03. UN Ocean Conference
↑ The campaign after the delegates were picked, from the announcement to the recap ↑
Ahead of the 2022 UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Sustainable Ocean Alliance and the UN Global Compact brought young ocean leaders together for the Youth & Innovation Forum.
Co-hosted by the governments of Portugal and Kenya.
Three days at Nova SBE in Cascais, 24–26 June 2022.
A 24-hour innovathon on five ocean challenges.
What they were after
Fill the room with the right young leaders, from as many countries as possible, by a fixed date. A UN conference doesn't move.
What was in the way
Under three months, start to finish. Applications opened on April 4. The Forum opened on June 24.
Three marks on every asset: SOA, the UN Global Compact and the UN Ocean Conference.
And a tired format. Plenty of young people have been to a forum that turned out to be three days of talking.
This one had to look worth applying for.
Recruiting
Selected
↑ April, asking people to apply. May, announcing who got in ↑
First the place. Then the people.
The call
Two jobs, one after the other. Before anyone was picked, the job was getting the right people to apply. So the application posts sold what you'd get: Lisbon, the UN Ocean Conference, mentors, and time in front of policymakers. Every post was a different corner of Lisbon at a different hour.
Once the delegates were picked, they became the campaign. One post with every face on it. Features on the delegates, the mentors and the speakers. And an “I'm attending” frame each delegate could drop a photo into and post to their own followers. Over a hundred young leaders, talking about the Forum in their own words.
↑ The application push (top), then the people who got in (bottom) ↑
What I did
I designed the campaign, from the first application post to the recap.
Seventeen posts, each cut for the Instagram feed, Stories, LinkedIn and Twitter, plus the emails that went with them. The delegate announcement, the features, the program and innovathon explainers, the countdown, opening day and the recap.
Then the print for SOA's week around the Conference: pop-up and roll-up banners, donor and impact cards, an infographic, and the menus and invitations for SOA's dinner.
Strategy and posting sat with SOA's social media manager. We planned it together against the Forum's timeline.
↑ The “I'm attending” frame each delegate could post ↑
↑ The five innovathon challenges and the countdown, cut for LinkedIn and Twitter ↑
↑ Opening day, 24 June 2022 ↑
↑ Acceptance emails were landing in spam, so applicants got a post telling them where to look ↑
↑ The recap, built on the Forum's event photography ↑
What changed
Over a hundred young delegates in the room, from around the world.
Across a 24-hour innovathon they built new ocean solutions. Two teams left with $15,000 microgrants to take theirs further.
How I work
On a campaign with a fixed date, I build the system before the first post goes out. Every format and every partner lockup gets decided once, so the last weeks go into content instead of layout.
And when the people are the story, I give them something to share.
Tell me what isn't landing
If something specific is coming up — a report, a campaign, a rebrand you're not sure about — say what it is. I'll tell you straight whether a read is the right thing, or whether it isn't.
Or email hello@graphikas.design