The global population is expected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050 (Source: FAO) and we need to radically change the food system in order to feed everyone. To support this transformation, EIT Food wants to engage 100 million people by 2025.

 

We will do this through impactful storytelling driven by our key themes and topics in the EIT Food content calendar, building a strong and trusted EIT Food brand, which is recognised across the entire food system –  a brand that Changemakers believe in and want to engage with.

What is a Changemaker?

Changemakers are relevant people, organisations and platforms who have the influence and credibility to get our message across to a wider audience. This includes partners, students, entrepreneurs, policymakers and food experts. 

 

Changemakers are the credible human voice of EIT Food and they’re on the ground in our local communities, already talking about us online and offline. 


How do we identify a Changemaker? 

Relevant: they need to be passionate, be activists. People who have credibility and trust in the areas we want to talk about.

Influential: ideally they will have social media reach and online audience influence, however, those with a smaller following but who have authority in the topics we want to talk about are important.

Connected: they may be connected with events, organisations or institutions that we want to engage with. 

Decentralised marketing approach

EIT Food has a decentralised marketing approach. This ensures that colleagues can collectively work to deliver the goal of engaging 100 million people by 2025, while operating in a well-governed but autonomous way.


We do this in three ways:


  1. A data-driven digital communications strategy that informs decisions and prioritises high quality content across all EIT Food channels.

  2. Toolkits and guidelines to support colleagues and partners to build a strong brand and facilitate collaboration.

  3. An approach that allows regional and functional teams to work semi-autonomously to build their own narrative and share their programmes in a way that works well in their area.

To initiate and run an EIT Food campaign, check this article


A circular approach

We build an expert, authoritative and trusted EIT Food brand. This provides the foundation for everything we are doing as an organisation across regional and functional area teams, which will bring more stakeholders in. These new partners, students, entrepreneurs (...) will take part in our activities and engage with all of the opportunities we offer. This in turn attracts more Changemakers, who then become the credible voice providing the social proof that we are an authority and trusted as an organisation.


By doing this together, we can help to change the food system.



How can I follow this strategy?


To help us engage 100 million people, we need to focus on 'fuelling the stories'. 


Everyone across the organisation - regional, functional, core communications - has great stories to tell about our projects, activities and cultural highlights. 


Share your story: we want regional and functional areas to have the tools to be able to tell these stories, while the core communications team focuses on pulling all of these together to build the brand impact story for EIT Food. 


Help build awareness: if everyone across the organisation focuses on fuelling the stories, the core communications team will create content that drives brand awareness and builds community advocacy. This organised and collective approach to storytelling really resonates with our Changemakers, builds momentum and attracts more of our target audiences to engage with EIT Food. A benefit for everyone.


Use the articles in this Communications Hub to help you support the EIT Food strategy and tell your story.  


How it works in practice

Responsibility of the core communications team

  • Long term planning and delivery including:

    • Delivering the digital communications strategy 

    • Planning and managing the EIT Food content calendar 

    • Delivering blogs based on content topics in the EIT Food content calendar  

    • EIT Food core social media channels

    • Editorial planning and review meetings where new ideas are considered.

Responsibility of the regional teams


Responsibility of the functional area teams


Responsibility of EIT Food project partners


This article was last reviewed in December 2020 and will be reviewed again in April 2021. 

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