Best international campaign 2024

Allied Universal is the world’s biggest security company, but outside North America it is most commonly known as G4S.

In a world first in 2023, the business conducted a survey of chief security officers at the world’s biggest companies to gauge their views on global security and emerging threats and establish Allied Universal as the leading expert on corporate security.

The questions were carefully devised by G4S’s corporate affairs team, working with its security experts, to tease out the most newsworthy and industry relevant results, and indicate the impact of issues such as climate change, artificial intelligence and economic turmoil.

In total, 1,775 chief security officers across 30 countries, with combined annual revenues in excess of $20 trillion – or nearly one quarter of the world’s global domestic product – were surveyed.

The survey predicted a sharp rise in threats such as inside trading, shoplifting, fraud and sabotage attacks, driven by concerns over rising geo-political tensions and economic pressures, such as inflation and rising interest rates.

But the findings also revealed a wealth of stories, which could be used to produce country-focused insights that took into account both local issues and the prevailing news agenda.

They also revealed that the companies had lost more than $1 trillion in revenues in 2022 as a result of non-cyber security incidents, leading 46 per cent of respondents to suggest their budgets would rise significantly.

Working with campaign adviser FTI Consulting, G4S planned a global launch in September 2023, followed by regional and in-country launches over the following three months. A target was set: 300 tier one articles or broadcast interviews globally, and 500 new business leads.

One global press release was produced, as well as five regional and 18 country press releases, in 16 languages, which focused on the most newsworthy angle in each region.

The release of the World Security Report 2023 was amplified by global and regional social media campaigns, and an innovative website worldsecurityreport.com, where the date could be viewed in interactive graphs.

Two global exclusives were secured. Reuters interviewed Allied Universal’s chief executive Steve Jones while CNBC interviewed G4S executive chairman Ashley Almanza. The Reuters interview was syndicated widely while posts on its X accounts, with more than 29 million followers, achieved more than 60,000 views.

A further 14 exclusives were secured with tier one media in countries as diverse as Colombia, Kenya and Singapore. In total, more than 1,150 articles and broadcast interviews took place – almost four times the initial target.

The National Protective Security Authority, part of security service MI5, also credited the World Security Report in its guidelines on how to identify insider threats, which further emphasised  the timeliness of the initiative.

The website has been visited in excess of 25,000 times, with visitors from more than 150 countries, while the report has been downloaded in five languages more than 3,000 times by a range of household names. It has also directly generated more than 2,500 new business leads.

But the report also continues to produce newsworthy hooks. Its findings are so topical that they have real longevity, and have been used in articles about issues such as shoplifting, the impact of climate change on security and insider threats to organisations.