European Commission
Feeding Hope
Food insecurity isn’t just a humanitarian crisis. It’s a human crisis.
But among older Gen-Z and Millennials, only 40% agree that the EU should invest more to combat food insecurity.
Changing this perception proved to be quite a challenge due to a lack of interest in ‘far-away’ issues or an absence of meaningful exposure to the topic.
With this campaign, we cut through the noise by showcasing real heroes. We turned apathy into empathy through stories of hope to bridge the gap with humanitarian aid.
To ignite pride and rally support amongst a sceptical audience, we launched an authentic campaign to showcase how food fuels more than stomachs in remote parts of the world.
Agency
VML Copenhagen
Role
Executive Creative Director
Awareness
The main challenge was to raise awareness around the European Union’s role in funding humanitarian aid operations to increase the EU citizens’ sense of pride and enthusiasm towards these actions and towards EU itself.
Access to food is a fundamental human right and preserving food security is integral to maintaining cultural heritage, which should resonate with us all.
Many Europeans feel far removed from the issue of food insecurity and are far too often inundated with the same images and messages from various organizations – all leaning on the emotion of guilt and pity.
We wanted to get people to resonate with our message and genuinely care through emotional and engaging content. To do so, we wanted to avoid the usual “us” vs. “them” narrative and bring people closer not just to the issue, but the people, with a more inclusive “we” and “our” approach.
The Campaign
Feeding Hope was divided into two phases, where the first phase aimed to provoke and get people’s attention, while phase two aimed at driving an emotional connection.
For phase one, we teamed up with 20 food influencers round Europe who diverted form their usual foodie content to talk about those going without and highlight on EU’s efforts.
In phase two, we wanted to give a voice to those who receive the aid in order to get the most authentic and honest message. We filmed a documentary with three heroes; Abdulaleem from Yemen, Sabekun from Bangladesh, and Bousseina from Chad.
This documentary was shown at six film festivals in five European countries. To get the message out to a wider audience, we also had a variety of influencers post cutdowns of the documentary.
Impressions across SoMe and Online video platforms
Reached 86% of the target audience across SoMe and Online platforms.
Watched the film, with 90% of all viewers watching the film to the end.
In the end, the most important outcome for us was that we managed to reach people on a personal level with a simple message of hope.
Proving that the best way to deliver tough and normally unrelatable messages is by leaning on values we all share and recognise.
