At Hurricane, we value our collaborations with NGOs and not-for-profits that make a truly positive impact in the world. Recently we’ve developed content strategies for WHO, Earthwatch, UNEP to name but a few. So we’re delighted to announce our work with the European Commission’s DEAR (Development, Education and Awareness Raising) project with three animations that bring its inspiring work to life.
DEAR aims to educate EU citizens about human rights and encourage them to get involved in the pressing issues of the day such as raising awareness about global development and migration, mobilising greater public support for action against poverty and fostering new ideas around climate change and responsible consumption.
Every three years, DEAR seeks funding from the European Commission to continue its work. This funding, in turn, supports projects run by individuals and charities which help EU citizens make informed choices on global issues at a local level, through education, advocacy and awareness-raising.
Social Media Video Animations
With DEAR pitching for its funding to be renewed in the Autumn this year, we were briefed to create three animations that would demonstrate the value of the work clearly and impactfully. Watch one of our 60-second film that explains DEAR’s values in an engaging way:
Aimed at the EU Commission and MEPs, the videos will be shown at events across Europe and shared via social media. Our strategic approach was to create three short animated videos, at sixty seconds in length for optimal use across social media channels, including DEAR’s Instagram.
Animation video strategy
Animation can be a great choice to reach audiences across language barriers, and the subtitles will also allow people to watch without sound on social channels. The style of the animation was designed to appeal to a broad audience as DEAR operate across the whole of the European Union.
We chose a contemporary illustrative character style, combined with striking backgrounds and a bold colour scheme that would differentiate the DEAR animations.
Hurricane’s in-house creatives collaborated with the DEAR marketing team to derive a story for the three videos. We held creative sessions with multiple stakeholders from the organisation to help them define their narrative and write short punchy easy to understand 60-second scripts.
Our team then took those scripts and developed visuals to work alongside the voiceover. We worked from real examples of DEAR activities to ensure authenticity in the content. To bring the visuals and story together, we cast and recorded a young Icelandic voiceover artist with an approachable tone to complement the themes of the films.
The video below was designed to show our interconnectedness no matter where we live stressing DEAR’s aim to raise awareness of how the local affects the global.
Feedback on the animations and illustrations has been stellar, and we have already been commissioned to work on another DEAR project launching early next year.
We recommend checking out DEAR’s work and do share the videos via social media.
If you’re interested in video content for your organisation, get in touch for a chat.