The Royal Meteorological Society’s (RMetS) Weather Photographer of the Year competition is a leading global competition for promoting climate change awareness through photography. This flagship initiative highlights the planet’s beauty and fragility while engaging diverse audiences on essential climate discussions.
To increase the impact of the competition, RMetS partnered with b2b to identify and secure a sponsor whose values aligned with the competition’s mission. Standard Chartered, with its commitment to sustainability and its goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2025, emerged as an ideal partner. b2b facilitated the launch of the partnership, ensuring smooth integration and collaboration across the entire competition, with the partnership moving into it’s second year in 2024.
b2b's work also extended into activating the competition itself, project managing everything from the submission and judging process through to the ongoing communications, marketing, promotion and social media campaign.
Our approach included identifying regions with significant weather-related challenges and crafting tailored messages for those areas. We also implemented a media and press strategy to enhance coverage and visibility.
Youth engagement was a key KPI for the competition. The team at b2b integrated several activities to encourage participation from younger audiences, ensuring the competition resonated with them and fostered a sense of environmental responsibility.
The engagement results were impressive, highlights including:
The competition attracted 3,742 entries from 1,202 photographers across 94 countries, a 24% increase from the previous year.
Public engagement surged, with 9,291 votes and 506 media mentions reaching approximately 795,600 people.
On social media, the competition achieved a combined reach of 12.5 million across Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, including 1.2 million interactions on LinkedIn and 4.4 million reach from Facebook promotions.
Engagement from younger audiences increased by 78%, reflecting a growing commitment to environmental issues.
Reflecting on the partnership, Marisa Drew, Chief Sustainability Officer at Standard Chartered, expressed pride in the collaboration, noting, “We are proud to sponsor the Standard Chartered Weather Photographer of the Year competition... This partnership... aims to raise further awareness of the impact of our warming climate and the threats posed by associated extreme weather events.”
Professor Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of RMetS, highlighted the competition’s significance, stating, “Photography is an accessible medium... The Standard Chartered Weather Photographer of the Year provides a unique opportunity for people around the world to share their stories and inspire us all to take action.”
The success of the competition highlights the powerful connection of art and climate advocacy, demonstrating how strategic partnerships and well-executed initiatives can drive meaningful change. b2b are very proud of the partnership we built with Standard Chartered across this sustainability and climate action programme.
In addition, our programme management team successfully delivered the competition in 2023 within budget, ensuring a microsite, marketing campaign, assets, climate driven narrative and media pick-up were all achieved.
If you’re keen to know more about how we can help you diversify your income or if you have skills shortages within you team, feel free to reach out to us here, for an exploratory conversation.
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