Government solutions are often difficult to communicate with the target group. Especially when it comes to European projects. This is because they are overarching and often still quite vague. However, together with Marcel Meeuwissen from the municipality of Enschede and the EMPOWER project, we have proven that we can communicate a government concept simply with film and animation.

EMPOWER is a project supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme.

Living labs: experiments in practice

The impetus for the entire EMPOWER project is that the government wants to encourage more people to travel by bike or public transport. By reducing car traffic, the city becomes more accessible and air quality improves. Within the knowledge project, the city of Enschede collaborates with the University of Twente, as well as with companies, knowledge institutions, and cities from across Europe. Developing new knowledge and sharing experiences is the goal.

Through ‘Living Labs’, EMPOWER experiments on the streets, in real life with methods to achieve their goal. This yields practical knowledge, real reactions from real people. Continuous adjustments are made, and they learn from each other.

Communication about EMPOWER occurs on three levels, tells Marcel Meeuwissen. “On the one hand, we communicate about the project in general; in addition, we inspire other cities to participate by sharing our insights with them. And finally, we want to involve our residents and explain to them what is happening and what benefits they have from it.”

What will you communicate when?

When you communicate about EMPOWER, you always have to deal with the different interests of all participants and target groups, but also with the reason for your communication, according to Marcel Meeuwissen: “A government sometimes wants to communicate completely different things than a company or a knowledge institution. Together with C4Real, we therefore thought very carefully about what we wanted to communicate when.

In the first phase of the project, we first need to explain what EMPOWER entails in broad terms. Then you don’t zoom in on specific cases in the various cities yet. In a later phase, you can do that. The first film we made summarizes what the project is in a very visual way in a few minutes. After that, we dived much deeper into working out concrete examples per city.”

Each city has its own film

The experiments in three ‘Living Labs’ have been elaborated through visualizations to be used in the communication of Enschede, Gothenburg, and Milan. In these, each city is clearly recognizable, so the viewer feels more connected to it. The films show which projects are in which city and how you can participate. They are used for presentations, at fairs, on the website, and on social media.

Marcel Meeuwissen is very pleased with how the films came about: “We maintain good personal contact with C4Real, so we can switch quickly when needed. They were able to show us something very quickly so we got an idea of the direction. They also keep us well informed about the possibilities that exist. Together we look at what fits best with the issue. Due to their approach, C4Real was able to communicate a message clearly even in this project with all those different stakeholders.”

Good tip for other government projects

What is special about this project is that C4Real was already involved before EMPOWER actually started. Marcel Meeuwissen therefore has a good tip for similar government projects: “With their help, we were able to visualize ideas and concepts even before the project started. If you want to apply for a grant or present something to a municipal council to organize the finances, you can make a film like ours as a pre-investment. This allows you to communicate very clearly what you intend to do. Especially in a collaboration involving various European stakeholders.”

Human character comes first

CEO Ton Kuper of C4Real indicates that the collaboration with EMPOWER went very smoothly: “This was particularly remarkable because it is a complex story involving communication specialists from different European cities. We quickly agreed that we needed to approach the communication in phases and then how we should fill those phases in. For the core video, we used film footage combined with graphic content. The human character is always central. Ultimately, it’s about the people who need to embrace EMPOWER. In terms of execution, we could quickly switch with the European project members, for example, concerning where we could film and where we couldn’t, or whether we could film with a drone, and so on. Thanks to Marcel Meeuwissen’s good international contacts, we quickly achieved results. Otherwise, it would be a significant challenge to interview and film a council member in the middle of Milan, for instance. It was a very pleasant collaboration with a mix of cultures.”