THE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION | WE BELIEVE IN D&T | 2013
How They Convinced an Aerospace Executive to Save a School Subject / THE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION "WE BELIEVE IN D&T"
A required school subject survived purely through lobbying. And that lobbying effort won Gold at Cannes. Sometimes the quietest battles turn out to be the most intense ones.
The problem
In the UK, a subject called design and technology was at risk of disappearing from the school curriculum.
The insight
Simply asking politicians to help doesn't move the government. So the thinking was: frame this as a voice with real economic stakes for the country's industries, and put industry leaders front and center to make that case. Practical benefits beat preaching.
The idea
They brought in a man who had served as chairman of a major aerospace and defense company to be the face of the campaign, having him push for the subject to stay in schools. They also gathered signatures from leaders across fields like engineering, manufacturing, materials science, product design, construction, and architecture, holding repeated breakfast meetings and workshops to lobby the government directly.
What happened
They built a coalition that drew in members of parliament, experts, and policymakers, and kept pressing the Department for Education with the weight of industry support behind them. As a result, the subject remained a required part of the curriculum. It won Gold in the PR category at Cannes Lions in 2013.
Afterthought
When you hear "advertising," you tend to picture flashy videos — but work like this, quietly moving a country, wins awards too. It's unglamorous, but probably one of the hardest kinds of work there is.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2013
