Doctors with Africa CUAMM brand positioning campaign
Doctors with Africa CUAMM has worked alongside healthcare professionals and communities in Sub-Saharan Africa for more than 70 years. But in Anglophone markets, awareness of the organisation is still relatively low.
The challenge
Our challenge was to introduce CUAMM to new audiences and make clear what sets its approach apart. This isn’t about short-term intervention. CUAMM works over decades, building relationships, sharing expertise and strengthening health systems from within.
That also meant avoiding the conventions of traditional crisis-led charity campaigns. No sensationalism, no stereotypes and no hero narrative. The work needed to feel human and accessible, but also grounded in the realities of healthcare: local leadership, training, research and long-term commitment.
The process
We kept coming back to one simple observation: crises make headlines, but healthcare carries on when the attention moves elsewhere.
That became the basis for the campaign idea, ‘When the headlines move on, we stay.’
The contrast gave us a useful way into CUAMM’s story. News cycles are short. Building stronger healthcare systems is not. Hospitals still open. Midwives still work through the night. Doctors, nurses and local teams still have decisions to make the next morning, and the morning after that.
That helped us talk about CUAMM’s long-term role without needing to rely on distressing imagery or dramatic storytelling.
The idea of working with Africa, not simply for Africa, shaped the rest of the campaign too. We wanted the people shown to feel active in the story rather than presented as recipients of help. The emphasis is on people working together, sharing knowledge and building stronger local systems.
The campaign closes with, ‘With Africa. For health. For the long term.’
A simple line that brings CUAMM’s role and commitment together.
The requirements
- A clear positioning idea for CUAMM’s first Anglophone campaign
- A campaign headline, messaging and call to action
- A 60-second hero film, with 30- and 15-second edits
- Portrait versions for social media
- A flexible visual system for digital campaign assets
- An approach that could help build recognition over time
The solution
Visually, the campaign combines bold typography, photography and footage with cut-out imagery, collage and CUAMM’s red alongside softer beige tones.
The collage approach helped us show more than one part of the story at once. Healthcare professionals, communities, places and systems can all sit together without one individual becoming the focus of the campaign.
A simple linear thread runs through the work, connecting scenes and giving the films a sense of continuity.
We also borrowed some visual cues from news and editorial design. Headlines, cameras and graphic fragments reference the short life of media attention, before the focus shifts to the work that carries on afterwards.
The finished campaign gives CUAMM a clearer way to talk about what it has always done: stay, work alongside people and keep building for the long term.
Would you like to see results like these for your organisation?
If you’re interested in finding out more about how we could work together, send us a message and we’ll get back to you.
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