Arctik’s Assessment of the 2015 EESC “Europe in harmony” video challenge

From 10 December 2014 to 4 March 2014, Arctik worked on a communication evaluation project with the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on an Assessment of the 2015 “Europe in harmony” video challenge, under contract number CESE/COMM/INF/02/2015.

The EESC video challenge is an online competition designed to engage EU citizens to reflect on European themes. It is a creative music and video outreach project that helps to create greater understanding between citizens and promote cultural diversity across member states. The target audience is EU citizens interested in music (singing) and/or video, who are inspired to perform a creative interpretation of the European anthem.

The EESC’s Communication Department has conducted three video challenges in 2015, 2013 and 2012, with the primary objective to engage EU citizens, through a number of communication tools. In 2015 the video challenge was entitled “Europe in Harmony” which specified the music for the video as the anthem of the EU, Beethoven’s "Ode to Joy”. Arctik conducted an evaluation of the video challenge, assembling a project team to examine and assess the communication of the competition and the resulting impact achieved. The output of this exercise was an assessment report written for the EESC communication team and shared with all EESC Members.

The final Arctik assessment report draws upon desk research, analysis and interviews on the communication activities of the 2015 video challenge. It includes an analysis of the communication strategy, the dedicated website, social media (Facebook and Twitter), promotional emails, press and media outreach, as well as a comparative analysis. In addition to the research, the report includes observations collected in interviews with the competition participants (EU citizens), three representative EESC members, and the EESC communication team.

The analysis leads to several strategic and technical recommendations, designed to optimise the communication of the competition to maximise the impact and regularise the activities, including the scheduling of the video challenge.

More information about the competition.
Video challenge website http://www.eesc.europa.eu/video-challenge/2015
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/EESCVideoChallenge/?fref=ts
Twitter https://twitter.com/EESC_CHALLENGE

Check out the video produced by the EESC communication team