Our proposed approach is based on a set of general objectives, main principles and adapted strategies. We have identified the following concepts to guide our approach to the DG SANCO communication challenges.

INSPIRATION - AWARENESS - INFORMATION - DEBATE

DG SANCO must be a source of inspiration for all targets, policy-makers, civil society organisations, practitioners, media and citizens. Raising awareness about these inspirational topics is a basic need, as DG SANCO must act in a complementary manner to national authorities, respecting the principle of subsidiary. An information policy constitutes the starting point of the communication strategy. Raising awareness through an appropriate information policy is part of a two-way communication strategy in which the DG SANCO audiovisual products and services must be associated to a bottom-up approach to stimulate debate at the public level and promote ownership of the messages among their recipients.

ETHICS - RIGOUR - CREATIVITY - COST-EFFECTIVENESS

DG SANCO does not "sell" anything. We strongly believe that communication should make clear at all times the ethic with which DG SANCO deals with highly relevant public issues such as health and consumer rights. Information and debating strategies must help to position DG SANCO as a committed institutional body, taking actions based on a clear mandate and always seeking public interest. Audiovisual products must be built accordingly, i.e. with the rigour that is expected from one of the major actors in the field. One of the communication challenges is to effectively "compete" with other messages covering the same fields. Positive noise has to be generated and this requires a creative approach to effectively channel the audiovisual messages to the different selected targets that often have conflicting views about the EU and may find it difficult to fully acknowledge its added value. Communication must privilege cost-effective approaches. The diversity of audiovisual services undertaken by DG SANCO requires an optimisation of budgets and a search for synergies.

DISSEMINATION - PROXIMITY - PARTNERSHIPS - IMPACT

Communication must provide the tools and services to adequately disseminate all audiovisual contents and projects related to DG SANCO intervention fields. Dissemination requires technical skills, public relations and media planning.

Our strategies must focus on qualitative and quantitative impact, which requires accurate studies, creativity, media planning and thorough evaluation techniques. Our capacity to achieve all these goals for DG SANCO can be illustrated in the following way:

Communication is not only a set of audiovisual products, but also a tool to make dialogue happen and grow. All audiovisual services needs to be built from a perspective of proximity, to convey the messages as closely as possible to the different targets, respecting cultural and language diversity.

OPERATIONAL STRENGTH

Our consortium has been built upon the conviction that this set of skills cannot be found in a single partner and that complementarity is required to provide the best services to DG SANCO.

This consortium therefore gathers the different skills that DG SANCO may require to successfully communicate its activities and initiatives: