Action Against Hunger

The Brand Forum takes centre stage

Action Against Hunger has been in the forefront of the fight against hunger across the globe for almost four decades. As a not-for-profit humanitarian organisation with operations on the ground in more than 40 countries, its primary work is in saving the lives of children and supporting communities struck by disaster. Longer term, the charity is about setting up projects to help people provide for themselves and to enable their children to flourish, also to build lasting prosperity.

Action Against Hunger Brand Forum Stats

11,400

Downloads per year

8,100

Digital assets

800

Total number of users

37,800

Page views per year

Of course fundraising, campaigning and recruitment provide the essential bedrock to support such complex operations – as well as a communications system to maximise awareness of the reach and impact of the charity’s work. Action Against Hunger has headquarters in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, UK, USA and Canada, as well as its operational project bases across the world. So effective comms is even more essential in keeping everyone in the loop worldwide.

Photography and video are crucial media in bringing to life the diverse projects the charity is engaged in across so many different countries. However, it’s an expensive business creating these visual assets. Maximum value must be gained from every photograph, video and marketing artwork so it can be used strategically and effectively by the corporate, fundraising and campaign teams in each office.

Action Against Hunger’s Brandworkz brand portal – they’ve named it the Brand Forum – has been effective in helping to achieve this vital, fast and accurate distribution of high-value content. Lucy Shaverin, the charity’s Creative Content Manager in the UK, tells us: ‘Previously no one really knew what other teams were doing because it was hard to share. In fact, we were creating more work by not sharing. That is all beginning to change now’.

The organisation recently underwent a rebranding programme, so the Brand Forum also has a brand management role to fulfil, bringing together in one place the corporate guidelines, tone of voice, positioning, core messaging, visual icons, fonts, logos and so on, alongside the photography, videos and other marketing materials.

‘It’s really useful having all our vision and brand narrative documents on the Brand Forum too,’ Lucy says. ‘Having just rebranded, we need to keep a tight lid on things and make sure people are doing things properly. It has proved very useful. Things like the Logo Finder are really good for those who are not very digital savvy because they can find logos in the right format and in different languages.’

The Brand Forum now draws together a huge span of information about the charity, its principles and its story into highly visual web pages easily clicked through and understood. Approved design guidelines, best practice instruction on the use of photography, branding elements, videos, brand assets of every kind, templates, multi-language logos – it’s all centralised in the Brand Forum.

‘We are now getting user-generated content coming in,’ says Lucy. ‘Staff on the ground and the communities we are working with are documenting what they’re doing with video cameras. The quality is never going to be as good, but you get really authentic content that gives audiences a direct link to the field. People respond really well to that.’

All this results in reduced workload on the comms teams at each regional office – and a lot more sharing. Says Lucy: ‘We are seeing significant time-saving, improved access for everyone and better sharing of assets between the HQs. As a global organisation, we have really great content and really amazing stories from our projects and programmes and we want everyone to be able to share and use them.’

Most importantly, it is ease-of-use that sets the Brandworkz platform apart, says Lucy. ‘It’s a simple, user-friendly platform and it’s slotted in perfectly with our business needs.

And everyone at Brandworkz has been so helpful in looking at how we can do things better. In fact they’ve been great to work with.’