Spring2017Newsletter-FINALWEB

ON
STORY
PCI MEDIA NEWSLETTER
24 New Awards This Year!
Spring 2017
CAMPAIGN WITH
UN ENVIRONMENT
WINS A WEBBY
ON AIR, ON APP,
ONSTAGE, ONLINE:
OUR MANY CHANNELS
FOR CHANGE
WEB HUB MAKES
HEALTH ACCESSIBLE
NEW FINANCIAL
LITERACY APP

NEW TV SHOW TO AIR
ACROSS BANGLADESH
At PCI Media, we believe that
the first ingredient to successful
behavior change media is the real
cast of characters that breathe
life into it. Local role models like
Shatabdi Roy have already brought
a heartbeat to our emerging
26-episode Bangladeshi TV show
and campaign on improving
adolescent health and ending
child marriage.
Shatabdi was one of 45 people
who joined our 4-day workshop in
Dhaka, Bangladesh. She worked
with us and our partners UNICEF
and Asiatic JWT to build stories
that her own friends would relate
to. Other stakeholders were
pulled into the magic, including
parents who are key influencers
of adolescent life, government
representatives for political buy-in,
and staff members of organizations
that work with adolescents.
We have participants like Shatabdi
to thank for the compelling story
and heroes that will spring to life
through the production process,
such as the young RJ who follows
her dreams as a disk jockey, and
Teji who overcomes fear to be
captain of the girl’s soccer team.
While Shatabdi shaped the
drama’s direction, her experience
with us has continued to shape
her. Speaking of the photographs
and materials that participants
took away from the workshop, Roy
said, “this is the most precious gift
to me. It holds all the memories of
the time that we spent together.”
Cinematic smiles at the character-building workshop
BUILDING ROLE MODELS
THE POWER OF POSSIBILITY IN SOCIAL CHANGE MEDIA
Last month, our Director of
Global Programs Meesha Brown
faced the crowd at our side event
at the annual United Nations
Commission on the Status of
Women (CSW). In front of this
audience of dignitaries and civil
society officials, she launched
into the same topic our CEO Sean
Southey was busy presenting
to teens, health experts and
UNICEF representatives in Dhaka,
Bangladesh: how can the stories
of fictional characters impact our
lived experiences?
“I want you to think, from your own
experience, about a character
who has influenced your life,”
Meesha prompted her audience.
“No, not your parents, not the first
lady; I mean fictional characters.”
As usual, some faces lit up, but
others were perplexed: what did
fiction have to do with the fight for
equal rights?
For the remainder of the event,
Meesha and Graciela Leal – our
social justice program manager
– invited the crowd first to design
their own characters, then to fit
those characters into a world with
relationships, with positive and
negative influences.
By the end, guests were beaming
as they imagined the possibilities.
Though the CSW event was only
an exercise, attendees engaged
as joyfully in the process of
developing role models as they
do in our real drama-building
workshops, which our teams have
led across the globe.
Those smiles are what Meesha and
Sean love most about our work. The
way that people’s eyes light up as
they see the power of storytelling,
and begin to understand that
strong female role models – in this
case – can be built with intent, as
tools for positive change.
Our social change media tackles
issues from environment, to health,
to social justice. And the beauty of
stories and imagination is that they
quickly break the silo effect of the
international development space:
a strong female character can be
a role model for women’s rights,
for climate change, or for family
planning; but regardless, she will
be a role model of self-confidence
for women to look up to.

