Airbus: safety induction

Compulsory viewing

Visitors to any big manufacturing site usually have to sit through an ‘induction’ – safety do’s and don’ts while on site.

If you ever get to visit Airbus, and watch the great Beluga planes take off with their cargo of wings bound for Toulouse or Hamburg, you’ll first be shown to a screening room to watch this short animation. It’s a deceptively simple (we worked hard to make sure you don’t have to) way to get essential safety information across in an easy-to-absorb way.

beetroot is editorial and audio-visual partner for Airbus in the UK 

Celebrating success

Commemorative souvenir for staff and stakeholders

Designed and produced by beetroot, this beautiful book tells the remarkable story behind one of bp’s most unusual engineering challenges. It celebrates and commemorates the people who built, installed and commissioned a unique floating production vessel in some of the most extreme sea and weather conditions on the planet.

The 240 page memento went to all those involved, as well as to governments and commercial partners around the world, a powerful statement about the oil giant’s deep reserves of ingenuity and determination.

Renowned photographer Hamish Roots was commissioned for the book and produced some stunning photography.

Information is beautiful

Infographics and illustrations

Creative infographics are the last refuge of many a communications scoundrel, too often delivering a lot less than they promise. But used intelligently, they can convey a single startling fact with memorable intensity, visualise hidden connections, or provide a useful map to help navigate complex information. Some we repurpose as digital or printed posters, and make them customisable for local country and business use.

Engaging sales tool

Product knowledge for customer-facing store staff

We worked with GAP across Europe to engage its young, multicultural workforce. Customer-facing retail staff are a tough audience to reach.

Digital wasn’t an option (as a customer, what impression do you get when you see store staff on their phones?) so we went old skool, basing a communications campaign on one of the industry’s most ephemeral items – the clothes tag.

Over-sized labels became a range of handy product guides, turning a throwaway item into perfect primers, with key features and selling tips.

beetroot also designed and produced a ‘handbag-sized’ employee magazine for staff members as well as a wide range of retail product guides.

Extending the reach of your publications

Augment print with digital communications

Replacing two publications – a company-wide magazine and a tabloid newspaper – with one integrated digital and print channel delivered more trusted, higher impact communications for less sweat and tears, at almost half the budget. Our solution is a format and grid that’s ready-made for hosting and viewing online helping to extend its reach to a wider internal and external audience.

Network is a monthly small-format magazine, produced for Network Rail’s employees.

As well as being sent to a list of subscribers, a desktop icon is pushed via an alert notification to iOS devices. Pages retain their shape on tablet screens, and can be viewed as complete spreads on desktops, while the grid columns also equal the width of an iPhone screen. Digital uptake rose from 5,400 launch issue visits to more than 12,000 for the second issue.

It is no co-incidence that the print version fits in the pocket of a high-vis jacket – the frontline uniform.

Integrated digital and print channel

Integrated employee website and magazine

Post-crash, RBS had a mountain to climb. It understood that to rebuild public trust in its brand, and indeed the banking sector as a whole) you start with your staff: all 100,000 of them worldwide.

Outside In is the award-winning response. An integrated microsite and magazine, print and digital, the site gets 11,000 visitors every month.

Taboo-busting features on mental health and interviews with transgender employees are interspersed with inspiring customer success stories.

Lively discussion forums, interactive polls and employee blogs are all helping to create a collaborative culture of people ‘determined to make a difference’.

Awards for Best Integrated Media, Best Microsite and Best Magazine (CIPR)

We are Virgin

Build pride and customer service

Even – perhaps especially – if you work for a sexy brand like Virgin, the occasional pride-building exercise doesn’t go amiss. Particularly when you’re bidding to retain a multi-billion pound contract.

We devised a campaign for Virgin Trains ahead of the West Coast franchise negotiations to thank staff for their celebrated customer service skills – and rally them around the brand promise.

The multi-channel campaign included messages for line managers to deliver face to face, digital posters celebrated customer service employees of the month chosen via social media, while handouts included bags of sweets, the wrappers of which spelled out the campaign’s slogan We Are Virgin (yes OK, but it did wonders for the campaign recall figures).

Building reputation from within

Create and grow a community of company ambassadors and brand advocates

Public trust in bankers sank even lower than journalists, though still a whisker above estate agents, in the wake of the economic crash. RBS staff felt, and to a great extent were, unfairly vilified.

The company realised that the job of rebuilding the bank’s reputation needed to start here, with its own employees. The Ambassadors programme was born.

We created the Ambassadors intranet site to be the focal point of the fight-back. From a standing start, more than 4,000 employees signed up to be the bank’s advocates within two years.

We moderate and add content daily, with first-look news previews, toolkits and blogs, video, live polls and webinars, lively discussion forums and regional face to face events. A weekly e-zine highlights new content and drives traffic to the site.

The campaign has created a real shift in mindset. More than 90% of members say the site gives them the tools and resources they need to champion the bank, inside and outside.

beetroot also design and produce Outside In – an integrated digital and print channel for RBS.

Using film to drive diversity

GTR’s mission to recruit and train more drivers has led to a welcome increase in women signing up. We met two, one a trainee and the other recently qualified, to talk about their experiences of entering what had traditionally been seen as a man’s world.

The video is part of a suite of digital and printed communications we produce for GTR (Govia Thameslink Railway). We are helping the group – a family of brands Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Thameslink and Southern – develop a one-company approach, without losing the equity built up in the individual brands.