Rufus Leonard takes the Foreign Office on tour

30 June 2006

A one minute guide to the EU is being launched today by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) at www.europe.gov.uk , following work by brand and digital media agency Rufus Leonard.

Recent research from a Eurobarometer survey has shown that UK citizens still have very poor knowledge of the EU and its institutions. Some 85% of UK citizens say they know little or nothing about the EU. With this in mind, the Foreign Office has collaborated with Rufus Leonard, to create a new 60 second animated guide to the EU. The guide features a camper van touring the key sites of Europe, accompanied by a short narrative setting out the key facts about EU countries, how the EU works and its impact on our lives. It then links off to a section on the Future of Europe, where visitors are invited to put forward their views on specific European issues.

The 60 second guide features in the recently revamped Britain in the EU section of the main FCO website; www.fco.gov.uk, which has been re-designed and rewritten by Rufus Leonard, the FCO Europe team, and the COI, with a more mass market audience in mind. The animated guide takes this idea a stage further, by presenting the same information in an easy to digest format, suitable for casual web browsers, as well as younger audiences. 

This is the first time that the Foreign Office has introduced animated content on to its website. The aim is to make key information and services more readily accessible to non-specialist audiences, as part of its public engagement and diplomacy programme.

The research findings and the new FCO web content were launched by the Minister for Europe, Geoff Hoon.