World Food Day 2019 with the slogan, “Our actions are our future. Healthy diets for a #ZeroHunger world", effectively engaged audiences across borders, sectors and generations, highlighting the need for urgent action across sectors to make healthy and sustainable diets available and affordable and calling on the public to think about their food choices.

The World Food Day theme and colourful visual were used consistently in over 40 languages for over 400 events in up to 150 countries, across the world (a 25% increase in the number of language translations and events from 2018). 3 575 articles were tracked from 13-20 October reaching 3.9 billion potential readers during peak time on 16 October and the hashtag #WorldFoodDay reached over 490 million accounts on social media, up 20% from 2018.

Pro-bono advertising once again increased substantially on a global scale (up 60% from 2018) as FAO offices and the World Food Day Team engaged the support of TV and outdoor advertisers, city and national transport networks, airports and shopping centres.  The world’s largest outdoor advertiser JCDecaux placed billboards across six European capitals (reaching a potential audience of 3 million in Brussels alone). In the Near East and North Africa Region , WFD reached young and older TV audiences through Cartoon Network (over 60 million potential viewers), Boomerang and Turner Classic Movies. The campaign attracted the attention of millions of passengers on the Asian capital Yangon’s 40 bus lines and supermarkets and in Africa, pro bono TV advertising was secured for the first time in both Rwanda and South Sudan. Three Latin American airports advertised WFD, while advertising on Mexico’s transport networks reached over 50 million passengers.

Major social media accounts such as BBC World (26 million followers), CNN Arabic (10.9 million) and Cartoon Network Arabic (3.6 million) posted World Food Day material on social media and digital influencers across the world demonstrated their support to FAO, healthy diets and WFD including Matbakh Sooka (MENA region - over 5.8 million followers), Chef Oropeza and Bela Gil (LAC region - over 4.3 million followers cumulatively), Carlos Ríos (Europe - over 1.4 million followers), and Thomas Pesquet, ESA astronaut dedicated a personal video message (USA - 743 000 followers).

Frequent internal communication on various channels was key to encouraging participation on a global scale, and the roll-out of national and regional campaigns by consistently sharing the main messages, visuals and content with 130 FAO offices and Member States.

See the full Media, Outreach and Marketing Report here and highlights of events around the world at this link.

WFD IN NUMBERS:

+ 400 eventsin up to 150 countries, up 25% from 2018

Translation in over 40 languages, up 25% from 2018

Pro bono advertising up 60%from 2018

3 575 articles reaching 3.9 billion potential readers on WFD

#WorldFoodDay reached over490 million accounts, up 20%from 2018