Brief

The European Union (EU) wanted to increase public knowledge and provide a visible platform for its public diplomacy actions in 5 Southeast Asian countries: Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Solution

Through local context and audience analysis, we proposed to enhance and transform engage.eu into a central hub for all EU public diplomacy activities, focused on providing updated agenda and news of events. This platform was also designed to facilitate registration and communication with participants, as well as leverage information for data collection and monitoring for the EU.

Outcome

With over 55,000 visitors, 85 published articles, 45 events announced, the project consolidated the EU's engagement and partnerships with more than 600 partners and 100 government institutions.

engage.eu was seen as a unique communication and outreach tool to aggregate content and disseminate information. It also served as a repository and visibility tool for the EU Delegations in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines, allowing them to consolidate country actions under a regional umbrella, and providing useful links and stories to enhance their social media presence.

It was also particularly useful in enhancing the perception of Southeast asian audiences towards the EU, as participants were encouraged to register and use the platform, and key stakeholders could share their experiences by using published stories and pictures.

More than a visible page, the platform was crucial to support EU academic, cultural and public policy outreach, as backend design provided for systematic cataloguing, data collection and data analysis as reports to the EU Delegations.