How Project Everyone reached 3 billion people in one week

Aviva CMO Amanda MacKenzie is a two-year secondment to Project Everyone to help in its aim to tell the world about the UN’s global goals. Just two weeks after launch it has already reached 3 billion people and the project is now calling on the ad industry to help spread that message even further and help achieve those goals.

The project is the brainchild of Richard Curtis, who believed the UN should make its sustainability targets famous. The aim was to ensure they had a better chance of being achieved by allowing people to hold their governments to account.

MacKenzie, speaking at the IAB Engage conference, said she joined with three jobs to do

  • To rebrand the goals in language that people could get behind
  • To give them the loudest launch
  • To bring the goals together into three main aims

There are 17 goals altogether, but MacKenzie said the aim is for everyone to “find the one they are passionate about” and help with or stand for that.

Two weeks after the launch, the goals have already reached 3 billion of its 7 billion target. It did that by breaking down the world into the way it uses information.

For example it conducted the world’s largest lesson across 160 countries with 500 million children taking part – equal to a whole generation.

There was also the first ever global cinema ad that was shown in 34 countries, radio promotion streamed in 70 countries. Mobile operators across the world sent 1 billion texts to their customers while the likes of Google and MSN promoted it on their home pages.

To reach 7 billion, however, MacKenzie says the project needs even more help from brands and the advertising industry.

“In the first week of launch we got to 3 billion people. Now the hard yard on delivering those goals begins. When I think back to the year 2000 and the Millennium Goals and then I think about all the technology that we have now to enable change we can have a profound impact. The impact people in this room [at IAB Engage] can have is profound.

“I challenge everyone to help us. Together we can eradicate poverty, tackle climate change and solve inequality.”

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