The 15th of March 2014 marked the third anniversary of the conflict in Syria. Shamefully, it had fallen off the map. The 2.8 million children unable to access aid believed the world had forgotten about them. The #WithSyria campaign succeeded in creating the largest public mobilization on Syria ever, with people across 40 countries raising their voices to plead with world leaders to tackle the issue of access for humanitarian aid.

To overcome language barriers we put our faith in an iconic image, rather than words, to move hearts and minds. A re-worked image of Banksy’s ‘Girl With Red Balloon’ featuring a Syrian child became our campaign symbol of hope. We created an animation calling for support, which was screened in key global cities to coincide with the simultaneous release of balloons by children around the world. The image was also projected in iconic locations in 40 countries and together with organised candle-lit vigils fuelled the sharing of photos with #WithSyria. Our strategy was to create a single moment in time, at such scale, that media and influencers around the world would find hard to ignore.

With broadcast and coverage in 55 countries, over 100,000 tweets, 200,000 video views we succeeded in engaging prominent celebrities, sport-stars, politicians and prime ministers across more than 100 countries to support us by tweeting #WithSyria. Within one month 19 US Senators succeeded in introducing a Congressional Resolution, calling on President Obama to develop a strategy for addressing the crisis.

Pre-anniversary, we took a central role in the development and execution of the creative idea to help to explain the humanitarian angle of the Syria crisis. This included creating the hub website, developing the idea of the photo call and working with the team behind the animation.

Working in collaboration with the partners and their communications agencies, in addition to other in-country agencies, we led on outreach to key media in advance of the launch and created the worldwide photo call moments. On March 13th at midday GMT we media-managed the red balloon photo call in Parliament Square and then carried out a wider picture sell-in to international media in all of the countries. In the evening of the launch day, we managed attending media at the London projection of Banksy’s image at Trafalgar Square.

Throughout the campaign we carefully managed Twitter and Instagram to maximise public content and celebrity engagement.

Reach:

Global coverage in 55 countries, over 18 wires, 428 print and online publications and 59 TV and radio broadcast pieces. Gaining traction globally the campaign entered the zeitgeist as Justin Bieber, inspired by the campaign, had “girl with balloon” tattooed onto his arm, gaining widespread coverage in lifestyle media.

Engagement:

Total number of tweets for #WithSyria: 109,578

Number of people reached: 228,112,388

Number of timeline impressions: 509,462,973

Number of countries tweeting: 111

YouTube: 200,000 animation views

Action:

Using this momentum in the USA specifically, Crisis Action and partners worked with 19 US Senators, led by Senator Kaine and Senator Rubio and within one month, succeeded in introducing a Congressional Resolution on the humanitarian and human rights abuses in Syria. It called on President Obama to develop a strategy for the United States to engage fully with the crisis.