Big Issue UK finds it challenging to engage a vastly digital audience with a physical magazine, adversely affecting vendors and their interaction with their communities.

While the magazine had seen tremendous success in the 90s and early 2000s, recent times have been more challenging. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the business was struggling to adapt the new (primarily digital) media landscape. Simply copying the new industry leaders was not an option as it would mean sacrificing their entirely physical business model, their primary vehicle for supporting those in precarious living conditions.

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  • The Big Issue is a social enterprise that sells their magazine to people in precarious living conditions for half of the cover price, who in turn sell the magazine from their assigned street location (called pitch), keeping the difference. The Big Issue is the world’s most widely circulated street paper, and one of the most celebrated enterprises in the UK.

RESEARCH PROCESS

Our task was to provide The Big Issue with a validated prototype of a service intervention in 5 months. While this was a slightly longer time frame than we had been used to working in, the magnitude of the challenge meant that there was no time to spare. Given the sensitive nature of the subject and the challenges we would face in conducting interviews with the vendors, we came up with a plan:

Dissect The Big Issue as a business. If we were to have any success, we had to know the dynamics of the organisation and magazine inside out. Our intervention would have no impact if it wasn’t tailored for their unique ways of working

Fully understand the landscape that they are operating in: media, charity, social issues, homelessness

Safe and ethical research. Our interviews had the risk to put ourselves and our interviewees in uncomfortable situations, both physically and emotionally. To minimise this risk, it was essential that we prepared extensively for various different flows and situations.

Key insights from the giving landscape and precarious living experiences

The Giving Landscape

  • Climate Change, racial equity and feminism are just some examples of relevant issues that have more compelling narratives and shared visions of the issue. However, homelessness is not a standalone issue, but rather is a consequence of and precursor to many other social issues.

  • Financial support is the least favoured type of support as there are concerns over how the money will be spent, and the quasi disappearance of cash from urban landscapes has left many physically unable to financially support those in need. Many feel that all they can give are words of apology or looks of sympathy. While they deeply respect the efforts of The Big Issue vendors to improve their situation, they question whether purchasing a magazine is the best way of helping them reach their goals.

Precarious Living and the Vendor Experience

  • they all have different backgrounds, skill sets and goals. Designing a solution that would work for everyone would be near impossible.

  • Not all support is created equal: Those with organic support networks (family, friends, community) are far more likely reach their goals when compared to those who just have systemic support (government, charities, etc.).

  • While the possibility to make money was what first brought many vendors to sell for The Big Issue, it quickly becomes more that. It is a job that can work around vendor’s often chaotic and unpredictable schedule, gives them a reason to be in public and interact with society, and, most importantly, a sense of dignity and self-confidence that many had lost.

How might we encourage a digital space of kindness and transparency for rough sleepers to find be found by those that want to offer non-financial support?

DESIGN DIRECTION

At a high level we have:

  • A heterogenous vendor population with different histories, current conditions, capabilities and goals

  • A society that needs a more effective and more secure way to help those that are trying to help themselves

For us, the answer lay in the random “acts of kindness” displayed to vendors across the country. From offering to wash their clothes, to offering to pay for their hair cut, to buying a baby stroller and nappies for a pregnant vendor, to simply sitting down and chatting, people from all over the country supported their local vendors in the best way they could: by treating them like humans.

Our task isn’t to create a new behaviour, but to help create the necessary context for a natural behaviour to become scalable.

DELIVERY

We realised that we could not completely rebuild the system. There is simply too much complexity and too many external factors that limit levers we could pull. Instead, we opted to build a digital proposition on the current application that enhanced and supported key interactions and value exchanges to deliver more positive outcomes for vendors, buyers, and the magazine.

The Pitch Project is a new digital hub that will be home to The Big Issue’s digital editions and community.

Unlike merely replicating the content of the physical magazine, the digital edition acts as a dynamic agenda for each week, facilitating interaction among buyers and community members. This interactive feature allows users to shape the direction of the magazine by engaging in discussions and contributing ideas, ensuring it remains a safe and relevant platform for meaningful dialogue.

We delivered a prototype and blueprint for the new digital baseline for the magazine. Instead of replicating the content of the physical magazine, the digital edition of the magazine acts as an agenda for that week. The articles themselves would allow buyers to interact with other community members and shape the direction of the magazine, keeping it a safe and relevant hub for discussion.

A community-driven platform that creates real change by re-establishing meaningful connections through meaningful actions.

Starting with a new baseline of engaged customers, we then expanded the ways in which customers could give support. In addition to the £1.50 they would net by selling the magazine, we built a system that validates and connects people that want to help with a relevant vendor.‍ In place of a single-shot, one-dimensional form of support that is dependent on right timing and limited channels, we propose a digital platform that promotes engagement with social topics and incentives action