Luton Rising
Our Airport. Our Community. Our Planet.
London Luton Airport is owned wholly by the community through a company, London Luton Airport Ltd (LLAL), whose sole shareholder is Luton Council. The airport is operated by a separate company, London Luton Airport (Operator) Ltd under a concession agreement. This is obviously very confusing.
We were approached by LLAL to take a look at how they communicate. One of our first recommendations was the need for a new brand, firstly to deal with the obvious confusion between two similarly-named organisations, but also because the brand itself – a very corporate name – didn’t reflect its true role at the heart of the community. We took on the challenge of communicating both its unparalleled social impact – 20x greater per passenger than any other UK airport – and its ground-breaking approach to limiting its own environmental impact.
We recommended a new name – Luton Rising – and a new strapline – Our airport. Our community. Our planet. – reflecting its community ethos, as well as its far-reaching environmental commitments.
We have created the logo and visual language, and applied that across all their communications channels. The new website we have designed and built for them sets out what makes Luton Rising different, its values and its vision.
We are now working with Luton Rising on communications for its public consultation about its proposed expansion. (See the lower section of this page.)
"Airports need to think wholly differently about how they go about their business. The criticisms over the environmental harm they cause – principally carbon emissions, noise, loss of air quality and traffic – are not irritants to be waved away, or massaged with warm words and unrealistic aspirations. They reflect the unpleasant reality of a busy airport." Graham Olver, CEO, Luton Rising
Statutory Consultation 2022
Luton Rising is now at a very important point in its development project, with the launch of its public consultation. This is a statutory requirement for any large development, and developers typically see this is an unfortunate necessity for which they have to go through the motions.
Luton Rising’s sees this stage in the opposite way – as an opportunity to maximise the degree of engagement and involvement with the public, stressing the social impact credentials of both the brand and the project. So, alongside many in-person consultation meetings, there is a consultation website including a virtual consultation room.
The challenge has been to turn what can be forbiddingly technical documentation into something comprehensible and digestible which we achieved using the Shorthand platform.
We have been involved in the creative presentation side of all aspects of the public consultation, including video (you can see below as well as here).
