Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
The Challenge: The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), formerly known as the International Center for Tropical Agriculture was created to address climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and malnutrition. They approached Marchmont to deliver a communications campaign to amplify the key messages of a report on action to preserve food security across Africa and offer practical advice to policymakers and donors on how to take action.
Our Approach: To achieve this, Marchmont:
- Distilled the key messages of the study into a two-page media summary and press release.
- Led media planning and outreach, positioning the story against the backdrop of the El-Niño induced drought that was affecting large areas in Southern and Eastern Africa at the time, asking journalists: Is El Niño the tip of the iceberg for African farmers?
- Created a series of animated GIFs for sharing on social media, which extracted the key takeaways from the study in a visually engaging way.
Outcomes:
- Generated 71 pieces of coverage, including The Guardian, BBC, Reuters and Agence France Presse.
- Three opinion pieces were placed in the media (Reuters, Financial Times and the AllAfrica newswire) focussing on different aspects of the study.
- Environmental thought leader Al Gore shared a piece Marchmont placed in National Geographic on X, calling the research “eye-opening”.
