Kind Sparks

Client: RSPCA

The RSPCA has campaigned for many years to increase awareness and education around protecting animals from fireworks but is often blamed for ruining people’s ‘fun’. We were tasked with making audiences who buy and use fireworks think - and act – differently, without making them feel guilty for their choices.

Realising the challenge had interesting parallels with the meat paradox (the term commonly used by psychologists to explain why animal lovers often eat meat), we coined the phrase the ‘Fireworks Paradox’ to allow us to look at the issue differently: Most people love animals and don’t want to see them in distress. Yet, most people also love fireworks, despite acknowledging that fireworks can cause animals distress to animals. Our strategy to overcome this cognitive dissonance was to focus on the human impact of fireworks in our local communities. Working with the RSPCA and community platform Nextdoor, we created the Kind Sparks guide – a resource for neighbours to become firework-friendly. Talent got behind the campaign and Kind Sparks toolkits were provided to MPs and local authorities. Results lit up neighbourhoods across the country – igniting hundreds of pieces of coverage, a record-breaking number of engagements and link-clicks, and discussion of Kind Sparks in the House of Commons. Most importantly, people who had been exposed to the campaign were more likely to take positive action in their local area – from choosing to attend public fireworks rather than host their own (78%) to looking out for neighbours with pets or wildlife.