#WILDFORLIFE TAKES OVER THE WEB
CAMPAIGN WITH UN ENVIRONMENT WINS WEBBY AND
BUILDS ITS CELEBRITY FOLLOWING AROUND THE WORLD
The #WildForLife campaign – an
online initiative to end wildlife
trafficking – just won the People’s
Voice Webby for the best “green”
website. This marks five awards in
2017: the Webby, an “Oscar of the
Internet”; three Hermes Creative
Awards; and a Weibo Award from
China’s Twitter, which ranked it
among the 10 most influential
social media campaigns in the
nation. Weibo recognized the
impact of #WildForLife on Chinese
awareness, which culminated
in the government’s landmark
decision to ban domestic trading
of elephant ivory last December.
News of the Chinese ivory ban
kicked off a busy winter for the
campaign, which launched a
Stars Adrian Grenier, Nikki Reed and Aidan
Gallagher with their “kindred species”
Alcanza Tus Metas, our new
Mexican financial literacy
drama developed with MetLife
Foundation and Freedom from
Hunger, tells the story of the Garcia
Atonal family and their struggle to
overcome losses from a plague
affecting their coffee plantation.
comic book, introduced 5 new
endangered species for World
Wildlife Day, and brought on new
celebrity champions from Gael
García Bernal to Adrian Grenier.
This UN Environment partnership,
which invites the public to “give
their name to change the game
[for wildlife trafficking],” helps
everyday people identify with
species that need protection – just
like their celebrity role models.
Ian Somerhalder has explained
his involvement and conviction in
the campaign: “what is strikingly
clear is that nothing short of a
radical, global shift in thinking
will change the course [for these
endangered species].”
FINANCIAL LITERACY: ANIMATED
ALCANZA TUS METAS WILL BE “ON APP” IN MEXICO
The drama will be told through
radio and animation, and released
on an app that can play on cell
phones and tablets. A local credit
union will monitor changes in
the bank accounts of audience
members, to see if saving behavior
shifts after listening or watching!
CELEBRATING OUR
SUCCESSES
Honored with 24 new awards in
2017 alone, we at PCI Media are
continuing to grow our diverse
portfolio of communication
solutions – and our reputation as
a leading change-maker.
Our new awards range from a
Webby and multiple Telly Awards,
to Social Impact Media Awards
and Best Shorts. This recognition
reflects the breadth of media,
issue sets and geographic areas
that are critical to PCI Media’s
approach to behavior change
communications.
Honored programs include
Violence against Children in
Malawi, a whiteboard animation;
Road to Recovery, videos of
Ebola survivors in West Africa;
Don’t Back Down, a TV series by
Peruvian youth on sexual and
reproductive health; This is Who
We Are, a music video for marine
conservation in the Caribbean;
“Imagine”, the #NatureForAll
global environmental campaign;
and #WildForLife, our Webbywinning
campaign with UN
Environment that takes on
wildlife trafficking.
Our most valuable metrics are the
success stories of communities
touched by our programs. For us,
a growing set of awards is proof
that more and more people see
the need for behavior change
communications, and recognize
the success of our approaches.

ONSTAGE IN UTTAR PRADESH
RADIO DRAMA ADDRESSING AIR POLLUTION
PERFORMED AS COMMUNITY THEATER
In Raja Talab, a village in the heart
of the Indian state Uttar Pradesh,
the biggest event of the year is a
celebration of Women’s Day.
This year, people from 15
villages spilled into Raja Talab
to hear empowering speeches
from women accomplished in
business, in politics, in media.
One group of local women
decided to do something
different. They got up on stage
to perform scenes from the radio
drama we produced and aired in
the region, titled Ek Zindagi Aisi
Bhi, or “The Life We Aspire For”.
Imagine: a 70-year-old woman
who generally hates talking to
people, running around the stage
and shouting: “Woo! Woo! Woo!”
In the skit, she played the role of a
Crowds in Raja Talab watch
the dramatic scenes unfold.
stubborn driver who won’t move
his vehicle from the road.
“It was hilarious. The whole
audience was cracking up”, said
Anu Sachdev, who manages the
production of the drama.
The actresses were participants in
the weekly “listener groups” for
Ek Zindagi Aisi Bhi: they traveled
3 hours for each 50-person
session. The drama plot focuses
on reducing air pollution, but the
show and its listener groups have
been significant enough to these
women that they chose to place it
center stage on Women’s Day.
As Anu put it, “these women were
really shy when they first joined
the listener groups. But they have
learned that they have a voice,
and are starting to project it.”
ONLINE HUBS
FOR HEALTH
WORKING WITH UNICEF
TO MAKE BEHAVIOR
CHANGE ACCESSIBLE
2017 has already been a
benchmark year for our ongoing
global partnerships with UNICEF.
In February, the Eastern and
Southern African Regional Office
of UNICEF launched our longawaited
collaboration: an online
platform that gathers messages
and methods for maternal and
child health communications.
The platform is a hub for
information and materials,
but it has another crucial
function: it breaks down the
core steps for community
health mobilization strategies
that use Communications for
Development (C4D). These
strategies make up the backbone
of our own work, and are being
increasingly used by UNICEF
offices around the world.
View the website and learn more
about C4D: http://training.unicef.
org/esaro/c4d/mnch/index.html.
For more information, visit www.mediaimpact.org
Or contact: info@mediaimpact.org
777 United Nations Plaza, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10017, USA