Public sector marketing rarely has one buyer: a council officer weighing risk, a funder who needs outcomes, a resident who wants to know what’s in it for them. We help you tell one story all three can follow.
What we’ve learned
Public sector work rarely has a single buyer. A programme like SHIFT has to win over founders, a corporate sustainability lead, a university partnerships manager, a funding officer and a community organiser, and each of them reads the same page looking for something different. Write for one of them and the others quietly drift away.
So we start by naming every person who has to say yes. For SHIFT, that meant five personas and a message for each, all held together by one line: London’s Innovation Catalyst. For Synexus Solutions, it meant explaining each service in plain terms to headteachers, councils and emergency services alike. For Safe & the City, it meant working with three London councils and the Met so a safety app reached people on the nights they were actually out.
If a funder, a founder and a resident can’t all repeat it, it isn’t finished yet.
Brand and communications strategy that maps everyone who has to say yes, then gives each of them a message in their own terms.
For example: SHIFT, London’s Innovation Catalyst
Visual identities and guidelines that make a partnership or supplier look like the serious, joined-up organisation it is.
For example: the hexagon identity for Synexus Solutions
Campaign creative, paid social and application funnels that turn a programme or service into sign-ups, installs and applications.
For example: Safe Starts Here with three London councils and the Met
Top Rated Agency
sortlist 4.96/5
★★★★½
A brilliant job. I’m really happy with everything you’ve done. I think you nailed it, so thank you!
Outfly has worked with SHIFT, the innovation partnership on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, on strategy, brand and campaigns, and with Safe & the City on a safety app campaign alongside Bromley, Croydon and Sutton councils and the Metropolitan Police. We also branded Synexus Solutions, a technology group serving schools, councils and emergency services, and wrote messaging for Daintta, a cyber and AI consultancy.
Start by naming everyone who has to say yes. For SHIFT we built five personas, from a seed-stage founder to a public funding officer and a community organiser, then wrote a headline, an elevator pitch and messages for each. One tagline, London’s Innovation Catalyst, held it together, so every audience heard the same SHIFT in its own terms.
They can when the creative and the timing fit the people you need. Safe Starts Here, our campaign for Safe & the City with three London councils and the Met, delivered 420 app installs against a target of 325 and a 2.44% click-through rate against a 0.97% benchmark. For SHIFT, campaigns across three innovation challenges drew 265 first-stage applications.
Public sector buyers are cautious, so clarity matters more than claims. For Synexus Solutions we built one identity to hold a broad offer together and rewrote each service in plain terms for schools, councils and emergency services. Its stand and social campaign for the Blue Light Innovation Summit in 2018 brought 14 qualified leads.
