Move More Month – a Sheffield-focused health and wellbeing initiative on an unprecedented scale. Move More is a Sheffield-wide strategy that is being delivered by partners across the city. It wants Sheffield to become the most active City in the UK by 2020. And as a result see meaningful improvement in the health, wellbeing and quality of life of everybody living in the city.

We worked closely with the Move More project management team, headed up by Professor Rob Copeland of Sheffield Hallam University and the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine (NCSEM) in the run up to the Move More Month. Although initially contracted to redevelop the Move More website, our collaboration led to several key activity platforms.

Move More Website and Finder –

The Move More website is intended as a ‘go to’ location for those wanting to get active at their own pace. ‘Social norm’ messages were designed, using imagery and quotations from Sheffielders, that had benefited from Move More – either as patients in one of the three treatment centres, co-located with leisure centres. Or as people who have seen the benefits of regular activity.

Marketing Toolkit

Move More’s success is due partly to the united approach to marketing that partner organisations, such as Sheffield City Council, NHS, and municipal sports centre managers adopted. For the first time in Sheffield’s history, a city-wide marketing and social campaign was made possible by this unity. To support partner organisations, Rocca. developed a digital marketing toolkit. This took the form of a website containing print and digital media graphics and core messaging. It also gave a full social media campaign schedule, so messages were consistent and uniform across organisations.

Move More Workplace Challenge

Businesses are a key target audience for Move More and health organisations generally. Desk-bound employees represent a risk in general health and attendance terms. As part of the Move More Month, and working closely with Prof Rob Copeland, Rocca. developed a cloud-based activity platform for employees. The platform used the Rio Olympics as a theme, awarding users medals in return for active minutes. The platform used gamification techniques to keep users engaged – displaying individual team and organisation scores in a league table.

Move More Schools Challenge

Our extensive experience in Near-field Communications (NFC) technology came in handy for the leading edge solution we developed for infant schools during the Move More Month. Silicon wristbands were given to the children of six participating schools. When touched against sensors around the school, these wristbands would record a journey for that child.

Journeys added up to individual class scores and classes contributed to overall school scores, making the whole pilot scheme a city-wide activity competition. Over 100,000 journeys were recorded in total, or enough for the schools to travel to Athens and back if laid end-to-end! The children were thrilled with their wristbands and Move More was able to record a spike in activity across the schools.

Move More Workplace Challenge:

• >100 Workplaces
• 250 teams
• 3,500 participants
• 7 million active minutes recorded
• Schools Challenge:
• 40 participating schools
• >10,000 participating children
• >250,000 journeys (point-to-point)

Move More Month:

• >300 free city-wide activities
• 54 participating organisations
• Media coverage:
• BCC Breakfast – 6.8m audience
• BBC Radio Sheffield – 279k audience
• Sheffield Star Newspaper (cover article) – 133k readership
• Sheffield Telegraph Newspaper – 62k readership
• Social media reach:
• Facebook – 50k reach
• Twitter – 196k impressions, 10k profile visits

Move More month was and continues to be a great success for Sheffield. The events, activities and interventions attracted national media attention, culminating in an interview with Prof Rob Copeland on BBC Breakfast. Importantly, Move More Month marked the beginning of a cultural change in Sheffield and its attitude to activity as a route to physical and mental wellbeing.