National Citizen Service Builds Youth Appeal

18 Feet & Rising is launching an innovative marketing campaign to encourage young people to sign up for the National Citizen Service (NCS), a ground-breaking scheme that helps 16- and 17-year-olds take positive action in their lives.

 

The agency has created a fashion range, poster campaign supported by press and PR buzz to promote the message to youth that taking part in NCS is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

 

 

NCS was launched in 2011 by Prime Minister David Cameron. It offers 16- and 17-year-olds three-week courses, partly residential, where they learn leadership skills, team building and ways to help their communities. Participant figures are set to triple, with as many as 90,000 young people expected to take part by 2014.

 

18 Feet & Rising was awarded the task of promoting NCS by the Cabinet Office last autumn. The agency’s remit is to embed NCS into UK youth culture and make it cool among young people.

 

The new campaign, which breaks on January 28th, promotes the line “It all starts at yes”, 18 Feet & Rising’s big idea to build interest in NCS. At the heart of the campaign, the agency has created a range of T-shirts with six different designs, which will turn young people themselves into walking adverts for NCS.  

 

 

They will initially be worn by NCS youth ambassadors such as X-Factor judge and singer songwriter Tulisa. One hundred were made exclusively available for ambassadors and past NCS graduates at KOKO’s in Camden last night. Then, in a media first, T-shirts will be placed under the glass of poster sites across England, targeting schools and shopping centres. This will build interest for the launch of the T-shirts en masse in March.

 

18 Feet & Rising’s chief executive Jonathan Trimble says: “This programme is a first step for young people finding their way in a tough world. Hopefully, we're bringing a message that their actions do have magic and power.”

 

Ben Morrison, digital specialist at the NCS Independent Management Body, says: "18 Feet & Rising were given the brief to make NCS a universally recognisable and credible youth brand, something that all 16- and 17-year-olds love, and we feel they’ve lived up to the task.”

 

Credits

 

Creative Director: Alex Delaney

Creative: Alex Delaney, Oli O’Neill

Business Director: Kat Grenville-Jones

Account Manager: Georgie Hunt

Agency Producer: Emily Hodgson

Photographer: Jeff Hahn

Director/ Production Co: Make Made

Post Production: Make Made

Typographer: Alex Delaney