Best international campaign

Decarbonising the global economy is the challenge of our lifetime. Corporates have a role to play to ensure that Paris Agreement goals are met, but climate change and sustainability is a crowded agenda, dominated by corporate pledges and statements with little substance.

UK-headquartered Standard Chartered challenged agency Man Bites Dog to create an integrated, international campaign to promote its sustainable finance offering by positioning it as a thought leader and allowed the bank to engage with clients on their net-zero transition strategies.

Working together, they created a sector transitional model with key benchmarks and milestones to gauge how companies are performing against key net-zero transition dimensions. This informed the design of a major global opinion research study that compared the views of multinational and large emerging market CEOs and global investors about transition finance.

Zeronomics highlighted the risk of a lost decade as companies postpone action on climate change. It found that 55 per cent of corporates are not transitioning fast enough to achieve net zero by 2050. Insufficient finance was cited as the greatest barrier to progress, but the biggest shortfall occurs in emerging markets.

Man Bites Dog built out the findings with insights from Standard Chartered experts, packaging the content into a suite of digital first assets, including a visual interactive report, video and infographics. The Zeronomics campaign launched across 21 markets with tailored regional toolkits, including data, content assets and press releases. There were also targeted messages for developed and emerging market companies and investors.

The resource provided Standard Chartered with a positive platform to champion the need for transition finance by carbon-intensive companies, providing a clear call to action for its services.

Zeronomics generated 246 pieces of media coverage across 21 markets, including more than 25 articles in ‘tier one media’ outlets. Independent Coverage Book Analysis calculated these media outlets have more than 2.1 billion online readers and the campaign generated in excess of 5.3 million views and more than 4,000 shares.

It also powered hundreds of conversations between Standard Chartered bankers and business leaders. The report’s findings have been viewed more than 2.4 million times, and the video has been watched almost 380,000 times.