Maastricht Debate 2024
Creative and brand leadership for the headline debate between the EU lead candidates for the Commission presidency: 250K+ livestream views, 55M social impressions, and the front page of YouTube.
The moment
On 29 April 2024, the third Maastricht Debate brought together all the EU party lead candidates for the presidency of the European Commission: including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself. POLITICO co-organised the debate with Studio Europa Maastricht, live from the birthplace of the European Union.
My role
This was a genuine cross-team production: product, events, production, editorial and marketing all pulling together. I was in a creative and brand leadership role, one of the three leads corralling the whole project and making sure it landed. My team built the marketing outreach campaign, the PR strategy, and the designs that made the debate shine.
A newsy night
Moderated by POLITICO's Barbara Moens and Dutch journalist Marcia Luyten, it was a fiery debate with heated exchanges between President von der Leyen, Green candidate Bas Eickhout and ID candidate Anders Vistisen. In classic POLITICO fashion, it broke news: von der Leyen announcing she'd be open to an alliance with Europe's hard right, discussion of banning TikTok in Europe, farmers' rights, and entertaining corruption exchanges around Qatargate and 'Pfizergate'.
The numbers
250K+ views of the livestream across social media. 55M impressions on #MaastrichtDebate. Pick-ups and broadcast from international news organisations including The Guardian, the Financial Times, El País, Politiken, Les Echos, Die Presse, Süddeutsche Zeitung, De Telegraaf, DW, Euronews and Euractiv. The livestream landed on the front page of YouTube, with a watch party running in parallel for POLITICO's key clients and most loyal readers in Brussels.
Everywhere it mattered
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