NIKE FOUNDATION - ‘Yegna’
Brand Creation, Cultural & Social Change campaign
We were approached by the Nike Foundation to help them launch a girl band in Ethiopia. That's not an offer you get every day, so we jumped at the chance.
The brief was to create role models for young Ethiopian girls to aspire to, built around a radio drama series, a talk show, original music and videos and a nationwide network of after-school clubs.
This was to encourage girls to stay in school, discuss issues they and their friends shared and encourage their families not to force them into early marriages they weren't ready for.
It involved two trips to Ethiopia, the first researching the target market and wider society for context, the second putting the launch campaign and proposal together for submission to DfID, the UK Government Department for International Development.
DfID signed off an initial budget of £4 million which had the Daily Mail spitting. Imagine how they felt when they signed off another £5.2 million 4 years later. Makes it all worthwhile, eh?
We came up with the name Yegna, which means "ours" in Amharic. Young girls in Ethiopia don't have much to call their own, so calling the band Yegna seemed to really strike a chord with them.
We built a solid foundation so that other creatives and agencies could continue to develop the project once the funding had been approved.
