West Northamptonshire Council, local and national safety initiatives, and Amplitude to create the It Only Takes One campaign. This portfolio post looks at the purpose and development of the campaign.

Through their on-going consultation with women’s and local community groups, the local council and police implemented numerous programmes across Northamptonshire to improve safety including increased street security, training for venues and staff, and checkpoints for offering support to victims.

Statistically, Northampton is one of the safest places in the country, but the public opinion does not match this reality. Many in the county do not feel safe to go out at night, and this needs to be challenged.

Amplitude was appointed to work on the public facing comms element of the campaign, presenting a huge yet exciting creative challenge. The comms side of the project was to be rolled out across the country, and sought to challenge behaviours and to educate the public.

The primary audiences for this campaign were Gen Z (specifically those aged 16-24) and Millennials (aged 24-38) women and girls who use the night-time economy, their parents and family members, and men. Secondary audiences included bystanders and staff in licensed premises and private hire vehicles.

Some of the critical elements we had to consider were:

• Not just targeting potential perpetrators, but also encouraging bystanders to come forward, and people to take responsibility for their friends’ safety as well as their own. 
• That “not all men” are perpetrators and not all victims are women. We had to ensure we didn’t create a Men VS Women narrative.
• Keep the messaging simple enough that anyone can understand and identify with it.
• How to create a community wide change in mentality, encouraging members of the community to look after one another.

As always, research is key to the success of any project, especially when the topic being approached is as sensitive as this one. We examined a wide range of campaigns from across the world, then shared this research during creative sessions with all staff members to discuss the topic and how we could tackle it. The aim was to create the full concepts from the ground up and deliver a message which would work across a huge range of outputs.

The concept we went on to develop was based on:  It Only Takes One.

It Only Takes One… “Joke” to normalise sexual aggression.

It Only Takes One… Person to say this is not okay.

It Only Takes One… Community to say enough is enough.

The It Only Takes One campaign is to be a long-running campaign over the course of several years, split across multiple phases.

For the initial phase we produced full campaign branding, with posters, digital advertisements, pull-up banners, large format street banners, and flyers for use in the community, as well as mirror decals for venues. We also created digital assets for social media, a series of motion graphic animations, audio pieces for radio and toolkits for partners, and a full deployment strategy. This was all brought together by a website which for the first time listed all the support available from both public and private sectors in the region. Amplitude managed the full end-to-end production across each channel, all of which had to be turned around in an incredibly short window (6 weeks).

Although the campaign is still in its infancy, there has been coverage in various local and national news outlets as well as a press launch event. We look forward to seeing how this campaign grows and evolves over the next few years, and how it is received by the public.

“We wanted to create a campaign to highlight the issue of violence against women but we wanted our campaign to have reach and impact in a subject where so many words have already been spoken. We set Amplitude the challenge of working with a small group of partner organisations – never easy in itself – to create a campaign to meet  all our aspirations and that we would all own and develop over years.  And we have very high aspirations.

Jo and colleagues worked seamlessly with us, and felt like part of our extended team, researching the subject, bringing forward great ideas and listening to our concerns and ambitions that we would not blame or alienate men but involve them in  a conversation about change.  Even better, Amplitude developed a strong concept that is adaptable so that we can build on it as our campaign moves forward.

The marketing campaign was a crucial part of a bigger picture that kept us busy, so Amplitude kept the show on the road, moving forward, updating us every week, and reassuring us when we felt we might have over-reached.

From the first, the creative ideas were strong and of very high quality and Amplitude took us through the development skilfully, refining our ideas so that we achieved what we wanted, and more.

Amplitude gave us an effective, high-impact campaign that we are all very proud of, that we all feel ownership for and that we are all motivated to build on. The process was smooth and collaborative, and we never felt like we were just another client, but that Amplitude really cared about the work we were doing and wanted it to succeed. Working with Amplitude was a pleasure, and I am extremely pleased with what we have achieved with them.”

–  Deborah Denton
Head of Communications, Northamptonshire Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner and Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service