Creative Campaign Supporting Women Peacebuilders

The Challenge

The Strategy

In 2019, ICAN organized a Better Peace Symposium, which focused on the recognition and protection of women peacebuilders as a sector and pillar of state-building. Out of this event emerged the Stand with Women Peacebuilders campaign, a comprehensive call to action to elevate their vital work. We partnered with ICAN to produce high-level campaign branding, messaging, and collateral for their initial March 2020.

Audience Research

We conducted audience research to determine who ICAN’s existing market was, and what we could do to expand their reach across the globe.

Simplified Complex Messaging

We created a clear and compelling messaging framework for all campaign communications that would engage audiences around the globe.

Campaign Activation Kit

We created a comprehensive campaign activation kit for partners to use that could be customized based on location and language.

Implementation

Brand Guidelines

We established the She Builds Peace brand guidelines, including the campaign’s logo of a rising bird – known as a simurgh – symbolized wisdom and collective ownership of solutions, along with templates of digital graphics, t-shirts, pins, and print materials.

All of this laid the groundwork for the development of campaign materials that partners around the world would use to elevate the role of women peacebuilders in their own communities.

Messaging Framework

We created a public messaging framework to clearly communicate the campaign’s goals, position our communications, and mobilize target audiences in a way that was easy to translate based on location, with consistent calls to action.

Additionally, we launched the campaign with a video, engaging our target audiences in the effort, and equipping global partners to iterate and edit for their own contexts

The Results

The campaign launch was planned with respect to the 20th Anniversary of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda (UN Security Council Resolution 1325) in October 2020. Our original plan was to launch in the spring of 2020, giving partners time to host planned events before the UN General Assembly. 

Along with the rest of the world, our plans for the campaign’s launch were deeply affected by the pandemic. But, true to form, women peacebuilders showed resilience and courage as they adapted and responded to the new threat of the coronavirus.