Fire and Flame!
Every two years, the Bavarian State Fire Brigade Association launches an image campaign, each focusing on a specific key theme. In the past, we had already conceived and successfully implemented several of these campaigns. For 2019/2020, the key themes were: strengthening volunteerism, raising awareness of voluntary service, and recruiting active members from all parts of society: younger and older people, women and men, locals and migrants.
After several brainstorming sessions, in which dozens of different ideas were developed, discarded, and modified, we finally elaborated two campaign approaches to presentation readiness. During a conference, the LFV presented our two approaches, along with proposals from other agencies, to its executives – and they decided by a large majority in favor of our campaign idea “I am a Volunteer Firefighter.”
Superheroes Next Door
The core idea was not to focus on the activities of the volunteer fire brigades this time, but to portray the people who fulfill the voluntary service of firefighting – usually with heart and soul. By showing that behind the operational clothing are not anonymous superheroes, but perhaps the neighbor, the colleague, the acquaintance – people just like you and me – we create opportunities for identification and lower the inhibition threshold to become active oneself. True to the motto: "If they can do it, then maybe I can too?!"
We established the close connection between people and voluntary service by "merging" typical firefighting terms with real first names and people. For example, the firefighter WILLI is hidden in the term FREI"WILLI"G (voluntary), and if someone frees E*INGE*KLEMMTE (trapped people), it could be the female firefighter INGE.
Volunteers Forward!
To find real Willis, Inges, and other people with suitable names for the campaign, we launched a casting call via the LFV's Facebook page – and almost 100 interested individuals from the ranks of the Bavarian fire brigades responded. We received passionate applications, creative ideas of their own, and enthusiastic support.
We selected four protagonists – Uli (BLA*ULI*CHT - blue light) and Ali (IDE*ALI*ST - idealist) joined Willi and Inge. These four were portrayed photographically and cinematographically and now tell their personal story, their career with the fire brigade, and their motivation on the campaign microsite ich-bin-freiwillige-feuerwehr.de. A motif generator is also linked here, through which one can create their own campaign motif – provided they have a suitable name.
The campaign was primarily launched via social media, where it continues to be kept current through regular activities.
Volunteer fire brigades in Bavaria can download additional campaign materials from the campaign website – from ad templates and web banners to large-format posters.
The campaign will continue in 2020 – with new protagonists and the same commitment.
