When a brand campaign won’t cut it, you create a movement.

THE IDEA

Black-owned start up SOUL CAP came to us for a business plan. To be honest, the relationship started between friends, probably over a drink at a pub.

We quickly realised these two men weren’t just looking to sell swim caps, they had seen a need in their community and were on a mission to fix the problem. (That’s its own great story for another time.)

Together with an inclusive innovation consultancy, Studio Exception, we gathered candid stories and insights from groups of Black swimmers and non-swimmers from all over England. Their personal barriers and challenges to swimming formed the foundation of our work and made us realise this had to be bigger than a what we originally planned to do. So our start-up brand campaign turned into The Swim Proud Fund.

The Swim Proud Fund will be donating £100k to grassroots Black swimming projects over the next five years in the UK. Through proposal submissions, financial support will be provided for swimming equipment, teacher training, swimming education and water safety.

The Soul Cap founders are the kind of clients you don’t see very often. Even though they are still trying to make their brand work, they’re happy to offer as much as they can to their communities. It’s at the core of everything they want to do.

And because of Soul Cap’s mission and generosity, our OOH partner ended up donating so much outdoor space around the country, I can’t even repeat it here. Download JCDecaux’s Case Study here.

For more on the research, take a look here.

MEDIUMS:  SOCIAL, OOH, RESEARCH

Role: GCD - Octagon London