Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — Cheil KSA, the award-winning marketing solutions agency, recently launched #FoodforThought, a social media awareness campaign, in collaboration with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide and promoting food security, in order to build a world with zero hunger by 2030. According to the UN, there are 815 million people suffering from malnutrition or hunger around the world.

“We are a creative agency and our main philosophy is “Ideas That Move” which means that we are creating good ideas that can move people’s emotions to make a positive change in their lives,” Laith Abdel Hafez, Creative Director at Cheil KSA, told Saudi Gazette.

The campaign brought together 22 calligraphers from 4 continents, 28 food bloggers from 3 continents and chefs to create thought provoking visual art (digitally) on empty plates which were posted on Instagram, the world’s most popular foodspotting platform, to instill awareness among people about hunger especially in the MENA region (Yemen, South Sudan, Syria and Somalia).

“The challenge was to create a campaign about hunger in a positive tone that can be appealing for Instagram users and reach many users organically. Artists and calligraphers from different backgrounds added their own personal touch to create artistic plates that were sent to influential food bloggers and chefs. These plates were posted on their Instagram accounts and the engagement from their followers led to achieving amazing results. We wanted to give voices to these empty plates. That is why we invited the calligraphers to write beautiful calligraphy messages about offering food, alms-giving, and sustaining life,” said Laith.

When asked about the source of inspiration to take part in the campaign, Raneen Joudah, a food blogger, said, “I had the pleasure of joining this campaign to be part of the awareness that should be spread, just as spreading my art. I feel responsible for educating people of what is going on and how can they help the world to become a better place for us and others. We as bloggers were blessed with the love and trust of people and they look up to us, that is why we need to take action and speak up.”

Fiona Ariva, a calligrapher, said, “I am so honored and grateful to be able to use my skills and platform to share this cause. It might be one small action from me, but together, small actions make big waves.”

According to Cheil KSA, the campaign has so far reached 700,000 Instagram users organically with no paid advertising. The campaign posts have received over 1,000,000 impressions. The @wfp_mena Instagram followers’ count has increased by 300 percent.

“We are planning to take it globally and we are currently working on a very exciting project with WFP to achieve ending world hunger by 2030," said Laith.

Eradicating hunger by 2030 is one of the 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development adopted by the global community in 2015 to improve people's lives and the WFP aligns with it. Each year, the WFP provides food assistance to nearly 80 million people in 80 countries.