Paul Belford Ltd is Fighting Ebola With These New Idents

Global satellite company SES has launched an Ebola-focused education TV channel that will broadcast via satellite across West Africa.

The ‘Fight Ebola’ channel will be available to both free-to-air TV viewers and Pay TV subscribers and transmitted from the ASTRA 2F satellite at 28.2 degrees East and from SES-5 at 5 degrees East.

It aims to inform populations in affected areas about the nature and dangers of the disease and how to fight it.

The branding together with a series of educational idents for the channel have been created by Paul Belford Ltd and includes messages about recognising symptoms, the need to act fast, avoiding contact with sick or the dead, and important hygiene measures. The information-based idents have been created as stencils, which then animate on screen as if sprayed. Nigerian musicians The Venus Bushfires have created the music and sound design.

The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the largest and most complex Ebola outbreak since the Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976. There have been more cases and deaths in this outbreak than all others combined.

Satellite operator SES has made some of their satellite and ground infrastructure available in order to support communication needs of World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and other organisations to educate people locally about protective measures and latest updates on health care centres.

Today, in English-speaking Africa, SES reaches between 4 and 5 million TV households. As a ‘TV household’ represents roughly 5-6 persons on average, the total SES reach could go up to 20-30 million people, especially in rural areas where sometimes no terrestrial TV signal is available.

Part of West Africa is dealing with the worst Ebola outbreak in history. The channel's message emphasises the fact that Ebola is spreading, that there is a great need to protect oneself as well as families and the entire community. The objective of ‘Fight Ebola’ is to create an understanding of the disease through the broadcast of educational content. 

“Through the channel we hope to further educate people. Many people do not understand this disease and therefore, tragically, do not seek the medical care they need. Fight Ebola broadcasts content to millions of people that need to be informed on the risks of Ebola." said Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou, Senior Vice President Commercial Africa at SES.

The content contributions are courtesy of numerous international media, help organisations and institutions such as UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and End Ebola Now.

Dr Joanne Liu, President of Médecins Sans Frontières, commented “Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it.”

Paul Belford added, “'The Fight Ebola idents have been designed to reflect the importance and urgency of the messages.  The branding effectively gets across crucial information to a part of the world that is in desperate need of this knowledge.”