Young Enterprise helps to save a generation

UK charity Young Enterprise gave businesses a wake-up call to the national youth unemployment crisis with a harrowing campaign. Gemma Huckle reports

The rising number of jobless youths in the UK has continued to plague the headlines over recent years, but behind the headline figures lays the reality that without the skills they need, some young people may never go to work.

Business education charity, Young Enterprise, launched a nationwide campaign to tackle youth unemployment. The ‘Save a lost generation’ campaign challenged businesses to help give young people the skills required to get a job.

Although Young Enterprise introduced 227,000 students to business and entrepreneurship under the guidance of volunteers across 3500 companies last year, it continued to face difficulties with its public image of having a bias towards helping students in private education.

The charity decided it needed to reposition itself as an organisation aimed at everyone, while emphasising the role businesses can play in the youth unemployment crisis.

A hard-hitting message

Young Enterprise selected creative agency MNDB who identified out-of-home advertising (OOH) as a key channel to exploit during the campaign. With this decision made, the agency created a series of posters, in addition to a strategic framework, that told the charity’s story, ready for the launch in January 2013.

Apocalyptic-style poster images, including a single swivel chair in an abandoned office, an empty London underground tube carriage and local bus stands without waiting passengers, appeared on billboards across 100 sites in London, in addition to other key locations across the UK.

The stark images were combined with hard-hitting messages, such as ‘Youth unemployment has risen 240 per cent in five years. Make it your business to save a lost generation’. The images also appeared on digital news network ECNlive to further target business leaders and office workers in up to 100 leading London corporate firms across financial, technology, fashion and media industries.

A PR campaign secured coverage in The Sun for the campaign launch, with a success story about Poncho8, a Mexican-style food restaurant launched by former Young Enterprise student Frank Yeung. Advertising was also placed in key business titles, such as Management Today.

Digital meets roadshows

Businesses were also invited to comment and engage on Facebook and follow the discussions on Twitter using the ‘#savealostgeneration’ hashtag. A regional roadshow also formed part of the PR push. It was taken to 10 towns across the UK – Portsmouth, Bristol, Hackney, Ipswich, Derby, Wolverhampton, Rhondda, Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne and Knowsley – where case studies were promoted via local media, business networks and local schools.The campaign, which will run until the end of February, has already exceeded its target of gaining 20,000 Twitter followers.

Michael Mercieca, chief executive of Young Enterprise, said, “Young Enterprise launched this campaign because we are very worried. Society is in danger of defaulting on its moral obligation to the million young unemployed. This squandering of talent and loss of wealth is numbing and shameful.

Emphasising businesses role to play in donating time, money or expertise to Young Enterprise, Mercieca said, “Government research proves we could do more. It shows that giving young people hands-on experience of business while at school, college and university not only makes them more employable, it also boosts their basic academic performance in key subjects such as maths, English and science.

“The experts agree we could do more to save this generation from the tragedy of unemployment. So let’s all get together and do something before this generation is irretrievably lost.”

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