Background

At the initiative of Spain and Senegal, leaders from over 25 countries and 20 organizations launched the International Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA) at the COP 27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The purpose of IDRA is to help countries better prepare for future drought. We partnered with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to help them launch IDRA at COP 27 and give them engaging tools to rally support for the alliance. The main objectives of the engagement were to:

Objectives

Encourage partners

to pledge and participate in IDRA’s launch and efforts.

Inspire action and commitment

by designing a brand that appeals to world leaders

Launch the alliance

by developing their communications channels and mediums (website, social media etc).

How did we work through the challenge?

IDRA came to life very quickly, with the governments of Spain and Senegal coming together to sponsor the launch of the Alliance. UNCCD as the hosts would need to launch the Alliance in a matter of weeks at COP27 and gather pledges from various partners and countries. Our team conducted an expedited scoping and audience study to develop and organize key messages, develop a brand identity anchored in strong storytelling and produced a website and communications kits.

Our brand designs would need to be cleared by government officials, and various high-profile individuals across multiple timezones. We developed three concepts that were presented to the UNCCD team and then refined for presentation to the launch partners:

1. The signature

A symbol of promise and an internationally recognized act of commitment. Our designers took the essence of the concept of a signature and brought that energy into the “A” in Alliance, capitalizing on the dynamic and meaningful act of signing.

2. The cycle of recovery

This idea was represented by a circle with a gradient that transitioned from orange to green in order to represent the transition from drought emergencies to drought resilience.

3. The symbol of land recovery

Behold our logo, a symbol that blends drought, coordination, planet/sun, and arable land. It encapsulates our commitment to unity in combating drought and nurturing Earth’s bounty.

UNCCD liked elements of both concepts, so we combined these elements into one single visual route to tell one even stronger narrative: We focused on the signature as the key visual of the identity, and added the gradient to show the path to drought resilience.

Selecting & implementing the brand

In parallel to our work, UNCCD developed IDRA’s communication plan. We worked closely with their team to define the pillars necessary to successfully realize IDRA’s vision, highlighting in particular the need for an optimistic tone. After some quick, iterative feedback, we combined the best ideas of two options together to form an identity that the team felt they could own, and most importantly, represented their culture and ideals. While the collaborative design was repackaged and presented for approval by all members and stakeholders, our team advanced in documenting the brand, and preparing for the launch of the brand. Given the short turnaround time, our team took charge of designing and launching the IDRA website, highlighting the key messaging of the alliance, and most importantly, showcasing partners and supporters of IDRA’s objectives. This proved key in gathering additional support at COP 27 when IDRA was launched. Our designers worked in tandem on applying the visual identity to all these assets, including different templates and graphics for social media.

Outcomes & impact

IDRA was successfully launched at COP 27 by President of Senegal Macky Sall and President of the Government of Spain Pedro Sánchez. Over 32 countries signed onto IDRA along with the support of 20 international organizations. During its first month of launch, the page had an average engagement rate of 55.64%. The majority of users accessed the website from the target countries of Spain, Egypt, USA, India, Germany, and the UK, key countries to engage as part of the fight for drought resilience. IDRA’s impact continues to grow to this day with additional countries signing up from the original 17 founding members. Spain announced new technologies and monitoring tools would be managed through IDRA. Drought resilience will continue to be central to protecting our land and livelihoods, and we are proud to have been able to contribute to creating an identity and voice for IDRA to deliver on its promise.