The challenge: The Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) aims to boost agricultural productivity across Africa by rapidly delivering proven technologies to millions of farmers. To increase awareness and use of TAAT’s e-catalogs—which collate critical information about TAAT-vetted technologies—the TAAT team approached Marchmont for support in sharing this resource with their networks on social media.
Our approach: To achieve TAAT’s objectives, Marchmont conducted a social media audit and developed a campaign. This included:
Leading consultation calls with various departments within the TAAT team to understand the user experience with the catalogs and target audiences engage.
Conducting a social media audit of TAAT’s channels to inform recommendations on effectively promoting e-catalogs and how to measure audience engagement.
Developing a campaign titled ‘#TAAT4That’, portraying the e-catalogs as an accessible and easy way to find technologies that address the challenges farmers, businesses and policymakers face – including materials such as GIFs, graphic cards and a social media toolkit with posts that the TAAT team could utilise across their channels.
Conducting a series of feedback consultations with stakeholders to understand their perception of the campaign and generate insights for TAAT’s future engagements with these audiences.
Outcomes:
Marchmont positioned TAAT technologies as a solution to various challenges within African food systems and elevated the e-catalogs as a go-to resource to learn about these technologies.
The challenge: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Nature Hub aimed to change perceptions of investment in nature and climate as beneficial to the economy, rather than limiting, as well as an essential part of human life. To reach this goal, UNDP aimed to launch a campaign to reach leaders in business, media and policy.
Our approach: Marchmont, to support this aim, developed and implemented a multi-channel campaign, including:
Launching a social media campaign around the tagline “Counting on Nature”, flipping imagery and phrases traditionally used for finance to highlight nature’s economic benefits.
Conducting media outreach ahead of and during key moments such as the biodiversity COPs, the climate COPs, the World Economic Forum in Davos, and the Global Environment Facility Assembly.
Developing written materials to empower in-country offices to engage local stakeholders in discussions around the value of nature.
The challenge: The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) works to improve animal health and welfare across the globe. They approached Marchmont Communications for support of the launch of their EcoAMR analysis—an extensive modelling of the health, economic and environmental impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR)—seeking to inform policymakers at the UN General Assembly as they discussed plans for AMR in 2024.
Our Approach: To achieve WOAH’s objectives, Marchmont developed media and social media campaigns, including:
Drafting a comprehensive media kit with top-line messaging, tailoring pitches for environmental-, economic and business- and health-focused media as well as case studies for journalists to engage meaningfully with the analysis.
Crafting and placing an op-ed to boost visibility for the EcoAMR analysis and position WOAH as a thought leader and reliable reference for data that can drive AMR mitigation forward.
Summarising key findings from the EcoAMR analysis to produce easily-understable and engaging social media posts that were accompanied by eye-catching GIFs and graphic cards.
An op-ed on the EcoAMR analysis was also published by The Hill further positioning WOAH leadership’s expertise in leading efforts to end AMR.
In addition to this, the multimedia assets used on platforms such as Instagram garnered over 3 million views, further boosting engagement with the analysis.
The challenge: The World Food Prize Foundation (WFPF) is an organisation that elevates agricultural innovations and inspires action to end world hunger through award programmes and dialogues. Since 2016, Marchmont has been providing WFPF with strategic support to drive visibility and engagement for their various programs and events, building their reputation and positioning them as global leaders in food systems insights.
Our approach: Over the past few years, the Foundation has sought support from Marchmont to raise awareness and engagement around WFPF’s major activities and events. This includes the Norman E. Borlaug International Dialogue, the World Food Prize (WFP), Top Agri-food Pioneers (TAP) list, Borlaug Field Awards (BFA) and the Innovate for Impact Challenge. To achieve these goals, Marchmont:
Oversees the annual media launch announcing the World Food Prize Laureate, tapping into unique stories for each Laureate to gain coverage not only in top-tier media, but also in select specialist and regional outlets.
Develops and disseminates toolkits (including digital assets such as GIFs, videos and graphic cards accompanied by social media posts) to promote submissions for their various awards programmes.
