multimedia Marketing Campaign - Essex County Council (TLC)

TLC, or 'Talk, Listen, Cuddle', is an Essex campaign helping parents, carers and families give their young children the best start to life, developing their communication skills through playful learning at home. Research shows that over 50% of children in the UK start school with some type of transient speech, language or communication difficulty. In areas of high deprivation that number can increase to 89%. With the right support from the adults in a child's life, these difficulties can be reduced.

With more than 80,000 children under the age of five living in Essex, this represents a significant number of children likely to experience some form of communication difficulty. Essex County Council therefore approached Mackman to deliver a campaign to promote the importance of supporting children's early communication at home.

THE CLIENT

Facilitating children's early development

Essex TLC promotes the three key principles of building a child's language and communication skills - talk, listen, and cuddle. The initiative needed to encourage parents and carers to support the development of early language and communication skills in their child, right from birth.

The TLC principles also educate parents to engage with their baby at specific points of the day, for example nappy changing. The project needed a clear campaign identity to be integrated with existing web and social media channels, and promote participation by families with lower literacy levels or English as an additional language.

OUR PROCESS

Supporting parents through resources & tips

Following engagement with the delivery team within Essex County Council, the development of a comprehensive brief was approved. A Mackman strategic marketing specialist then developed a campaign plan and collaborated with the creative and communications teams to deliver a distinctive campaign identity that would engage the various target audiences and facilitate effective communication, especially with those of lower literacy levels.

An online digital tool in the form of a web application was designed with mobile and portable device users as a primary audience. Importantly, bespoke sound files were developed and incorporated. The team at Essex County Council received training on how to use and update the web application.