Why place matters in a noisy world
The projects I enjoy most all share one thing: they’re rooted in a place.
When communications connect to a landscape, a community or a neighbourhood that’s real and meaningful to people, they carry more weight. They make ideas feel tangible, because you can see the impacts close to home. A wildlife reserve with a new volunteer team, a thriving visitor economy, a museum that feels welcoming, a local culture people want to belong to.
Small changes that spread
In the big and scary world we live in, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the bigger picture. What can you do in the face of the the climate crisis, the housing crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, the global economy? But there’s real power in making a difference at a grassroots level. Small, local changes add up, and they spread.
We’ve seen first-hand how communications campaigns we’ve produced about homelessness, the environment and wildlife have echoed from council to council. We’ve worked with charities on innovative local housing schemes and cultural narratives that have formed models for other areas and organisations with the same problems. We’ve watched hyperlocal economies grow up around visitor attractions that, with great marketing that stems from listening to their place, have benefited the whole community.
Change rarely arrives from the top down; it spreads sideways, through connections between people and organisations. That’s why I love working on local projects where the setting is the heart. What we do at this level strengthens communities, brings out the unique personality of landscape, and models best practice that can make a much wider difference to the world.
The power of local stories
A place is more than a physical location. It’s a combination of history, environment, experience and emotion.
When you think of the Scottish highlands, or the Cotswold hills, or your hometown, a set of impressions come into your mind. Some of them may be from experience, others from what you’ve seen or heard from others (including travel blogs and destination marketing).
The place doesn’t even have to be real. The words ‘Camelot’ or ‘Mordor’ do much the same thing in your brain.
In short, your place is the setting where you tell your story. If you’re a council, a visitor attraction, a local charity, a festival, or another organisation where your setting is central to who you are, it’s vital that you understand what feelings and impressions that setting creates in your audience’s minds.
When a story is rooted in a place people know, they can picture it. They know the roads and buildings, the housing estates and high streets you’re talking about. It feels immediate and authentic, worth their attention.
Here’s an example.
We’ve recently been working with a district council to help them bust myths about homelessness. This is a really emotive subject that many feel strongly about, and that makes it fertile ground for mis- and disinformation. Common myths include that homelessness only means people sleeping rough (there are many people experiencing ‘hidden homelessness’), that it’s about single men, or that it’s the result of bad life choices. And those are some of the less harmful ones.
There are loads of campaigns out there about the facts, but many people still believe the myths.
Setting facts in a local context can help to make them real. Tell someone who's beginning to listen to misinformation that nationally, homelessness has a complex set of drivers, and they might not listen.
But you can build trust if you tell them honestly that in their home town, the biggest reasons people are becoming homeless right now are eviction by friends and family, evictions by private landlord, and domestic abuse. Especially if you can tell a human story alongside that.
By telling real local people’s stories through case studies, providing local statistics and using images from the local area, the council is making the big stuff feel real and relatable. It’ s even employing data from a survey it ran on what local people believe (e.g. 16% don’t think it counts as homelessness if you’re sleeping on a friend’s sofa).
The result is an impactful campaign that’s helping local people to understand each other and inspiring positive action.
Communications that belong
Aristotle said, “Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people." The technology of communications and marketing may have come a long way since Ancient Greece, but human nature has not. If you want people to take on board what you’re saying, you need to help them relate to it.
Good communications are about belonging. When people see themselves reflected in what you share - their streets, perspectives, accents, heritage, wildlife, humour, favourite places - they accept it as theirs.
That’s the heart of what we do at Entangled Creative: helping organisations find the voice of their place, and use it to tell stories that connect.
There’s a lot in the world we can’t control. But centre yourself in your place, tell its stories well, and everything else begins to grow from there.
Entangled Creative works with councils, charities and visitor attractions to help them communicate clearly, confidently and with local character.