Client
Aarhus Municipality
Industry
Public sector
Year
2020
Services
Design
Aarhus Municipality
Debt can be a difficult topic for city residents, not only to talk about but also to act on. Aarhus Municipality experienced this challenge and therefore entered into a partnership with us to find out how nudging and targeted campaign design can get more people to respond to their debt.
The result? Campaigns that have brought about significant behavioral changes and measurable savings – and which won a Danish Digital Design Awardin 2022.
Challenge: Aarhus Municipality lacked effective, user-centered digital campaigns and communication, which led to low citizen response to debt information and limited payments because messages were unclear and did not engage the target audience.
FROM VOLAPYK TO VALUE
Many people are familiar with the feeling: an E-Boks letter from the public sector where you don't understand half of what it says. Our initial investigations showed that debt letters in particular were often ignored – not because of the message, but because of the way it was communicated. The language was characterized by legal formulations that created unnecessary distance and passivity.
That is why we rethought the entire format from scratch. We worked with behavioral psychology, user-friendly design, and linguistic simplification of communication. After all, it is only when citizens understand the message that they can act on it.
DESIGN THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE
Together with Aarhus Municipality, we have spent several years developing and testing user-oriented campaigns that work. Campaigns such as:
- Encourages citizens to open their letters
- Get them to respond – and pay
- Making them take responsibility for their debts
The new approach has not only eased the burden on individual citizens–it has also had a significant impact on the municipality's finances. And the campaigns have earned us a Danish Digital Design Award 2022, which we are very proud of!
EXCERPT FROM THE CAMPAIGNS
THE DEBTOR
When debt grows so large that it cannot be contained. An empathetic campaign that focused on how much debt can accumulate if you don't start making payments.
THE PUZZLE
As parents, it can be a puzzle to make everything work out, and part of that is paying for daycare–a friendly reminder to busy parents.
Pay Back Friday
A campaign that lit up the pedestrian streets around the big shopping day: "Black Friday." Here, citizens were encouraged to pay off their debts rather than consume. After just a few weeks, the amount paid in by citizens was 650,000 kroner.
UNKNOWN ADDRESS
How do we find those who do not want to be found? A campaign that focused on registering one's address.
LIBRARY CAMPAIGN
This became the stories of how citizens had not returned their library books on time – a real horror story.
“Aarhus Municipality, Citizen Services, Back Office are very satisfied and happy with the collaboration with KOLLAB (formerly /et al.).
With creativity and a high level of professionalism, they have helped Citizen Services develop campaigns and communications that have been effective in capturing citizens' attention and making the municipality visible in the cityscape. We see a burgeoning company that approaches collaboration and tasks with great commitment and initiative. We are experiencing a comprehensive process – from the idea phase, through ongoing sparring, to the final result, with high quality."
Finn Bruun Ravnsbæk, Head of Back Office, Citizen Services, Aarhus Municipality