Making our cities more sustainable. Pocket Park in Athens Greece by P&G.

Challenge

 

P&G has a longstanding commitment to addressing climate change and has announced “It’s Our Home,” a commitment to be carbon neutral for the decade.

The company was looking for a way to engage with consumers in Greece and make a tangible act in line with the global commitments.

 

Project Scope

 

Our strategic proposal was to link the P&G’s global commitment “Our Home, Our Planet” with the need of the city of Athens for the creation of more green spaces in neighborhoods.

We proposed to P&G to join forces with an expert NGO (ORGANOSI GI) and the Municipality of Athens to create the “Pocket Park” initiative, transforming abandoned public spaces into vital urban breathing areas. With the specific corporate initiative, we focused to communicate P&Gs commitment and showcase that our home is not just the place we live, it is also our neighborhoods and cities that have ceased to be sustainable.

 

This idea was the beginning of a very successful initiative, an initiative that has the potential to expand in other cities as well and result to even more “pocket parks” in Greece. A cooperation that required a strong communication plan with multiple activities for various target audiences, to raise awareness and amplify positive results and benefits.

 

• Our agency undertook the co-ordination of the pocket parks’ construction process (with the NGO “Organosi Gi” and the Athens Mayor Office)
• At the same time, we designed a 360 holistic PR communication and stakeholders’ engagement plan, to communicate the initiative. The PR campaign’s motto was: “We create Pocket Parks – Making our Cities More Sustainable”
• Our main objectives were to raise awareness about this innovative project and its benefits for the local community, showcase P&G’s global commitment, generate positive publicity for the company and its sustainable strategy, build and sustain positive media relations and further enhance company’s image. Our strategic approach was to design tailor-made activities that would combine stakeholders’ engagement and consumers’ engagement, by adding value to the local community and the local authorities and by spreading a positive word of mouth for this initiative and its social impact in other target audiences: company’s employees, local and national journalists/Media, local citizens and general public.

 

Results

 

The pocket park creation achieved a high volume of publicity and social media buzz, while effectively communicating the company’s values across all targeted audiences. Company’s representatives received very positive comments from the stakeholders involved and the residents, of all the neighborhoods areas that the initiative as took place.

 

The PR value reached almost €280.000, while more than 240 mentions (online, press, social media, TV, Radio) were initiated from the pocket park announcement. Our communication messages were fully deployed through all the mentions. The communication plan of the initiative, as well as related actions, are still an-ongoing process.