A GREAT STORY CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
ABOUT US
SPERO is an Africa-based creative agency that produces and designs stories to provoke engagement, empathy, and action toward issues of social and environmental justice
ENGAGEMENT
We work with clients to create human-centered stories that inspire audiences to engage in our narratives and imagine a better world.
EMPATHY
We design immersive stories and media campaigns that give audiences 360-degree access to the experiences of others. Creating this shared space for empathy and connectedness promotes direct action.
ACTION
We are a full-service content agency combing strategic development, content production and the latest story design technologies. The goal is simple: getting results for our clients.
SERVICES
Strategic Development
SPERO approaches its projects with a three-stage process that begins with developing a deep-dive communications strategy with the client.
Multi-Media Production
We script compelling interactive stories that lay the foundation for influential, digital-driven movements that can spark real change in the world
Immersive Campaigns
Our team directs our client's narratives to speak to specific target audiences through the most appropriate channels and managed through a centralised campaign platform.
Our Clients and Partners
Our Commitment
We weren't all born here, but we all live here. We are raising kids here. We are doing our best to leave the continent better off than the way we found it.
This is our company’s journey.
We hold ourselves to these commitments
We mentor local creatives and seek out the best talent in the countries in which we work. Clients and their stakeholders will hear directly from rising African talent who work on their projects.
Being cost-effective for Clients is a moral obligation: every cent eaten by comms takes away from the citizens the project seeks to assist. When you live here, you know what things cost, and we’ll tell the Client that.
We work in locations that range from the merely inconvenient to the downright unstable. We are very experienced in this, and take no unnecessary risks for ourselves or our Clients.
We are well-versed in the practical issues of economic development, and we only work on projects we believe will have a long-term, sustainable, positive impact. We know a water program without a maintenance plan when we see it and can smell a PR junket from a mile away.
Change takes time. We take on projects that have the appropriate time horizons and a razor focus on results. You’ll have to be happy to live with us for a while.
It is not an option to not travel — for sometimes the story will not be told without a witness — but we target the smallest environmental footprint as is possible within the scope of our projects. Carbon offset calculations will be provided in all Client budgets. And we’ll complain until they stop parking the Land Cruisers in the sun, with the engines on, blasting air-conditioning into empty vehicles.
We are fun folks, but we take this work very seriously. We deal with important, challenging, and often uncomfortable issues. Our subjects know what they are doing: they put their trust in us to tell their stories in the hope that it will help their communities. We are relentless in ensuring their trust is rewarded.
PROJECTS
PROJECT 1: COVID RESPONSE CAMPAIGN
AFRICA’S CHILDREN ARE PAYING FOR COVID-19 WITH THEIR FUTURE
Overview: When COVID-19 struck in 2020, children in Sub-saharan Africa were hit the hardest. They were already entrenched in climate change emergencies, displacement, food insecurity and disease. The Sub-saharan African countries needed financial support to cover their families’ daily basic needs, take children back to school and facilitate economic recovery. The multi-pronged intervention strategy out of this pandemic was cash transfers which over time has proved to be an effective investment in children, human capital and economic growth.
Communication Objective: To create an advocacy campaign for UNICEF to be used in driving investment into social protection with cash transfers as the tool to address the detrimental impacts of COVID on the children across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Output: Images, videos, infographics, text articles, social media packages and web portal development for UNICEF for internal communication and distribution to international media.
Project 2: CYCLONE IDAI FOR UNHCR
Overview: In March 2019, the deadliest tropical storm on record in Africa, hit Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Madagascar with devastating force. Beira, the second largest city in Mozambique, took the brunt with winds of over 195 km/h and severe flooding. The storm devastated the city’s infrastructure and population, destroying homes, schools, roads, and abundant crops, and affected over 3 million people.
Communication objective: The client wanted powerful personal stories that humanized the impact of the storm, while putting the unprecedented storm in the context of climate change.
Output by SPERO: We delivered photos for internal communication and social media for UN executives, collaborated with a videographer on rich stories for the Client’s websites and other media distribution. We reached the audience of the World Economic Forum through a story focused on the inequality of the impacts of climate change.
Video, photography and writing for UNHCR websites and social media campaigns
Wide distribution images by UNHCR to highlight the disaster through partner organisations
Article and photo essay for the World Economic Forum
Images to accompany announcements by UN executives and social media communication by UN agencies
Project 3: WILDLIFE DIRECT
Overview: In 2014, Wildlife Direct launched an elephant conservation campaign in Kenya, called "Hands off our Elephants".
Communication objective: Our job was to create a global communications campaign to curtail poaching and put direct pressure on the importation of ivory in Asian markets.
Output by SPERO: For this project Rand Pearson produced and directed a documentary about Elephant and Rhino poaching and what Wildlife Direct and the First Lady were doing to end it. It went on to become the cornerstone to a global awareness campaign about wildlife crime that has lead to putting wildlife criminals in East Africa behind bars.
HANDS OFF OUR ELEPHANTS DOCUMENTARY
OUR TEAM
Alissa Everett
Co-Founder
Alissa has lived, worked, and photographed in over 120 countries. She creates compassionate, dignified images in the most challenging locations. Formerly a conflict zone photographer with assignments in Iraq, Darfur, DRCongo, and Afghanistan, her work now focuses on documenting under-reported human rights issues, and global humanitarian issues: refugees and migration, sexual violence, informal settlements, famine, natural disaster and the socioeconomic impacts of COVID19. For more on Alissa's work, visit www.alissaeverett.com
Rand Pearson
Co-Founder
Rand is a creative strategist and content producer living in Nairobi over the past 20 years. Rand uses his 360-degree knowledge of the media industry -- including publishing, digital experiences and film and television production -- to create robust, integrated communication campaigns. Alongside his partners, his contribution to SPERO is to help drive overall creative strategy for its clients, build new narratives and oversee multi-media productions. For more on Rand's background and portfolio: www.rpfxmedia.com
PETER HOLMES À COURT
Managing Partner
Peter Holmes à Court had a 20-year career as an executive and company director, running companies in the US, UK, and Australia before, in 2011, making a move to become a writer. Riding with Giants was released by Penguin/Random House in February 2020, and his articles for the World Economic Forum in Davos have appeared in numerous publications over the last four years.
For more on Peter's work, visit www.peterhac.com
OMATH VICTOR
Victor is a writer, editor, producer, photographer, digital marketing expert, and researcher. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communication & Journalism. He holds vast experience as a Creative Storyteller. He is also a content producer currently focusing on real estate. He has also worked on multiple web content produced exclusively on mobile with widely published journalistic pieces on different Kenyan media outlets.
Victor is also a Trainer, Producer, and Editor at Mobile Journalism Africa, a media outlet in Kenya that empowers storytellers with mobile production skills and has trained more than 1000 content creators; journalists, filmmakers, and marketers.
OCHIENG' OBUNGA
Project Manager
Ochieng' Obunga is a human-interest storyteller, essayist, short story writer and literary critic with a background in project management. He contributes to Kenya's Daily Nation on freelance.
CONTACT US
Rand Pearson
Tel: +254 722 513 810
Alissa Everett
Tel: +254 790 486 175
Peter Holmes à Court
Tel: +254 724 616 494