STERLING MEDIA, AWARDED BRIEF TO DIRECT INDIA STRATEGY FOR THE GLOBAL GOALS CAMPAIGN

The international, strategic communications consultancy, Sterling Media, is delighted to be directing the India strategy for the Global Goals campaign. Conceived by renowned filmmaker and founder of Comic Relief Richard Curtis for the United Nations, the Global Goals campaign aims to reach 7 billion people in 7 days with news of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development (26th September – 2nd October). This initiative is supported by a variety of existing campaigns including Project Everyone, action/2015 and Global Citizen.

This unprecedented effort – which exists to both make the goals famous and push for their full implementation - will culminate on 25th September at the UN when 193 world leaders adopt the Global Goals, a series of 17 ambitious targets to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice and tackle climate change for everyone by 2030.

To ensure global reach and local relevance, the Global Goals campaign has established a network of communications hubs in Brazil, India, UK, Denmark, New York, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore. Each hub will localise activities, content and communications for their region. Sterling Media’s mandate is to develop a locally relevant India Communications Strategy for the campaign, providing creative consultancy, project management, coordination, production and execution services in relation to the delivery of the campaign in India. Activities will involve securing partners, developing and localising appropriate creative communication assets (print materials, adverts, films, digital communications), securing PR opportunities, recruiting celebrity ambassadors and brokering corporate partnerships. Sterling will also advise on senior level government approaches.

Speaking about the appointment, Richard Curtis, Founder of Project Everyone said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Sterling Media as directors of the India strategy in our attempts to raise awareness of the Global Goals around the world. They have already proved themselves to be highly strategic, creative and innovative in their approach.  I look forward to doing excellent local and global work with them to communicate the opportunity we all have in 2015 and beyond to tackle the big issues of poverty, climate change and inequality.”

Speaking about the campaign, Natasha Mudhar, CEO & MD of Sterling Media said: “We are delighted to exclusively manage the Global Goals campaign in India and to help promote the new Global Goals for Sustainable Development to India’s 1.2bn population.
The campaign has given the company an amazing opportunity to pull in all of our relationships – from celebrity, to corporate, government and media – to fulfil this ambition.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aegis, the Indian government is creating an ecosystem of opportunity, empowerment and abundance which is helping India to thrive. Many of the goals the Indian government is committed to, such as ensuring citizens have access to basic sanitation, drinking water, and electricity, chime with the Global Goals we are raising awareness of.

India has the potential to become the benchmark in eradicating global poverty by 2030, and by empowering citizens they can truly be the change they wish to see.”
Some of the exciting initiatives being launched this year to help promote the new Global Goals to 7 billion people include:

We the People, a crowdsourced film where the public can star with the world’s biggest public figures including Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan, A R Rahman, Jacqueline Fernandez from India to Ashton Kutcher, Bill and Melinda Gates, G.E.M., Gilberto Gil, Jennifer Lawrence, UN Messenger of Peace Lang Lang, Meryl Streep, Malala Yousafzai, One Direction, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, Richard Branson, Robert Pattinson, Robert Redford, Professor Stephen Hawking, UN Messenger of Peace Stevie Wonder.  We the People is written by Richard Curtis and Mat Whitecross and unveiled on the Google Homepage when the Goals are adopted on the 25th September.  wethepeople.globalgoals.org and available in the Video Library at www.globalgoals.org/media-centre

Global sports stars Gareth Bale, Gary Lineker, Mikel Arteta, Theo Walcott, Liverpool FC, WITS Bidvest, Brazilian comedians Porta Dos Fundos and many other public figures such as leading footballers took to the Dizzy Goals challenge. They are being joined by India’s own action hero Akshay Kumar, who conducted his Dizzy Goals challenge whilst on tour in Houston, USA, international footballers playing for Indian Super League teams for Abhishek Bachchan’s Chennai team - Chennaiyin FC - and Hrithik Roshan’s Pune team - FC Pune City. High-profile partners already on board include All Stars Football Club, NGO Magic Bus and the All India Football Federation who will be organising for players from the Indian National football team to take part in the dizzy goals challenge. Available in the Video Library at www.globalgoals.org/media-centre    Akshay Kumar’s latest dizzy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyGstKMMhqE

·         The Global Citizen Festival on 26th September in Central Park, New York with Beyoncé, Pearl Jam, Ed Sheeran and Coldplay will launch the Global Goals campaign week. The event will be broadcast around the world www.globalcitizen.org

·          UNDP will shine a spotlight on the Global Goals at Social Good Summits in over 100 countries including Afghanistan, Iran and Somalia. The Global Citizen Festival in 2014 was attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. https://mashable.com/sgs/

The public can share “No Point Going Half Way”, a short film by Richard Curtis featuring Usain Bolt which helps explain why we should finish what we started with the Millennium Development Goals, as we can end poverty by 2030 and tackle inequality and climate change. Available in the Video Library at www.globalgoals.org/media-centre

