Citizen First LCR
Citizen First LCR: campaign design for Public Life
The programme
Citizen First LCR set out to find and back the Liverpool City Region's hidden entrepreneurs - people building solutions to the health and care challenges they've lived through themselves. Each was offered a year's Real Living Wage salary, seed funding and specialist business support, removing the financial barrier that usually stops these ideas ever getting started.
The brief
The programme needed a campaign to reach people who don't see themselves as entrepreneurs and wouldn't respond to a conventional business-support ad. Designs had to work across local community groups on social media, selected LinkedIn pages and prominent regional accounts.
The design
I built the campaign around the electric pink of the Citizen First brand, paired with a bold serif and duotone imagery. The duotone treatment does the heavy lifting conceptually: two tones holding one image, mirroring the balance these entrepreneurs strike between their present circumstances and the business they're trying to start. The system rolled out across every platform.
The programme was a success on its own terms, and a showcase event followed to attract investment for the cohort and make the case for taking the model to other regions.
Results
24x
oversubscribed
from an open, CV-less application process.
87%
of the 200 applicants
had direct experience of economic disadvantage.
50+
organisations
invested time, money or expertise in the entrepreneurs.
£5.2m
generated
in economic and social value.
Client Quote
James Green - Founder and CEO, Public Life