FCB Inferno Picks Up Three Awards at APG Creative Planning Awards

FCB Inferno has won three awards at the APG Creative Planning Awards. The judges, who were specifically looking for examples of ‘transformative thinking’, awarded Change Please a Gold and the Planning Innovator prize. Project Literacy received a Bronze.

Change Please is a brand-new coffee brand, launched in partnership with The Big Issue. Chris Baker, Head of Strategy at FCB Inferno, spotted an opportunity to help homeless people by changing how and where people buy their coffee. The idea was to launch a highly disruptive coffee brand staffed by the homeless, to sell great coffee where people needed it via coffee carts. The Change Please baristas would be trained, provided with accommodation and London living wage. It is with huge pride that we can now say that Change Please has gone from one coffee cart in 2015, to making over £1m in revenue, helping 20 homeless people off the streets and is now being stocked in 375 Sainsbury’s stores nationwide. 

Project Literacy is Pearon’s CSR initiative to push the global issue of illiteracy to the top of the UN agenda. Written by Chris Baker and Nic Willison, the paper revealed illiteracy as a cause of some of the world’s biggest problems…and therefore literacy as the solution. The Alphabet of Illiteracy campaign linked each letter of the alphabet to an issue triggered by illiteracy, for example A is for AIDs, B is for Bloodshed. Thanks to the cross-cause nature of the campaign FCB Inferno was awarded a Grand Prix Health Lion at the Cannes festival in 2016. And, most importantly, UNESCO invited Project Literacy to sit on their newly formed Global Alliance for Literacy. 

Vicki Holgate, Chief Strategy Officer says: “Both of these campaigns are fabulous examples of transformative thinking and of using creativity with real purpose. They epitomise what FCB Inferno is trying to achieve as a force for good.”