CASE STUDY: CLIENT - AN INTERNATIONAL MINING CORPORATION
A major international mining company had secured the rights to become the commercial extraction partner for a very controversial mining opportunity in Eastern Africa.
It was controversial and politically-sensitive because it involved mining uranium on a piece of land designated as a UNESCO ‘protected’ National Park.
There was limited public awareness of the wider local benefits this project would bring, and understandable concern about the mine being situated on UNESCO-protected land.
The client - and more specifically, the sovereign country concerned – would need to persuade a majority of the 21 members of the World Heritage Committee to de-classify the land on which the prospective mine would be located.
ReadDillon worked very closely with the client and the Government to build a convincing evidence-based case, to demonstrate that the mine would bring tangible and very real socio-economic benefits to a country where the annual GDP per capita was less than $500.
At the same time, we showed that mining would be undertaken in an environmentally-sympathetic and culturally-sensitive way.
ReadDillon created a comprehensive Stakeholder Engagement strategy and also produced a video, campaign booklet and exhibition which were used in direct lobbying of delegates from WHC countries.
A raft of supportive media coverage was also generated in-country to support a central message that the project would create jobs, schools and medical facilities and, also, provide new funding to protect wildlife.
Tightly-defined messaging was created for each of the 21 member-countries – who were a mix of emerging and developed countries.
This was always going to be a controversial campaign and it proved to be so, although in the end the country concerned was given permission - by 12 votes to 7 - to de-classify a small part of the National Park and thereby consent for the mine to proceed was given.
CASE STUDY: CLIENT - A MEMBER OF A HIGH PROFILE ROYAL FAMILY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Our client wanted to stand for election to become President of an international governing body for an Olympic sport.
There were three high profile candidates standing for election – including the incumbent Deputy President - and 126 countries were eligible to vote at the Annual Congress, held in Kuala Lumpur.
ReadDillon created an international campaign strategy which revolved around identifying certain ‘magnet’ countries.
Firstly, to get their support for our client but, also, more importantly, because they were clearly influential with other countries in their region, and could potentially help deliver their votes too.
Our client personally visited each one of these ‘magnet countries’ (14 of them) and delivered her case in person.
We produced all the messaging, content, creative and collateral for the campaign, and translated these into five different languages. We also generated some high profile media editorial on BBC World TV, Al Jazeera and in the New York Times.
A ‘Battle Plan’ campaign grid was set-up and updated on a daily basis with intelligence about the voting intentions of each country.
We took a very sceptical view of all voting-intention feedback and - on the morning of the vote – predicted a very narrow win, but in the final analysis, our client won by the convincing margin of 23 countries.
