Teach First wanted to engage their audiences – primarily ambassadors who have been through the teacher training programme – and inspire them to take positive action towards achieving the charity’s Fair Education Impact Goals. The campaign’s ultimate aim is to get these leaders more involved by becoming mentors, embarking on further training, raising awareness on social media and supporting appeals to policy-makers.

Teach First’s audience insight told them that these ambassadors would respond to a campaign that appeals to both heart and mind, and that it needed to be punchy, exciting and dynamic.

Another objective was to increase Teach First's presence in the media, as well as engaging with a wider audience that includes businesses, policymakers, charities, funders and the wider education sector.

Statistics show how these children are much less likely to realise their full potential in education and their subsequent careers, compared with their better off peers. As well as inspiring anger, the campaign needed to offer a positive vision for change, to show that a world without educational disadvantage IS possible.

The resulting campaigning platform needed to resonate emotionally, tapping into both anger and determination, to engage with the ambassador community.

We used direct, thought-provoking and intriguing images showing children achieving their dreams in a range of top-flight professions – Prime Minister, Astronaut, Surgeon, Chief Exec etc – deliberately making the visuals stand out from the charity’s previous visual style. The subject of each photograph maintains eye contact at all times, to give the images greater intensity and connect with the viewer.

The brand uses child-like handwriting to convey key campaign messages that relate directly to each child, bringing personality, tangibility and above all credibility to the thought-provoking statements. This contrasts with the strong, assertive typography of the word mark and headlines, all set off by a colour palette carefully selected to provide maximum impact, aesthetic contrast and differentiation from the core Teach First brand.

The campaign framework is flexible and versatile, with clear rules to enable the visual identity to be applied consistently and effectively.

IE Brand’s work provided Teach First with the elements they needed to complement their compelling content, which combines real life positive examples of social mobility successes, and statistics that provoke a reaction. Following completion of the project, we handed everything over to the internal team, allowing them to build a comprehensive suite of campaign comms materials – including a campaigning toolkit, a magazine, a campaign area of the Teach First website, and a comprehensive policy report.

The campaign launched in March 2017 and the plans and materials were quickly adapted to accommodate the snap 2017 General Election campaign, which was announced just a few weeks later. Teach First achieved cross-party political support and buy-in to the campaign from other sector influencers.

"Challenge the Impossible" provided the theme for Teach First's 2017 Impact Conference, which brought together nearly 3,500 people. The event was an opportunity for ambassadors, charities, businesses and policymakers to discuss the issues raised by the campaign and commit to taking further action to tackle social mobility. Watch the video: