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2017 One Show - Public Relations

Change Please

Agency FCB Inferno / London

Client Change Please and the Big Issue
BACK TO RESULTS

Annual ID

OS_PR17061M

About the Work

Homelessness in the UK has reached record levels. Efforts to address this are floundering. An advertising campaign wouldn’t be enough; we needed to create something that would make a real difference. We noticed commuters walking past the homeless everyday and buying coffee. We thought, why not give the homeless the tools to disrupt this journey. So we launched Change Please, a self-sustaining coffee business staffed by the homeless to help the homeless. We launched with one cart and three baristas in Covent Garden accompanied by a big PR push to tell the story of the initiative and the people we were helping. People seemed to like it - 61 stories on launch day, a BBC documentary and an audience reach of over 600million. In eleven months we’ve sold 250,000 coffees from 8 locations. “It’s a glimmer of hope to me…a stepping stone out of the darkness” Liam, Barista