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Case study: The Web Foundation

Working with the Web Foundation to launch the Open Contracting Data Standard

Governments around the world spend over US$9.5 trillion each year through contracts. In many countries, public contracting has been identified as the government activity most vulnerable to wastefulness, mismanagement, and corruption. In response, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the Web Foundation developed the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS), to increase accountability and efficiency.

The Web Foundation asked to help them raise awareness of the OCDS among influential government and business audiences in Asia, Australasia and the Americas.

Our response

It was important to emphasise the benefits of the OCDS to businesses, governments and citizens; creating a clear, compelling narrative as an ‘opener’ for more personal levels of contact would be key to the success of the campaign.

We reached out to senior figures in government, business and civil society across the world, enabling these audiences to understand the importance of open contracting and how the OCDS is a path to a solution. Our work involved:

  • Producing tailored media packs, briefing documents and press releases for all priority media targets
  • Liaising with partners and potential 3rd party endorsees to secure quotes and interviews
  • Writing, translating and distributing press releases to a global media list of journalists
  • Selling-in of stories to journalists in priority publications, organising logistics across time-zones and coordinating interviews
  • Producing a post-launch press release, with images and distribution via the PA News Wire and directly to selected international journalists
  • Producing content for client and partner websites
  • Collating coverage and produced an evaluation report
Professional, well-organised and with a strong news sense, the Allegory team members are skilled at translating even the most technical topics into accessible material…and then use their potent network of contacts to ensure these messages reach the right audiences around the world.
Dillon Mann
Campaigns and Communications Director, WWW Foundation

The outcome

We secured more than 60 pieces of quality media coverage (with an estimated reach of 40m people), covering all target continents and exceeding the KPI by 100%, including key international coverage in the Financial Times and Reuters. Social media engagement achieved 500k impressions worldwide, with 15k people ‘liking’ conversations on social media around the launch.

Our work has helped to grow adoption of the OCDS in 15 countries across five continents.

Contact us to explore how Allegory can help your organisation with a campaign like this.

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