Brand journalism channel helps development bank regain its voice

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is a big, complex organization with offices in 24 countries and 120 communicators and specialists who contribute to 20 different blogs. Over the years, these blogs have been the home to thousands of posts that address specific technical issues within their sector, targeting discrete audiences.

However, the communications team realized that, despite a glut of content, the organization’s primary message had been lost. To correct this, the team undertook a brand journalism effort that has earned first place in the “Brand Journalism” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The channel, “Improving Lives,” is the home of stories of those who have benefited from IDB projects, those building and designing these projects and the knowledge created through the research conducted for these projects.

The first corporate content microsite of the IDB serves the goal of telling the world who the organization is and how its work improves lives in the region. Stories comply with the channel’s slogan, “Stories that trigger change.” Two stories are published weekly, each supported by a full social media strategy for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.

Each story includes a range of multimedia assets including photos, infographics, videos, audio and interactive elements. Each is produced in both Spanish and English (and sometimes French and Portuguese). Most stories also include a call to action, linking to related materials or courses.

Since its late 2018 launch, 80+ stories have appeared reaching 760,000 views. Of the IDB’s top 25 performing Facebook posts over a recent three-month period, 13 came from Improving Lives. The brand journalism effort has also attained high conversion and retention numbers.

Congratulations to Martin Echenique, Gabriel Garcia, Oscar Hernandez, Richard Solash, Terry-Ann Coley, Andrea Ortega, Anabell Iglesias, José Luis Lobera, and Diego Courchay.