An awards list, a report and a night in Manchester, made with KIND Bars and Evelyns.
The challenge
British media has a geography problem. Talent gets covered when it moves south, and the assumption that ambition lives in London goes largely unchallenged. The north of England produces footballers, founders, financiers and creatives at a rate that makes this look ridiculous, yet most of them never reach a national audience. We wanted a piece of work that argued the point by simply showing who was already there.
Our approach
We built #NORTH30, an annual list celebrating thirty people under thirty who are changing the game in the north of England. Public nominations opened first, supported by a media campaign and our own research, and the names that emerged covered sport, business, the arts and everything in between. Each of the thirty was profiled in a #NORTH30 report, which gave the public a proper look at the work behind the names and carried stories the mainstream press had missed.
We then brought the list to life at an event at Evelyns Bar and Cafe in Manchester, sponsored by KIND Bars. The evening opened with networking over drinks, before Mike Omoniyi set out why Common Sense had taken this on and what our work in Manchester was for. A run of speakers followed, then the awards themselves, with winners including influencer Taryl Boothe taking the floor to tell their own stories.
The outcome
30 trailblazers profiled
89 guests at the Manchester event
The #NORTH30 report downloaded more than 3,000 times
