A DUTY  TO PROTECT THE BOUNTY OF A PEOPLE AND THE LANDS THEY LOVE

Southeast Asia is an economic miracle that has transformed the region and millions of lives over the past fifty years. In recognising this success, ASEAN and The World Bank also recognised how much there was to lose. Over the past 30 years, natural disasters have affected more than 400 million lives in the region. 

The Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF) was created to provide financial solutions and technical advice in response to natural disasters. Its success depended on support from the people, public service, and governments of Southeast Asia.

BELIEVING IN THE CAUSE CAN SIMPLIFY A COMPLEX MESSAGE

When Benedikt Singer, Team Leader at Global Risk Financing, brought this project to us, we immediately recognised its social impact, and felt committed to its success. We were also very aware of the difficulties involved in delivering a message across different cultures that would resonate with the public and all the way through to ministers in government.

A CLEAN SLATE

This initiative gave us the opportunity to build a brand from the ground up. We would be developing everything that was required to establish SEADRIF as the trusted financial solutions provider to ASEAN governments. These assets included the logo and visual identity, brand narrative, awareness video, brochure, and website.

THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY

We approached this project knowing that the visual elements would be fundamental to communicating the value of SEADRIF to a diverse audience. These elements had to be combined in a logo that symbolised SEADRIF’s purpose while reflecting the identity of the people it serves. The SEADRIF team worked closely with us as we peeled back the layers of motivation, assumptions, culture, and symbolism. 

We looked at what SEADRIF could achieve through the lens of government ministers, public servants, and the wider population. Chrissy, creative director at PaperplaneCo put it like this, “I find these workshops immensely helpful because we learn what is important to the client. There is always something that they say, an idea or phrase that animates them that in turn sparks my imagination. It’s always very obvious to me when someone is expressing something they believe.”

A great deal of time and effort goes into the discovery process, because when done well, it reveals the true value proposition of a campaign. For SEADRIF it was clear that they could not stop disasters, but they could prevent disasters from becoming a crisis. And from this seed of truth everything grew naturally, and rapidly.

EXPRESSING IDENTITY THROUGH SYMBOLISM

While three logo designs were presented, one of them expressed with simplicity the many aspects that SEADRIF was built on. The Virtuous Circle logo represents the cycle of sustainability. It’s protective circular form starts as a solid, representing regional collaboration, with the rotation offering shelter. As it progresses, rice stalks form to represent security and an affinity with ASEAN. Then to express the purpose of sharing with those in need, the stalks spread open with seed.

The children of truth are beauty and simplicity, and we were not surprised when The World Bank and ASEAN recognised the values that this logo communicated about SEADRIF so effortlessly. From there, we quickly agreed on the colour palette beginning with a yellow for ASEAN progressing to an abundant green harvest.

WHEN FOUNDATIONS ARE STRONG, GROWTH FLOWS EASILY

Having a powerful visual identity, and knowing our value proposition supported the purpose of SEADRIF, the development of the campaign then flowed organically. By keeping all three target audiences in mind we simplified ideas like complex financial instruments with messaging based on “home insurance for your country”. Focusing on the beauty and value of what would be protected, helped us keep the tone light and positive. Using each medium’s strengths, we infused them with the meanings they needed so that each worked as a stepping stone. This path led our whole audience emotionally, and thoughtfully to an appreciation of how SEADRIF was there for their future.

CARE DEEPLY AND IT WILL BECOME A PART OF YOU

We’d invested a lot of ourselves in the project by the time we’d pulled the whole campaign package together. It included website design and content, a brochure, an  awareness video, and the brand narrative all integrated with the logo’s visual identity. The SEADRIF team had continued to work closely with us and were very supportive through the whole process.

The rewarding experience, and the importance of this work, had drawn us close together. We knew we’d captured the heart as well as the message of SEADRIF, and were gratified by the compliments and appreciation we were shown for this work.

A CRITICAL, INNOVATIVE INITIATIVE

Disasters and their aftermath –famines, pandemics, conflict, and migration– push 26 million people globally into poverty each year.

The frequency and severity of disasters will only be exacerbated by climate change.

Over the past few years, the World Bank has helped several vulnerable countries develop strategies to manage their financial risks. But several countries failed to implement these strategies because of lack of financing and technical know-how. That’s where the World Bank’s Global Risk Financing Facility (GRiF) comes in.

Through grants sourced from donor countries, GRiF helps provide vulnerable countries with financial assistance and technical expertise. Using these resources, countries can invest in disaster risk financing solutions and scale up their financial preparedness systems.

When disasters strike, recipient countries are quickly able to access funds for response, recovery and reconstruction.

GRiF was first revealed in October, 2018 at the World Bank and IMF’s Annual Meetings in Bali.  With the World Bank and IMF’s Spring Meetings coming up, the GRiF team wanted to ramp up their marketing efforts to underscore the critical need for GRiF. Attended by nearly 2,800 government officials, civil society members, observers, and hundreds of members of the press, the 2019 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and IMF seemed like the ideal venue for the official launch of GRiF.

Benedikt Signer, Senior Financial Specialist at The World Bank, had been impressed with our work on another earlier World Bank project, SEADRIF. When Benedikt contacted us to design GRiF’s launch campaign, we set up a Discovery workshop with the GRiF team to uncover the key objectives of the launch.

Their key goal was highlighting the benefits of working with GRiF. It was critical that the campaign inspire trust and urge the audience to respond. This was a challenge because GRiF was a new, complex initiative with no parallels. Also, it wasn’t just potential recipient countries that the GRiF team wanted to reach out to. The team also wanted the campaign to attract more donors and help get its own internal partners onboard.

BUILDING TRUST THROUGH COMMUNICATION

We chose to launch the campaign in two formats: an introductory video to set the stage and a brochure that would serve as a primer on GRiF. Through a storytelling, human-focused approach, the video would show the audience why countries needed GRiF. To create a deeper impact, we chose to focus the messaging squarely on the recipient countries. We reasoned that donor countries and the World Bank’s internal partners could be won over as long as the benefits to recipient countries were apparent.

To build confidence, GRiF needed to be easily understood. We designed the brochure and video around a comprehensive infographic that would explain the GRiF process and participants at a glance. The brochure needed to provide answers to any and all of the questions that sprung up in the minds of our target audience while watching the video. We structured the contents of the brochure using the 5W1H (Who-What-Why-Where-When-How) approach to improve readability and comprehension. 

Through collaborations with the GRiF team and our own research, we designed and sourced illustrations and examples to clarify and support complex technical information. In both formats, we used hard-hitting visuals, statistics and use cases to make a compelling case for GRiF.

To further bolster trust in GRiF’s mission, we dedicated a page of the brochure to GRiF’s first approved grant and funding success. The news had come in while we were still working on the campaign: the Mozambique government’s foresighted decision to partner with GRiF months earlier had paid immediate dividends. In the wake of catastrophic tropical cyclone Idai, the government was able to secure $8 million in early funding from GRiF.