The Most Deprived Persons Program (MDP) has been created to provide assistance to the poorest members of society in the 27 EU member states.

In September 2012, seven countries opposed to the renewal of the MDP. They believed this type of aid should be managed at national level.

In response, a group of French NGOs, led by les Restaurants du Cœur, approached our agency to develop a campaign that would help to prevent the abolition of European food Aid program.

The issue was simple yet crucial: how to prevent European leaders (specifically in Bruxelles, Paris and Berlin) from voting for the abolition of the MDP Program?

The client’s brief was to put pressure on European leaders through a classical lobbying plan.

We proposed to do the exact opposite, by taking out the MDP issue out of European commission corridors and put it on the public stage for everyone to be aware of what was about to happen.

Why? Because we actually thought that millions European people would be much better at putting pressure on European leaders, as they have one asset we don’t have: they might actually vote, or not, for them.

We then developed a five steps strategy, to be sure that everyone will hear us out : first media & people, then politics.

1. Create a concept that will put everyone on board: The Airfood Project

2. Encourage the media coverage in order to rally the widest audience

3. Give every citizen a way to share its involvement: www.airfoodproject.com

4. Use Lobbying action to increase media profile and political support

5. Eventually, make the European leaders feel they have no choice but to stand for something that obviously matters a lot for many of their potential voters.

The Airfood project campaign lasted for months, from October 2012, to November 2013 and encountered a tremendous media success regarding to the money initially invested in the communication plan.

People, politics, media, they all talked about the MDP for months, but most of all, they made it clear that it couldn’t be suppressed.

In February 2013, after more than a year of campaign, the European Council finally decided to maintain the budget dedicated to European food aids. On the 28th of November, this decision has been ratified by all the European leaders (Parliament, commission and European council) and the European food aid program has been granted with 3,5 billion for the next seven years.

Thanks to this program, food aid will be delivered to 18 millions of needy European every year.