Unplugged provides strategic communication services through various mediums including industrial theatre, videos, events, and workshops. They aim to fundamentally influence mindset and behavior around safety and other topics. Some examples of their work include:
- Developing the STOP.THINK safety campaign for Murray & Roberts which used videos, workshops and overalls as a "moving billboard."
- Creating videos, workshops and a captain's club event for Exxaro to teach leadership lessons from sports.
- Producing life saving behavior videos for clients by restaging real workplace tragedies to prevent future incidents.
3. Induction Immersions | Industrial Theatre | Corporate Video | Conference | Launches | Events | Snakes for Safety
Sports Metaphor Projects | The Captains Club | People as Brand Projects | Tailor-Made HSE Campaigns | Brand Activations
Mass Brainstorms | Executive Road Shows | Strategic Interventions | Life Saving Behaviours Videos | Print Media | Immersions
Where we play
4. What we aim to do
To fundamentally influence mindset and behaviour through high impact awareness and reinforcement.
5. Murray & Roberts | STOP.THINK
Murray & Roberts brief, called for a complete campaign proposal:
Unplugged developed STOP.THINK
Pre engagement in the Springbok dressing room brought middle management on side
Video and Industrial Theatre drove the launch process
Change rooms were repositioned to be places that are not only used to change
clothes but also to change mindset
Changing into the new team uniform symbolised the taking on of the ethos
of the team
A new visual language was invented to bridge communication gaps in the workplace
Overalls on the backs of over 30,000 people world wide, are a moving billboard for the
campaign
Tactical interventions are used to keep the campaign alive
Induction | Immersion
6. Pioneers of a medium
Rick ans Sue Melvill brought Industrial Theatre to South Africa
Di Kershaw has been a driving force in the industry
Industrial Theatre is a core Unplugged offering
Industrial Theatre
7. Sasol Synfuels | Demons & Angels
Demons & Angels zeros in on the inner voices that influence our behaviour in life
The 2010 Kick-off of this project involved a combination of live action and video in a
dramatised revisit of the Secunda playing field hosted by the SA Team Coach
The production of a series of life saving behaviour videos, is the current focus of the
campaign
Multi Media
8. PPC | New Vision | Paul Stuiver
When Paul Stuiver took over as CEO at PPC, and was looking to galvanise his team
around the prospect of an aggressive African expansion plan, he asked us to tell the
story of that journey in an inspirational video
Corporate Video
9. Standard Bank | BBEE | Jaco Maree
We used the road that Jaco Maree has travelled to work for his entire Standard Bank
career as a vehicle for him to reflect on the journey that both the bank and the country
has taken as a precursor to the unveiling of Standard Banks black empowerment deal.
Corporate Video
10. Murray & Roberts | Medupi | The Game Plan
The sports metaphor was used to help construction workers on Eskoms Medupi Power
Station project to understand the game plan, the rules of the game and the strategy behind
the formation of the team.
Corporate Video
11. Wesbank | As we sew, so we shall reap
Crop farming is a great metaphor when planning a communication rollout; you need to
understand the nature of the ground youre working with, you need prepare a seedbed,
when ideas germinate they need nurturing , etc. So it was that 30 Wesbank managers
planned a communication rollout (and farmed !) at the famous Prynnsberg estate.
Corporate Video
12. The Loeries
The problem: Sun City had become stale and predictable as the
venue for SAs Premier Creative Awards Event
The Creatives Choice: Unplugged was chosen to undertake
the radical move to the Cannes of the North Coast, Margate!
Unplugged Thinking: Host the event on the beach, make the
event a product of the people of Margate
The Result: 4 hours of multimedia production, manic left field
entertainment with an all fall down creative event supposedly
created by the people of Margate
Events
13. Events
Standard Bank | The Beat of One
Internal Leadership Programme Drumming Session Road Show,
spread out throughout Africa and ended in the UK.
14. VW Touareg | The Indigo People
The Challenge: Launch the Touareg 4 x 4
to people jaded by car launches
The Solution: A hand written invitation
8 Anthropologists from the Sorbonne
Intimate rooms at Melrose Arch
A suprise reveal in the street
A high speed chauffeur driven, night drive, through a deserted city
A What would you like to do tonight? after party
A 4 x 4 Experience the next day
The reward: The Loerie for Best Car Launch of the Year
Events
15. Events
Massey Ferguson | Barloworld Equipment
Unplugged has done the Annual Sales Conference for
Barloworld Agric for more than 3 years running. The 3 day event
included:
Team Building
Story Telling
Workshops
Training
16. Anglo American | Welcome to the Arts Reunion 05
International Eventing
The Brief : Create a 3 day platform for a discussion on global
leadership between our CEO and our 170 Top International
Executives. Any European city, program up to you
The event, executed in Barcelona, took the form of a roving
discussion through the private palaces & non tourist gems
The pre-conference ice-breaker involved a pitch by Barcelonas best
guides in an Unplugged inspired non-tourist trap tour
Conductors of the Orchestra are what CEOs are
Legendary speaker and conductor of the Boston philharmonic,
Benjamin Zander, conducted the first discussion on the stage of the
Palais de la Musica
Conference
17. World Cup 2010 | Cape Town Stadium Construction | Team Green Point
A cutting edge engineering and construction masterpiece. An immovable delivery date. A team of 5000 players who had never
worked together before a soccer metaphor to help pull it all together. Unplugged handled the metaphor creation, the project ID,
induction, team building, recognition and game plan communication.
