UN WOMEN - Cannes Lions Competition Brief
Background Information
UN Women is the global champion for women and girls. Created in 2011 by UN Member States andbacked by the global women’s movement, we act on the fundamental premise that all women andgirls have the right to live free of discrimination, violence and poverty, and that gender equality iscentral to achieving development.
As part of the UN system, we work with UN Member States to advance global standards to achieve
gender equality. Our advocacy and programmes in over 80 countries help translate these standards
into reality for women on the ground, focusing on five priority areas: increasing women’s leadershipand participation; ending violence against women; engaging women in all aspects of peace andsecurity processes; enhancing women’s economic empowerment; and making gender equality
central to national development planning and budgeting.
Currently high on the agenda are the centrality of women’s empowerment to achieve theSustainable Development Goals, a global blueprint for people and planet leading up to 20130 andadopted by all UN Member States. For 2017, key themes are women and the economy, with a
special focus on equal pay; and ending violence against women and girls.

The Challenge: Stepping up UN Women Brand Alignment
UN Women is a relatively young brand, still not very well known to the larger public beyond the UN
and its constituencies. Given that it is a global brand, a strong visual identity is a must.
That being said, a number of UN Women sub-brands, including some successful campaigns, havebeen launched since its inception, leading to brand fragmentation and campaign confusion whereby
it is not clear how the different sub-brands connect with the “mothership brand” UN Women.
To remedy this situation, in 2016 we developed a visual system, based on the Connecting Lineconcept, aimed at conveying the link between the “mothership brand” UN Women and its subbrands. The new system also introduced a new lockup, locking together the UN Women logo, our“SDG girl” icon and our motto (Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step it Up for Gender Equality). See
Powerpoint presentation below under “Insight” for more detail about the system. This system is inuse and will continue to be used by some of the established UN Women’s sub-brands.

The Big Idea
The question is: going forward, how can we create a new visual system that allows us to create
identities for future initiatives and campaigns while at the same time being immediately recognized
as UN Women brand? In other words, how can we allow visual diversity within the parameters of
the UN Women brand?
We need you to create a visual branding system which evolves and revolves around the UN Women
Logo. Including but not limited to typography, colour palette, visual communications and guidelines
to show how the system can grow and flex on an individual campaign, local and global level.

Target Audience
UN Women’s audience is global and it is wide. Gender equality is an issue that impacts all segmentsof society. Our target audience includes government representatives from UN Member States, policy
makers, civil society and the women’s movement, journalists, academia and of course the generalpublic, with a focus on capturing younger audiences, the new feminist leaders of tomorrow.

1This incredibly diverse and global audience is one of our great challenges. We want to look fresh andcontemporary, but can on the other hand not push the envelope too far to avoid alienating the moreconservative segments of our audience.

InsightThe lack of brand guidelines when creating new sub-brands led to brand fragmentation and“campaign confusion” whereby it is not clear how the different sub-brands connect with themothership brand UN Women. That resulted in sub-brands like HeForShe, empowerwomen.org, or
the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women being perceived as separate from UN Women.
Going forward, there is a strong and urgent need for branding consistency for future campaigns andinitiatives. Key references for this exercise are:
1. The UN Women Branding Guidelines:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u3oe314kfm4ytrc/AAB1fLi0towsr3NKucwOl2Lga?dl=0
2. The Strategic Brand Alignment Presentation:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8e1ikd2qyhjmy94/Ppt%20Brand%20Alignment_23%20Nov%202016.pptx?dl=0

Branding Campaign Objective
Ensure that our audiences instantly recognize and associate all future UN Women sub-brands with
the UN Women “mothership brand”. A stronger brand will help us expand our advocacy reach andincrease our brand’s value and attractiveness to corporate and individual donors.

Tone of VoiceAs the global champion of women and girls, and as part of the United Nations, UN Women iscommitted to: Representing active, empowered women and girls in simple, bold, optimistic ways. This
includes steering away from stereotypical representations of women and girls and/orportrayals of women and girls as victims or subservient.
 Globally applicable. Maintain a global tone and avoid Western bias.
 Culturally sensitive. Be aware of cultural sensitivities in different countries.

BudgetNo budget has yet been allocated but please bear in mind we are an NGO so work on tight budgets

Timeline
Launch date Fall 2017

Key Performance Indicators
Creating equity and recognition.
Increased awareness of UN Women brand globally.
For UN Women and all the sub brands within it to be linked in a clear and inspiring way.

2