Selected work · Campaign Strategy
Embrace Erasmus Campaign.
A coalition campaign that turned 55,000 signatures and a Downing Street handover into re-opened UK-EU Erasmus+ negotiations.
- Client
- Young European Movement UK and European Movement UK
- Discipline
- Campaign Strategy
- Services
- Strategic Direction, Creative Development
Three years after the UK left Erasmus+, public support for rejoining had hardened on both sides of the Brexit divide. The political position inside Cabinet had not. Embrace Erasmus was built to move it. The campaign engineered coordinated pressure on two audiences at once: a UK Cabinet that needed political cover to re-open negotiations, and a European Commission that needed evidence the UK could deliver a credible domestic mandate. Fifty-five thousand signatures, a multi-organisation coalition pulling in unison, and one delivery at the door of 10 Downing Street later, both rooms moved.
The brief
What the client arrived with.
By the time the coalition came together, the case for rejoining Erasmus+ was being made by a dozen organisations and almost nobody was listening at Cabinet level. The public was sympathetic and the European Commission was open in principle, but advocacy was scattered, policy framing was scattered, and there was no single artefact a minister could be handed and forced to respond to. The question was not whether to argue for Erasmus+. It was how to make ignoring the argument politically expensive.
The intelligence
What we learned about the terrain.
The terrain read three ways. First, the public case had already been made and won; another round of public advocacy on its own would not shift Cabinet. Second, Cabinet would only move if the cost of inaction became politically more expensive than the cost of action, which meant coordinated external pressure, not another open letter. Third, the European Commission was watching for whether the UK could produce a credible domestic mandate before it committed its own negotiating position. The unlock was not louder advocacy. It was a unified coalition speaking through one campaign artefact, on a timeline built toward a single iconic delivery moment.
The goal · one locked behavioural outcome
Move the UK Cabinet to publicly re-open negotiations with the European Commission on the UK's return to Erasmus+.
Everything that follows served this single sentence.
The strategy
The architecture we built.
Direction locked on a single behavioural goal at the Cabinet level, with the European Commission as the secondary audience whose appetite to negotiate would amplify the cost of UK inaction. Meaning framed Erasmus+ as a tangible loss to a generation that had not voted for it, carried by three message pillars covering opportunity, mobility, and the UK's standing as a European education partner. Expression unified the coalition's member organisations under one visual identity, a pink and black system members could carry on a single asset without surrendering their own brands. Activation sequenced the campaign in three beats: coalition build-out and message lock, public signature collection, and a tentpole delivery at 10 Downing Street paired with simultaneous evidence delivery to the European Commission.
The work
What shipped.
The campaign shipped as one unified surface across every member organisation. The pink and black Embrace identity ran on the petition page, member newsletters, social channels and the physical assets used in the Downing Street handover. The iconic image of the campaign, five coalition representatives on the doorstep of Number 10 with the signature boxes stacked between them, was briefed and staged as a deliberate media moment rather than left to chance documentation.
What moved
What happened afterwards.
- 55,000+
- Signatures collected
- 40,000+
- At the Downing Street handover
- 2
- Audiences moved
- Re-opened
- EU-UK Erasmus negotiations
Over 55,000 signatures collected. More than 40,000 at the point of the Downing Street handover, with a further wave following the resulting media coverage. The UK Cabinet publicly re-engaged with the question of Erasmus+ within the campaign window. The European Commission moved to open negotiations on UK-EU youth mobility shortly after, with the renewed UK domestic mandate cited in commentary as a contributing factor. The coalition continues to coordinate its members under the Embrace identity through the implementation phase of the negotiations.
- 1Locked Campaign Goal Statement
- 2Stakeholder Reality Map covering coalition partners, Cabinet decision-makers and European Commission counterparts
- 3Audience Insight Summary across three publics
- 4Narrative Summary and Campaign Line
- 5Three Message Pillars with tone guidance
- 6Coalition visual identity system
- 7Iconic Image concept and staging brief
- 8Channel Strategy across coalition, petition, media and direct delivery
- 9Campaign Timeline with the Downing Street handover as the tentpole moment
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