Provides tailored media support in launching Laureate letters or statements to achieve global coverage.
Identifies and secures high-profile journalists to moderate sessions at the Dialogue.
Leads the WFPF’s in-person press office at the annual Norman E. Borlaug International Dialogue, including pre-event media invites; on-site liaising, press announcements and press conference; and daily newsletters providing highlights from each day of the event.
Outcomes: By re-structuring the media approach to announcing the World Food Prize Laureate, this led to media coverage immediately skyrocketing in the first year and the announcement typically still receives 300+ pieces of media coverage.
Over the past three years alone, Marchmont has secured more than 1900 pieces of media coverage for the World Food Prize Laureate announcement, including top-tier outlets like the Associated Press, Devex, EURONEWS, Forbes, France 24, The Washington Post and more. (Marchmont has successfully launched media announcements for Laureates such as Dr. Geoffrey Hawtin, Dr. Cary Fowler, Heidi Kühn, Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig and Dr. Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted, among others.)
In addition to this, Marchmont has also secured more than 1800 pieces of coverage for the Borlaug Dialogue.
Through targeted outreach Marchmont helped to continuously increase nominations and attendances for the Foundation’s programs and events. In 2024, more than 1500 delegates from 65 countries attended the Borlaug in Des Moines Iowa.
The challenge: The Global FoodBanking Network (GFN), a worldwide coalition of food banks, wanted support as they launched and implemented a new communications strategy. The goal of this work was to re-position food banks not only as entities that operate in crisis situations, but as an integral part of the food system. This would also allow them to engage in different aspects of food systems conversations such as climate change and community development.
Our approach: To reach these goals, Marchmont created a multi-stage communications plan and conducted media outreach. The scope included:
Conducting analyses and audits of current media and stakeholder landscapes to inform communications strategies, uncovering emerging and underdiscussed themes for GFN to champion as well as key organisations to engage.
Leading brand positioning workshops and creating concise, catchy messaging to be used across the organisation.
Conducting media outreach and managing press offices around key events, report launches, and wider news triggers to position GFN amongst different thematic areas.
Supporting this outreach with op-eds during key moments such as the climate COPs, the UN General Assembly and the International Day of Awareness of Food and Waste.
Planning and undertaking support for the launch of a landmark Methane Methodology framework, including conducting outreach to journalists, managing interviews, preparing speakers, and following up with attendees.
Coordinating a media roundtable around the Methane Methodology, including managing speakers and rehearsals, securing journalist attendance and facilitating media opportunities as a result.
Outcomes:
Marchmont’s media outreach secured more than 500 pieces of coverage, ranging from global top tier media to specialist and regional publications.
A variety of opinion pieces authored by GFN experts, partners, and coalition members were produced and placed in a wide range of international media. Highlights included placements in Al Jazeera, Euronews, FairPlanet, The Hill, and USA Today.
The Challenge: UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for a “Food Systems Summit” to take place in 2021 as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through accelerating the transition to healthier, more sustainable and more equitable food systems.
Marchmont Communications was tasked as the official retained communications agency of this first-of-its-kind UN Food Systems Summit, providing strategic communications, media and social media outreach support, which included:
Positioning the Summit as an inclusive and engaging year-long consultation process, not just a one-off event;
Promoting food systems transformation as a key route to achieving the SDGs;
Mainstreaming stakeholders’ understanding and use of the term “food systems”, which captures a broad sector including agriculture, food, climate, environment, equity and economic development among others.
Our Approach: To achieve these aims, Marchmont developed an evolving, multi-channel strategy over the course of 18 months, which included:
Creating a drumbeat of engagement and awareness through both regular media outreach and management of the UNFSS social media accounts ;
Developing and launching targeted campaigns around strategic moments in the Summit process as well as in the external UN agenda, such as report launches and international events;
Developing and sharing original digital assets including sophisticated multimedia packages of customised vox pop videos, GIFs and graphics;
Conceptualising and executing digital preview events including a virtual “media world tour”, and a 24-hour global relay conversation;
Providing on-site press office and social reporting support (overseeing a team of 11 people) at the pre-Summit in Rome in July 2021, including managing media registrations;
Providing virtual press office support at the Summit in New York during the UN General Assembly in September 2021; and
Establishing a legacy for the Summit, its achievements, and its contribution to the sustainable development agenda, including through retrospective social media audits and a celebratory #FacesOfFoodSystems campaign.
