Concern Worldwide – Extreme Everyday

What will you do today?

Concern Worldwide began in Ireland in 1968, when a group of ordinary people sent a ship of aid to famine-struck Biafra. In 2025 alone, they reached 23 million people across 27 of the world’s poorest countries.

They work alongside communities facing extremes – poverty, hunger, disaster, climate change, violence – circumstances that turn ordinary activities into daily struggles for survival.

Studio Texture built the wider campaign and developed the scripts – a strategic brand platform spanning outdoor, social and broadcast, anchored around a single idea, to stop the extreme becoming everyday. Our job, working alongside them, was the broadcast component – the 30 second TV spot, 2 x 15 second social cutdowns and a 30 second radio ad introducing the campaign to a Northern Ireland audience.

The craft challenge was holding two audiences in mind at once. The campaign had to feel distinctly Northern Irish and made for that audience, voiced by someone they trust, while sitting respectfully alongside the separate campaign running on the other side of the border. Same organisation, same cause, two neighbouring audiences, two pieces of film doing adjacent work.

The idea, in thirty seconds

Questions anyone could answer. School drop-off. Going to work. Cooking dinner. Catching up with friends. Then the same moments, somewhere else – a child crossing a bridge in Pakistan, a commuter wading through floodwater, a spoon scraping the last of a bowl. One ordinary day. Two different lives.

The script trusts you. It lets you notice that someone else’s ordinary is the extreme version of yours.

Two routes, one archive

Concern’s archive reaches places most film crews never do and they have decades of footage.  Working closely with their production team, we watched everything we could from their long-form documentary series on YouTube, to compilation reels from recent visits within their internal media library and requested raw rushes from across the country offices. Working to a tight turnaround, we built mood films for both creative routes Studio Texture had developed, so the client could see what each would actually look like on screen before choosing one. Once the route was agreed, proper editing began – and we went back shot by shot for the frames that could carry a sentence.

Rights clearance on international charity footage is its own craft.  Some material was restricted. Some countries needed local sign-off before anything could run publicly. We worked closely with the Concern team, matching our shot selection against what came back cleared – every frame in the final film is one that was both strong enough and signed off.

Blonde took the time to really listen to our ideas and understand what we wanted to achieve, going above and beyond to delve through hours of footage to find the right content to bring our vision to life. They were incredibly collaborative throughout the process, always positive, open to feedback and accommodating of the changes we suggested. Their flexibility, enthusiasm and commitment to getting the best possible result made the whole experience a great one.

Deborah Underdown, Director of Communications UK, Concern Worldwide

The edit

Thirty seconds does not forgive anything.

The film opens on an eye, waking. It ends on a mother and son, smiling. Everything between carries the idea. We cut and re-cut, testing each shot against the thought, against the people in it, against the pauses in the voice-over, against the moment the sound effects took centre stage and the music needed to lift.

Not a montage, but a film.

The team at Blonde acted as an extension of our team. They were with us all the way through from strategy to creative concept, bringing their rich experience to add value and provide valuable challenge at every stage. This was a tricky brief, relying solely on a broad mix of client archive footage. Blonde took it head on, bringing creativity and enthusiasm and delivered a polished final product in record time. They’re also just a joy to work with, which makes all the difference.

Stuart Youngs, Founder and Creative Director, Studio Texture

The grade

The footage came from many cameras, many countries, many conditions. Some already graded, some raw. The first job was to balance all of it so the film read as one piece – one world – rather than a collection of clips.

The two halves of the film then earn their own feel. The extreme half slightly cooler. The everyday half warmer, moving towards hope.

The voice

The voice-over is Ibe Sesay, Northern Ireland broadcaster, Q Radio drive-time presenter, and Concern Worldwide (UK) ambassador. He spent some of his early childhood in Freetown and has close family still living in Sierra Leone. In 2024 he visited Concern’s programmes in Port Loko, and has supported their work ever since.

Casting the campaign’s voice was therefore not a casting decision in the usual sense. Ibe already carried the trust, the regional familiarity, and the personal connection to the cause that the film needed. Bringing his professionalism to the studio, we recorded both the television and radio versions in a single sitting.

The sound

The archive came with its own production audio, but a thirty-second TVC needs more than that. We layered in sound effects to lift and reinforce what each shot was carrying – the footsteps, the water, the spoon, the ambient layers of each place. Not replacing what was there. Strengthening it.

The music then had to carry the same architecture the picture carried, moving through the extreme half and the everyday half in thirty seconds without stitching the halves together too obviously.

For radio, there were no pictures to lean on so each extreme was built from sound alone – the crunch of rubble underfoot, the weight of floodwater, and heat told through absence, with dry wind and the rustle of scorched crops. Every effect sits in the space between the lines, landing with full force before falling away beneath the voices, so nothing competes with a word. Two voices, Ibe and a Concern voice, pass the story between them, and at “that’s why” the music lifts to carry the listener from crisis towards hope. Thirty seconds, built entirely for the ear.

Delivery

The campaign was delivered across ITV, commercial radio, social media and Concern’s own channels. The film was adapted for each placement, with square and vertical versions for social, subtitles throughout and shorter edits where needed. The television and radio versions were designed to work together, keeping the message consistent across the campaign.

And finally

Thanks to Concern for trusting us with the project, it was a huge privilege to work with them and to play a small role in raising awareness of the incredible work they do.

Credits

Client: Concern Worldwide
Agency: Studio Texture
Media: JAA
Voice-over: Ibe Sesay
Footage: Concern Worldwide archive, with licensed stock