THE GOAL
Five years on from the fire, no one has been arrested. Justice4Grenfell wanted to highlight that half a decade later the authorities still had not delivered justice to the victims and survivors as well as the wider community. We wanted to create a moment to remind the UK public of this, so that continued pressure can be applied to the Government.
THE CHALLENGE
With a toothless public inquiry and no progress, we had to cut through the apathy and hijack a cultural moment while getting the tone right. There was lots of ‘hard news’ around, so we needed to create something impactful that was empathetic to the surviving familes, but also hard hitting.
THE SOLUTION
10 days before the 5 year anniversary of the tragedy, the country was planning for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Communities up and down the country began organising street parties, festivals and other shared celebrations, but for one community this time was a time for remembrance and not celebration.
We decided to use this moment to flip the existing news agenda and create a moment that could not be missed. The week of the Jubilee celebrations, we held a Justice4Grenfell street party, with a crucial difference: no one would come. Here Be Dragons laid a table with 72 empty place settings, representing the number of men, women, and children who died in the fire on June 14th 2017. Each place card we laid carried the name of one of the victims; a special commemorative plate, often used around Royal moments, was designed for the occasion, again carrying all 72 names, and ‘Grenfell green’ bunting and napkins adorned the table. We worked with the local community to lend support to the idea - borrowing 72 chairs and enough tables from local community groups.
THE RESULTS
Throughout the day coverage began to cascade across media, and was covered by every national in the UK, and picked up and organically shared across social media by high profile people like Choose Love, Bella Mackie, Aisling Bea, Big Zhu and Cephas Williams.
- Within just 12 hours of issuing the story, 27 online news outlets, and 4 broadcast outlets had ran the story
- Story went global and multi-language (Italy particularly)
- 101 pieces of coverage in total, with over 6.1 million online views, 2.2 billion potential audience reach and 74,000 engagements (likes, comments, shares across articles on social media platforms)
- Justice4Grenfell’s Instagram post received over 35k likes
- Key pieces of coverage include Metro, Independent, My London and BBC London, Guardian
- People on social media, organically, were calling for it to be entered into the Turner Prize and we are currently in conversation with the V&A, after they reached out to us with the desire for it to be added to their permanent collection.
- It sparked national debate, becoming the topic of Opinion/ Leader Column pieces in the Nationals
- It transcended media segments, even being picked up by the ‘foodie’ media as a great use of ‘food propaganda’ to protest
- Four days later, the government announced they were banning the use of the cladding that caused the fire at Grenfell
AWARDS
The Grenfell Platinum Jubilee Street Party has received the following:
- Creative Moment Awards 2022: Nominated for 'Most Creative Disruptive Campaign of the Year'. Winner of 'Most Creative Stunt of the Year' and 'Most Creative Charity Campaign of the Year'.
- PR Week Awards 2022: Nominated for 'Best Use of a Small Budget' and 'Best PR Event (Stunt)'.
- PRCA UK Awards 2022: Nominated for 'Consumer Award – Low Budget' and 'Not-for-Profit and Charity Award'.
- The Drum PR Awards 2022" Nominated for 'Best Event, Stunt or Promotional Activation', 'Not-for-Profit/Charity', 'Small Budget', and 'Social Purpose or PR for Good'.