Outcomes: Marchmont helped to elevate public awareness and dialogue around “food systems” in support of the Summit process.
The media outreach produced more than 8,000 articles and pieces mentioning the Summit, including:
More than a dozen opinion pieces by Dr. Agnes Kalibata, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to the 2021 Food Systems Summit, senior officials and key participants in the Summit, such as Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director (2012-2017) of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), Dr. Kanayo Nwanze, President (2009-2017) of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Mayor GiuseppeSala of Milan, UN Food Systems Champion and Chair of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, and Gerda Verburg, Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement and member of the Food Systems Summit Advisory Board (for example, the Independent, Nature Food, Quartz, Daily Telegraph, The Hill, Thomson Reuters).
Widespread coverage in non-English media, including Spanish-language coverage in EFE, Arabic-language coverage in Al Eqtisadiah, French-language coverage in Le Monde, and Italian-language coverage in L’Espresso, SKY TV, and La Repubblica.
Over the duration of our outreach:
Overall, average monthly mentions of the term “food systems” nearly tripled when comparing the first and last month tracked.
On a yearly basis, overall mentions of the term “food systems” increased by 50% when comparing 2020 and 2021.
Social media had a potential reach of 2.5 billion people over the period tracked and online media coverage had a potential reach of 202 million people over the same period.
On a yearly basis, total reach increased by 46% when comparing first to second year of data period (broadly 2020 and 2021). The Pre-Summit and Summit both had a potential reach of 230+ million people.
The top phrases used on Twitter include “sustainable”, “people”, “global”, “health”, and “climate”. This fits into key narratives promoted by the UNFSS – including around the idea of a “People’s Summit” and the cross-disciplinary focus of food systems on broader sustainable development.
The Challenge: The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) was preparing to launch its 2022 Global Assessment Report, the UN’s flagship biennial report on worldwide efforts to reduce disaster risk.
Marchmont Communications was tasked with launching the report’s calls-to-actions and findings both to the media and via an online campaign. The objectives of the outreach were to raise awareness and urgency on how governance systems can evolve to better address systemic risk.
Our Approach: To achieve these aims, Marchmont developed a multi-channel strategy ahead of the report launch, which included:
Planning how best to position the report to secure maximum media interest. Marchmont first drafted a series of quotes for the UN Deputy Secretary General, Amina Mohammed, and other spokespeople, which included references to how “humanity is on a spiral of self-destruction.” Marchmont then pushed for this concept to anchor the outreach as a whole, to both demonstrate humans’ role in increasing disaster risk, as well as leaning on this language to emphasize the scale and urgency of the challenge facing the world.
Targeting high-priority media outlets to conduct interviews with high-level figures from UNDRR under embargo, ensuring coverage would be widely syndicated upon the launch of the report;
Supplementing media outreach with op-eds from high-profile figures within UNDRR, which reinforced the pressing calls-to-action made by the report;
Developing and launching an online campaign using the hashtag #StopTheSpiral, which was hosted on a Trello board with social media toolkits, promotional GIFs, explainer videos, fact cards, an online interactive quiz, interviews with experts, and more. This campaign aimed to complement the media outreach and showcase specific facts, quotes, case studies and recommendations from the report in a compelling, action-oriented way.
Outcomes: Across both media and social media, Marchmont helped to secure widespread visibility of the report as well as UNDRR’s warnings around the state of global disaster preparedness.
Media outreach around the launch of the report secured almost 1,000 pieces of media coverage, including:
Over 7,600 posts about the report on Twitter, referring to the “spiral of self-destruction,” as well as the hashtags #GAR2022 or #StopTheSpiral.
