PROJECTS
Content Production
Brief: Take extremely complex information on municipal finance and make it easily accessible to all South Africans for the Municipal Money and Vulekamali campaigns – in the spirit of Open Government.
Client: National Treasury, Republic of South Africa
What we did: Produced engaging content in multiple languages that spoke to diverse target groups.
How we did it: We conducted User Persona Mapping workshops to understand who would be interested in this content. The resulting personas – from researchers to civil society activists to entrepreneurs – helped our team shape a Communications Strategy for the three year campaign.
Next, we ran public engagement workshops to gather feedback on the initial storyboards – everything from main character to font colours. These were immensely helpful. To write the scripts, we interviewed civil society and government officers involved in the project.
We used storytelling techniques with believable characters to engage with audiences and keep them interested in the content.
Outcome: ROTH produced over 30 explainer videos in into four additional indigenous languages, which are still widely used to publicise for these two campaigns. They can be viewed here.
Training
Brief: Help raise the skill level of digital storytelling, photography and social media for eighteen Communications Officers from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
Client: World Health Organisation, Africa Region
What we did: Designed and taught a four-day, bilingual training workshop, and provided post-training mentorship.
How we did it: We combined the theory from ROTH’s world-first Impact Story Training (which covers body language, building rapport, technology and ethics) with hands-on training in photography and social media.
The aim was for each participant to have published at least one complete story by the end of the training i.e. collected, transcribed (using software), photographed, written and posted online.
Because all of the participants were attending from different locations, and were not therefore with their programme beneficiaries, they collected stories from each other – stories of the challenges and triumphs of being health communicators.
Course materials (in French and English) consisted of the techniques and theory of Impact Story Collecting, as well as a Photography Guide.
Outcome: All of the participants successfully uploaded stories.
We created a closed Facebook group, where we continue to mentor participants as they share their stories from the field.
DIGITAL
Brief: Create a compelling concept and collateral material (editorial, social media, advertorial, design) for a campaign that increased eco-tourism at the client’s reserves – the 2019 “Summer Campaign”.
Client: CapeNature, provincial government conservation authority
What we did: Created winning concept and produced all collateral materials.
How we did it: Our creative team brainstormed concepts and came up with one that was a direct link to the rivers, oceans and the “everythingwater” hashtag supplied by client.
It spoke to the water theme, but also to the idea of water being the source of all life. The headline Return to the Source is a gentle call to action.
The campaign positioned Cape Nature Reserves as a place where people can tap into the source (of life, of water, their own life force). It paints a picture of invigorating, refreshing experiences that are rooted in nature and surrounded by water.
We workshopped the concept with client and made the necessary iterations before designing and writing: blogs, social media (Instagram, Facebook and Twitter) posts, newspaper and magazine advertorials and Web banners.
Outcome: The client saw a significant increase in number of visitors and bed nights at their reserves.
Stakeholder Engagement
Brief: Provide communications support to Climate Business Engagement unit of Global Carbon and Energy Initiative.
Client: WWF-International
What we did: Created communications strategy for the Climate Savers programme, provided partner engagement and support to the Marketing Managers of the member companies and to the Communications Officers at the participating WWF National Offices, produced all programme collateral materials, tracked and recorded all social media engagement.
How we did it: Working with a truly global team and stakeholders, we diplomatically leveraged internal relationships to increase the programme’s attraction and provided real time, top level editorial and design support to on-board new members and assist current members with their events.
Outcomes: Three new member companies were signed up, including one from a new territory.
Collaborations between ClimateSavers and other sustainability communications programmes (e.g. ClimateSolvers) and within the WWF network itself were strengthened.
The campaign’s main social media channel, Twitter, @ClimateSavers has grown to more than 80,000 (it has not had an active community manager for some time).