The sports metaphor at work
18. Snakes for Safety
Its the most effective Safety Communication Intervention Ive seen in 24 years of mining Cemetation CEO
Industrial Theatre sets up snakes as a metaphor for danger
Venemous snakes are produced in a surprise reveal workshop
The Puffadders, Cobras and Pythons in our work place workshop
Snake boards for daily Hazard Identification
Snakes for Safety puts the bite back into BBS Communications
Strategic SHE Interventions
19. Exxaro | The Captains Club
Middle Management are the sporting equivalent of the Captains on the field
Marks Maponyane, Bakkies Botha and the Management of Exxaros Grootegeluk Colliery facilitated by Arnold Geedts share
experiences and observations on how the lessons of sport and life can make for a better understanding of work at a
Captains Club event
Sporting icons bring impact to leadership
Tools like Open Space brainstorms provide the vehicle for innovative ideas and constructive engagement
The Captains Club for Middle Management
20. BOC | The Life & Soul of Gautrain
The Bombela Operating Company (BOC) Induction covers not only HSE but also creates a powerful platform
for the concept of people as a brand. A core part of their Induction being to engage new members on the
brand personality of the organisation they will be driving.
People as brands
21. Eskom Blue Flag
Eskoms Blue Flag project is a classic example of tailor-made
Unplugged SHE campaign
A visual metaphor stands as a powerful symbol for an SHE journey of
excellence
The metaphor of the mountain
Each base station reached represents another specific milestone of
achievement
The signing of Tibetan Prayer Flags is a symbolic point of departure for
any team embarking on the journey
Team members become the face of the campaign
Unplugged trained Sherpas, guide the teams to the summit
The prize that awaits....Blue Flag status
Campaign mediums consisted of video, print and industrial theatre
combined with workshopping, training and events
Tailor-made SHE Campaigns
22. Cell C Flash Mob
Cell C made a bold decision one summer
They canned their above the line budget and opted only for live
activations
Activations that would get people talking
In three weeks Unplugged staged 1237 events
In the process over 1 million direct response cards were given out and
millions more were reached
Jeremy Maggs voted it the best of the summer campaigns and a
Loerie award followed for brand activation
Brand Activation
23. Open Space | Bottom- Up Engagement
Harrison Owen invented Open Space Technology as an alternative to
people sitting in rows looking at the backs of each others heads
Theres no agenda for an Open Space brainstorm, only an outcome
And a belief that (800) brains are better than one
Everyone in the company is invited and everyone is regarded as an equal
There are a few rules
But the core focus is on ideas thatll help achieve the proposed outcome
Each idea is given a maximum of one hour
Only those enthused by the idea sign up for the brainstorm
But all discussions on the day are recorded by scribes
And submitted for consideration by an executive committee
Open Space is the ultimate medium for any leader open to the ideas of
the people
Mass Brainstorms
24. The Hand Over | Alan Knott-Craig Farewell
When Vodacoms iconic founding CEO handed over the baton,
Unplugged produced the roadshow
It was going to be emotional but we also wanted it to be light
So it was that all the advertising characters that had been the face of
Vodacom in the Alan Knott-Craig era found themselves in reception one
day
Crafted by Unpluggeds favoured comedy writer Steve Francis,
it was a sitcom of note
Executive Roadshows
25. Life Saving Behaviour Videos
STOP.THINK Moments
Ill allow you to make this video so that another mother may be spared of
losing her son like I did
A fatality or serious injury in the workplace is a shocking thing
But, as with motor accident statistics, the impact is often lost on those
divorced from the situation
Famalies and companies associated with workplace tragedies have
allowed us to restage some of these events as a way of ensuring they
wont happen again
These highly sensitive videos are then screened to the workforce as a
precursor to facilitated discussions around incident prevention and
behaviour change
Along with facilitator notes they become a record for future generations
and a moving and memorable awareness tool
27. Immersions
Standard Bank | Crossing the line
Standard Bank wanted to get their management out of their offices and
into the mass market so we immersed them in a township wedding
They felt their middle aged execs were out of touch with the youth so we
partnered each one of them with a radical kid for a day
They were concerned that their salaried decision makers didnt truly
understand the pressures of entrepreneurship so we partnered them with
entrepreneurs for a day
They were bothered that their well off team had no connection with the
likes of a car guard or a wheel chair bound pensioner or single township
working mother, so we made them wear those shoes for a day
Each of these immersions ended with a solutions brainstorm