On Reddit, the report announcement received over 44,000 likes, with 90% of people engaging with the post positively through upvoting.
A reporter on Twitter noted, “For the UN, this is very, very blunt language. Their report’s marketing hashtag is literally #StopTheSpiral. What’s left unsaid is much more frightening than what is said.”
The campaign’s visibility was such that the UNDRR Global Platform event taking place after the report was used by a group of prominent scientists as a news hook for releasing an open letter, and well-known climate skeptic Bjorn Lomborg also published a series of response op-eds.
The Challenge: Agricultural biodiversity, or “agrobiodiversity”, will be essential in helping the world achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. CGIAR’s Bioversity International produced a comprehensive review of the existing evidence on agrobiodiversity which they asked Marchmont Communications to help them launch ahead of an important United Nations conference. The goal was to raise awareness of the importance of preserving crop biodiversity and to drive traffic to the report.
Our approach: As the report was a literature review, it did not have original findings that could act as the hook for the media outreach.
Our strategic idea was to position the report instead within a broader public narrative that we saw emerging in the media around the “sixth mass extinction” of animals (that had mostly focused on the risk of large mammals like elephants and tigers going extinct).
We wanted to use the report to reframe that narrative and shine a spotlight on the fact that many crop species are also at threat from the same phenomenon – in other words, to dramatize “the sixth mass extinction of our food supply”.
A launch date was set three weeks ahead of an important United Nations conference where the report would be showcased in person, so that the media coverage would build an online groundswell of interest which could be carried into the event itself.
A short media summary of the report was drafted to highlight key takeaways and case studies and appeal to different media desks and regions, and a press release and series of op-eds were drafted along the same insight.
Outcomes:
The resulting effort produced more than 60 pieces of coverage in nine languages, including a slot on Al Jazeera’s news at ten.
Three separate articles appeared in The Guardian: the news piece was shared on Facebook more than 11,000 times and also appeared in the print edition; the op-ed was shared more than 4,000 times and received over 300 comments; and a third article appeared as their “top news story” online on launch day.
Additional coverage was secured in National Geographic, BBC Radio 4, Reuters and the Financial Times. Bioversity International’s overall web traffic doubled and the book was downloaded over 1,000 times in the first week.
The Challenge: As the largest and arguably most prominent development bank in the world, the World Bank Group provides financing to developing countries across a wide array of issues. The Group has come to Marchmont for support with various of these initiatives, including branding and launching new programmes, facilitating workshops, conducting stakeholder mappings, and raising the visibility and support for existing activities globally. These include their:
Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Programme
Global Food Safety Partnership
Our approach: Every scope of work is first carefully planned to meet the broader goals of the initiative as creatively and efficiently as possible.
Marchmont will typically lead a kick-off call after reviewing the existing background materials, querying objectives, audiences, calls-to-action and channels before refining the approach to deliver results worthy of the World Bank’s global profile.
We often coordinate in tight timeframes and with teams working across different time zones.
Marchmont also created several new brand identities, logos and related design collateral for various new initiatives:
Marchmont also oversaw the production of several video assets, including a documentary-style photofilm for the Disruptive Agricultural Technologies (DAT) Challenge in Nairobi (viewable here) and an introductory video for the Global Food Safety Partnership (viewable here).
The Challenge: Danish Red Cross wanted to promote to the media the concept of a blockchain-based currency as a potential alternative to direct cash transfers for humanitarian aid. They were launching a pilot programme in Kenya involving multiple partners, followed by a second phase of scale-up across other Kenyan communities.
Our approach:
During the initial planning process, Marchmont identified the different target audiences and segmented messages for different media outlets accordingly, from the humanitarian and development fields to specialist technology and finance outlets.
To achieve cut-through, the messaging prioritised both the potential benefits of the alternative currency for building resilience among vulnerable communities (to resonate with development and humanitarian donors) and also its agility and efficiency during emergencies or shocks like the Covid-19 pandemic (to appeal to the wider news agenda).
