Background
Wetlands are among the most threatened habitats in the world – yet they’re vital for people and biodiversity, and have a huge role to play in the fight against climate change. Internationally, they’re overseen under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the intergovernmental treaty that provides the global framework for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. The Convention turned 50 in 2021, and it marked the milestone with the launch of a campaign to support Contracting Parties, organisations and individuals in celebrating and raising awareness about wetlands.
Objective
The Convention approached Communications Inc to design and deliver the campaign. Our objective was to engage the Convention’s target audience around the 50th anniversary, with a focus on improving wetlands literacy among key target groups, while increasing the profile of wetlands as an Earth-level ecosystem among key target audiences.
Approach and delivery
The Communications Inc team developed a wide range of assets to support a multi-level social media campaign aligned with the 50th anniversary campaign goals. We created a series of toolkits, social cards, animations, GIFs, suggested social posts, factsheets and more which were shared with the Convention network and other key stakeholders to use throughout the year and help promote the campaign to their own networks, scaling up its reach.
The communications and social media toolkits we created were designed to be shared with key target groups and included information on framing, key messaging, talking points and a timeline of key delivery moments. We also created a bespoke toolkit for COP26 to help promote and share new resources highlighting the importance of restoring and sustainably managing blue carbon and peatland ecosystems.
Impact
The pandemic meant that engaging directly with audiences was more challenging than had been anticipated during the campaign planning phase, but even in the changed circumstances it still gave rise to plenty of online activity. Our social media team found that during the campaign there were more than 5,000 social posts from 2,000+ unique accounts, creating a potential total reach of 43 million. The social content put out by the target audience had a strong consistency in messaging, with wetlands literacy reflected clearly in the online conversation.
In addition, a successful campaign takeover was coordinated with YEW (Youth Engaged in Wetlands) as part of the International Youth Day activities, and co-branded assets were created to increase campaign ownership and engagement.