Brief: Create a campaign for a new start up charity that wants to popularise gardening. The team left the Royal Horticultural Society as they felt that gardening didn’t appeal to diverse audiences and wanted to create a new charity to tackle that. Their first initiative aimed to change the perception of gardening in a new target audience of under 25s (Gen Z) living in cities. The call to action was to drive attendance at free Pop-Up Gardening Workshops.

Research: Urban gardening: Urban gardening includes a variety of activities such as growing your own food and community gardening projects. Due to lack of space urban gardeners make use of their window boxes and balconies.

Audience research: Gen Z love to learn, make connections and have a growth mindset. They are conscious consumers and want to reduce their environmental impact.

Competitor analysis: Other providers focus on the mental health benefits of gardening or sustainable living. There is an opportunity to create a fun educational experience enabling Gen Zers to connect with each other.

Insight: Gen Zers index higher than other generations in their adoption of a growth mindset; the belief that hard work, perseverance and learning from mistakes will result in personal growth. The campaign will create an experience which encapsulates this in the proposition: ‘Keep Growing’.

Solution: Keep Growing – a campaign which is as much a call to start growing your own plants, vegetables and flowers, as it is a call to grow and develop yourself. It also has an added message of encouragement, to keep going, despite setbacks, particularly pertinent for Gen Zers who might be struggling with the impact of COVID-19.

Starting with a poster series, the optimistic campaign centres around a range of art directed photographs illustrating the struggles of gardening. A vibrant saturated colour palette and hints of humour emphasizes this.

The wordmark was adapted from the typeface FengardoNeue. It includes a nod to growing through the use of a leaf.

The optimism of a growth mindset underpins the campaign tone of voice. Wordplay is used across all the design touchpoints to create an engaging and empowering tone.