The Campaign

The Fund for Peace Bottom 100 is a collection of stories from the other end of the world’s rich lists, created to put a human face to the suffering of millions - to help personalise their struggles, and to engage those who have a voice, to use it for those who don’t. Made over 2 years, covering 5 continents and 23 nationalities, 100 powerful stories were captured by a global team of photographers and journalists.

Execution

We created a media toolkit including a media release, messaging, imagery and other assets that we shared with our global network. The global project was launched in Australia on World Refugee Day, with major press and influencers, stakeholders and the public invited to an exhibition of these stories. The 100 personal accounts spread across the world, through earned social, PR, and negotiated free media across TV, out of home, digital and print. The personal stories of those at the bottom of the world’s rich lists, are now being spoken in places they’ve never been before, from New York, to the Vatican, by people who were becoming blind to their plight. Media outreach was focused on social affairs and general news media to reach the broadest possible audience, capturing the attention of high-profile nationwide and international titles to ignite conversation.

Within a week of launching The Bottom 100, we secured 100+ pieces of local coverage, across key targets including ABC News, SBS, Fairfax (SMH and The Age), HuffPost and AAP. Local media and social media reached an audience of 19 million+ (80% of the Aussie population). We captured the attention of flagship media titles around the world including NY Times, Vanity Fair, France 24, Humanosphere and amazingly the front cover of the highly influential Osservatore Romano – the daily newspaper of the Vatican. The PR agency worked alongside global colleagues within our network to share details of The Bottom 100 with international audiences and drive the story further. Global earned media reached a further 70 million+. Utilising the power of our network we negotiated a vast number of significant free advertising placements (we are very proud our global team backed our Aussie idea). This secured our content film and print/outdoor imagery on the likes of CNN, FOX, Bloomberg, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, Fairfax and JC Decaux. This also included a placement in Times Square, NYC. In Australia, these pro bono advertisements promoting The Bottom 100 ran across Pacific Magazines and Bauer Media titles, Mamamia, APN Outdoor and more. Globally, these donated ad placements totalled an equivalent advertising value of more than AUD$7.5 million and reached an estimated audience of more than 7.3 million individuals. NOTE: We use AVE here because these were in fact adverts.

The Situation

This whole campaign was designed to shift the conversation from the world’s richest to the world’s poorest. The Bottom 100 was created to tell the stories of those on the other end of the world’s rich lists, to put a human face to the millions displaced by conflict and persecution. This campaign told these 100 stories around the world, engaging audiences through social, digital, out of home and printed media, events and PR.

The Strategy

The target audience was two-fold: - Members of the public - Key stakeholders within Government, not-for-profit organisations focused on global issues such as terrorism, displacement and poverty, universities and other advocates for international social welfare initiatives. Faced with a target audience that have become numb to the plight of the world's poorest, who can't see the humans behind the headlines - our PR strategy was to create a way to cut through their apathy, to humanise and personalise their individual journeys and struggles. We aimed to shift the conversations from the world's richest, to the world's poorest, by heroing their stories for the first time. We believe that if people can relate on an individual level to a problem, they are more inclined to take action. The campaign was planned to launch through PR, generating global exposure through earned media, and across multiple digital, social, outdoor and printed channels.