Berlin housing market:
Information instead of polemics

The debate surrounding the Berlin housing market has been very loud for months. It has been dominated primarily by those in favor of expropriation. To counter the prevailing tone, the “Neue Wege für Berlin” association commissioned CBE DIGIDEN five months before the elections to develop a campaign that would facilitate a fact-based dialog. Within a very short space of time, an educational campaign was created that addresses the center of society. It resists the reflex of being loud and polemical and makes it clear how urgent new, affordable and social housing is.

Instead of loud propaganda, the focus is on information – and personal experience. Under the slogan “Building fair rents”, seven new and old Berliners talk about their experiences with the housing market. The result is seven films that give a very private insight into the lives of those ambassadors and make it clear that there is nothing more important and personal than a home. Combined with facts and figures about the housing market, the campaign draws attention to the shortcomings of the housing market without becoming polemical, explains the consequences of a possible expropriation and calls for an objective dialog between all stakeholders.

Since the “Neue Wege für Berlin” association, as a non-profit organization, only has a limited budget at its disposal, the campaign focuses increasingly on online channels. Not only can relevant target groups be addressed directly here, but dialog is also possible. The campaign is based on the association’s website, newly designed and implemented by CBE DIGIDEN, which supplements the ambassadors’ experiences with facts about the housing market and thus provides the public with factual information to help them form an opinion. With short video clips, ambassador statements and sharepics, the campaign is running on a total of five social media channels – and is attracting a great deal of interest: Not only is there discussion in the comment columns, but the website’s monthly traffic has also increased significantly. Due to the short duration of the campaign, a balanced paid media mix was used in addition to organic reach. In total, over 14 million impressions were achieved. The campaign was also visible offline: posters and adverts in the subway brought the campaign into the cityscape and into the heart of the action.

The messages thus reached hundreds of thousands of people, encouraged them to rethink and reconsider and thus made an important contribution to the informed formation of opinion on the subject of the housing market and expropriation.