Silk Pearce launches ‘Everyone’s Essex’ brand campaign

Colchester-based branding and design consultancy, Silk Pearce, created a new brand campaign that aims to fulfil Essex County Council’s ambitions of becoming the best local authority in the country.

Silk Pearce was tasked with developing a campaign that would engage a broad audience, including council employees, strategic partners and stakeholders, Essex residents, national government and business communities in Essex and beyond. Silk Pearce’s concept needed to unite these audiences around a shared vision for the county, which sees all parties working collectively towards creating a better Essex for everyone.

“Capturing the spirit of ‘togetherness’, we came up with the name ‘Everyone’s Essex’. We played on the double meaning of the words when spoken, which simultaneously create both a powerful sense of belonging and ownership,” Rob Steer, creative partner at Silk Pearce.

The concept for the campaign draws upon the diversity of Essex, which is captured through drone photography and film footage of the county. By doing so, Silk Pearce aimed to showcase Essex’s urban centres, universities, and infrastructures, alongside the rural countryside and coastlines.

The imagery composition creates a bird’s eye view of Essex, showing the county in detail. It also provides a visual narrative to the messaging set out in the strategic plan, which outlines the council’s commitments to the county.

The new strapline, ‘Everyone’s Economy,’ ‘Everyone’s Environment,’ ‘Everyone’s Health’ and ‘Everyone’s Family’ aims to champion the roles of individuals who work for the county council, who feature in both the literature and brand film. Each film focuses on one person and the role her or she has in making Essex a better place. In ‘Loretta’s Essex,' Loretta talks about her passion for a greener economy, while in ‘Kazadi’s Essex,’ Kazadi describes his role in the economic growth team.

“The campaign for the county council is truly made in Essex, everyone involved in the conception, naming, design, photography, filming and production of this project are all Essex-based businesses. ‘Everyone’s Essex’ creates a new language for Essex County Council that can be applied to all manner of messaging and collateral to communicate the council’s strategy and vision for the county for the term of the current council and beyond,” says Steer.