What did you do for International men's day?

Intro:

International men's day is one of the most monumental days of the year, yet most companies, group and organisations often approach it with levity or with an indifferent mindset. The conversations have gotten better over the year as we have seen different brands waking up, celebrating men through different ideas and campaigns.

I knew brands were going to turn up this year (a couple did) and I didn't want Africhange to be the exception.

I also didn't want us to do something basic, mundane or repetitive,so the question was ;

What should we do? What truly reflects the theme of this year's International Men's day?        

Scope:

The theme of this year's event was :

'Positive Role Male Models; and the goal was to highlight the importance of conversation about men's health...'

There it was- painting men as role models and having conversations about men's mental health.

Execution:

Employer branding is about telling stories, telling unique stories, telling evocative stories and I decided to go the storytelling route.

With the help of superstars like Folasade Daini , Otito Nwachokor and Adedayo Aderohunmu , I wrote two diverse scripts with different purposes.

The first script was going to focus on the second part of the theme- mental health awareness and the second was going to be on the first part- being positive role models- the one many companies missed out on.

HR coordinated with the Marketing team and we picked a shoot-day for our members staff in Lagos. Being a remote-first company, to drive employee engagement and inclusivity, we also asked our member of staff from different parts of the globe to send in their videos. They were excited to and it made our video more exhilarating.

Results:

Enhanced Employee engagement; our slack channel kept on buzzing throughout the day. Everyone was astounded by the quality of storytelling and execution.

External Employer Branding: While I haven't gotten the exact numbers yet, more people stopped by our IG, Twitter, and website (because about five acquaintances finally downloaded Africhange after a while). People also left exciting comment under our posts on IG and twitter.

Lessons learnt:

• Importance of Stakeholder Management: The first step was to get my manager's buy-in, a huge shout-out to her for her generous support. The second was to pitch my idea to the marketing team and get them onboard, while giving them enough time to plan for execution (enough time equals one week btw-Tito will probably roll his eyes when he sees this), but I really got the important members of the marketing team onboard .
• Optimizing resources: To be very honest, I would have wholeheartedly love to spearhead a monumental like this one that I executed for another company in 2022, however I understood the concept of limited resources and as you can see, it was an exhilarating experience.

Did you see any of our campaigns? If no, you could click the links below to watch them.

I am sure you'd find the ending exciting.

International Men's day; Mental Health Awareness

International Men's Day; Positive role models

What did you do for International men's day?

What would you love companies to do for you on international men's day?

Do share below.

#InternationalMensDay.