United Nations: Syria Campaign

United Nations: Syria Campaign #WhatDoesItTake

This was a campaign I worked on as the creative lead on the Syria Team at the United Nations (OCHA). To mark the beginning of the fifth year of conflict in Syria, we kicked this awareness campaign off with UN leaders including Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Member States and the public in an attempt to allow the global community express their frustrations about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria, and send a message of solidarity to the people of Syria so they do not give up hope.

People were able to participate by posting a picture of themselves holding up the sign #WhatDoesItTake, and then post the picture to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #WhatDoesItTake and adding a message of solidarity for Syria’s people. All images were captured on the campaign website creating an online photo wall of solidarity and support. UN and humanitarian leaders signed up for the campaign and more than 60 high profile public figures joined the campaign, sharing photos of themselves holding #WhatDoesItTake sign. The campaign continued until the High Level Pledging Conference on Syria in Kuwait which brought in $3.8 Billion.

My Role

Art Direction, UI/UX Design, Branding, Digital Strategy, Social Media Design, Marketing Design, prepped photography for promotional launch videos and presented designs to leadership teams.

Client

United Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Press

Mashable article
Vanity Fair article
United Nations News Centre

SOCIAL SHARING

More than 60 high profile public figures joined the campaign.

CAMPAIGN LAUNCH videos

We launched the campaign and website with two films, one in partnership with Vanity Fair featuring Syrian musician Kinan Azmeh, bringing attention back to the crisis in an effort to drive awareness, education, and consideration through intentional emotional storytelling.

RESULTS

Mainstream media promoted the campaign and Vanity Fair previewed a film produced by OCHA on Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh talking about the hashtag and Syria. At least 28,130 people have shared some 60,560 tweets with the hashtag and shared it 1,328 times on Instagram. At its peak, the hashtag was used as much as 28 times per minute. The hashtag continues to be used in reference to Syria. The campaign was conducted in English and Arabic and was also widely promoted on Chinese social media. On Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter) the hashtag received 9 million views and generated 539 discussions.