·         On 24th September, 2,000 organizations who make up action/2015 will hold events in over 100 countries. As night falls across the time zones, including in Sydney, Delhi, Johannesburg, London and Sao Paulo, people will unite to light the way to a mass rally outside the UN headquarters in New York. https://action2015.org/light-the-way

From the 25th September people can ‘Tell Everyone’ about the #globalgoals by texting, tweeting, singing, posting, liking, praying, emailing, teaching, watching, talking, sharing. Whatever it takes to TELL EVERYONE www.globalgoals.org

The Global Goals campaign will reach all corners of the world with a huge programme of events and activities including:

Radio Everyone: from 26th September a 7 day pop-up global radio station will be streamed online with broadcast partners in over 45 countries, soundtracked by an original composition from Peter Gabriel and featuring shows presented by names from around the globe, including Hrithik Roshan and A R Rahman, D’Banj, G.E.M. and Haile Gebrsellasie. 92.7 Big FM, India’s largest radio network reaching 4.3 million listeners across 45 stations in 1200 towns and 52,000+ villages, was the first radio station in India to sign up.

The world’s biggest mobile connection: from 26th September many of the world’s biggest mobile operators including Vodafone, Virgin, Telefonica, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Telstra, Ooredoo, Telenor, KT, NTT Docomo, TIM, Turkcell, KPN, EE, Telia Sonera, Vimpelcom, along with Ericsson will engage over 1.5bn of their customers in over 100 countries around the world through text and numerous other mobile channels.

Hello! India Magazine Power of Giving Issue – in support of The Global Goals campaign: This September, Hello! India Magazine has released a special feature - The Power Of Giving issue, profiling 23 of the world’s most powerful figures and change-makers, including: Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, Akshay Kumar, Melinda Gates, Tina Ambani, Parmeshwar Godrej, Anand Mahindra, Sir Richard Branson, Jimmy Wales (Founder of Wikipedia) amongst several others.

Harnessing the power and reach of the world’s largest brands: on 26th September, Liverpool FC will replace the Standard Chartered logo with the Global Goals logo on shirts at the fixture against Aston Villa; Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Random House, has published the first ever Post-it Book ‘STICK THIS BOOK’ edited by Richard Curtis with Neil Gaiman; from Times Square to Piccadilly Circus to The Tower in Kuala Lumpur, the Global Goals campaign will be seen in the most iconic cities around the world in partnership with Posterscope; Virgin is leading a customer and employee awareness campaign in 25 businesses across the UK, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Latin America, Australia and North America and will be joined by Standard Chartered, Pearson, Getty Images, Aviva, TOMS shoes and Unilever and in India by corporates such as Reliance Group, TATA Group and eBay India; Royal Mail has designed a special postmark, featuring the Global Goals logo, which will be applied to all stamped mail in the UK from 25th September to 2nd October

The World’s Largest Lesson: From 27th September, a lesson taught to children across the world in partnership with UNICEF: From Newfoundland to Niue the lesson is already backed by over 100 global Education Ministers and more than 30 of the world’s leading NGOs. The face of the campaign in India is Hrithik Roshan.

“Tell Everybody” On 11th September, Global Goals Africa released a song recorded by some of the continent’s biggest names intended to inspire the youth of Africa to know about the goals and the power they hold as active citizens in their communities. The song, “Tell Everybody”, has been produced by award-winning producer & songwriting team; Cobhams Asuquo (Nigeria), David “KING DAVID” Muthami (Kenya) and Ellputo (Mozambique). The artists on the track include; Yemi Alade (Nigeria), Sarkodie and Becca (Ghana), Mafikizolo (South Africa), Diamond (Tanzania), Sauti Sol (Kenya) and Toofan (Togo). The lyrics, each written by the artists themselves, were informed by a song-writing competition, which saw 5712 verses entered from 24 countries in Africa. One French and English speaking winner will hear their verses sung by the artists in the song.

Prayer for Everyone: From 24th September people of multiple faith traditions in over 150 countries will be learning about the goals and engaging their communities in prayer and action.

An online push by the top digital giants: on 25th September, Google will be lending their homepage to the Global Goals, Wikipedia volunteers are translating the articles covering the goals into as many languages as possible, MSN is highlighting the goals on it global platform plus significant support from YouTube, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Huffington Post, Skype, Salesforce Foundation, Tumblr and WeTransfer.

The first ever global cinema ad: Animated by Aardman, directed by Sir John Hegarty, narrated by Liam Neeson with music from Peter Gabriel. Distributed globally by unique digital the ad will appear in cinemas in over 30 countries from the 25th September, in partnership with SAWA Global Cinema Advertising Association and its network. ‘Making of’ available in the Video Library at www.globalgoals.org/media-centre