Public trust in the non-governmental and charity organisation sector has experienced a steady decline over recent years, increased during 2018 with the recent conversations about misconduct in Oxfam, Save the Children and other organisations. During those events, Save the Children felt their response was not strong enough to rebuild the relationships lost during this turbulent time.
Their 2017 Annual Review was going be published approximately five months after the initial media coverage began, and it was the perfect opportunity for the organisation to be more transparent about how they work, and demonstrate openly their commitment to do better and to be relevant to the conversations happening in the world today.
The smaller picture. To reconnect with their audience, Save the Children needed to go back to basics and focus on the individual small achievements that made a big impact in countless areas of the world where their work is needed. Putting the spotlight on the bitesize narratives and human journeys that tells the story behind the story. Show those small stories that made the big picture.
Abida, Diarra, Narom, Sajida, Elkida, Rasel,… For organisations working on such a big amount of projects, where politics are greatly involved, communicate on a more personal level about their achievements could be quite difficult, making those little stories look diluted into stats, numbers and overall themes that the general public can find hard to relate with.
The idea under The Smaller Picture is to focus on those names, the small individual stories where Save the Children made an impact, and showcase, in a way that feels human, the results of the great work of everyone involved.
A positive approach. Another important factor on the way NGOs communicate is how they showcase issues. Instead of putting the drama that surrounds these children stories on the spotlight, this Annual Review would be all about the positive response that their policies in healthcare, education or child support are having on those matters. Without sugar-coating the reality, the emphasis was put on how they achieved their goals even in the most advert situations, and how the life of a lot of children has changed because of that.
Stories across all platforms. To inspire, engage and rebuild trust within their supporters, a distribution plan was created across different platforms to make sure that the message arrived to everyone. Art directing a project of this magnitude required to overlook the quality of every piece of the campaign individually while checking that, from a global perspective, all of them connected naturally and the message was clear. Apart from a printed annual report, that works as the centrepiece of the campaign, a digital experience was created to help ‘light-touch’ users to engage with the key messages from the report. This digital experience included interactive content as well as inspiring video footage. The complete integrated experience was promoted through all the social media channel as well as internal ones.
