Emma Festivals Campaign
The Ethnic Multicultural Media Awards (EMMA) has always been known as an awards ceremony, celebrating diversity and professional excellence within the worldwide media industry. Our concentration is highlighting cultural diversity and multicultural excellence regardless of race, creed or colour. We do not put any emphasis on celebrating financial growth/successes largely at the expense of ethnic groups; and this is evident throughout our work within the media industry. EMMA continues to celebrate and highlight the multicultural values and common professional excellence that crosses traditional cultural divides, whilst still maintaining cross-cultural communications at its core.
“We live in a country that has welcomed, and been enriched by, the different communities choosing to live here. The EMMA Awards encourages us to think about how that diversity is reflected across all forms of media.
Diversity is one of the capital’s greatest assets: it’s what makes London a world city and the UK’s economy dynamic. The EMMA Awards has recognised the achievements of many remarkable people over the years, and we are immensely fortunate to have them as partners in fighting racism and promoting equality.”
– Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London.
WHAT IS THE EMMA FESTIVAL?
The unique EMMA Festival is dedicated to celebrating ethnic diversity and cultural excellence for Education and Entertainment, which represents true multicultural social values and has been developed due to the triumph of the EMMA Awards; an outstanding success since its formation in 1997. The festival represents a truly dynamic multicultural exhibition of art, theatre, comedy, poetry, music, cinema and dance all over London. May 2003 and June 2004 witnessed the vast dedication to multicultural understanding under the EMMA Festival umbrella.
The ethnic minority community in Britain will eventually account between 7-10% of the British population, with cities like London clearly leading this change with 40% population growth in the coming years. The need to reflect this diversity is clear, with a growing urban youth audience who openly reflect the cultural fusion from their cultural Diaspora within contemporary European society. The Festival also aims to help inner city children develop artistic skills, so that they too many find avenues to participate professionally in the media industry.
THE EMMA FESTIVAL AIMS
- Celebrate ethnic diversity and cultural excellence within our society.
- Empower diverse local communities and key cultural organisations through arts, entertainment and education.
- Provide a platform for young people, and others, to realise their full potential and exhibit their talent in order to gain future employment within the media industry.
- Encourage multicultural arts education schemes throughout London by targeting the young.
- Bring together a range of partners in the public, private and voluntary sectors each year, representing London’s multicultural industries.
- Benefit charities by encouraging participants to pledge a donation of 10% of all profits raised to a registered charity of their choice.
- Work extensively with external organisations on various events, co-ordinating their PR, Marketing and Advertising under the EMMA FESTIVAL umbrella. This enables us to enhance our own education and entertainment value to the growing multicultural urban youth audience within contemporary British society.
We have built invaluable allegiances working with various organisations, such as the BBC, ICA, GLA, V&A, Arts Council, SOAS (University of London), Community Channel, foreign cultural attachés and The London Tourism Board, who have already shown a distinct interest in multicultural arts celebrations with venues like The Royal Albert Hall (Asian Music Show).
EMMA FESTIVAL SUPPORTED EVENTS
- Mainstream cultural organisations and local community based arts organisations, across London, have hosted a range of cultural and arts exhibitions, such as the ICA’s (International Contemporary Arts) contribution to the festival with “World Cinema” screenings, themed music nights, multicultural exhibitions, lectures and the official EMMA Festival launch parties.
- Arts and Entertainment workshops have taken place throughout London, with media industries working closely with various universities.
- EMMA Festival has worked closely with Business Link, London First and The London Chamber of Commerce to organise a major creative industry fair to display London’s creative business community in Trafalgar Square. This has included Ozwald Boateng’s Fashion Show.
- London’s foreign embassies have showcased the artistic and cultural talent within their respective communities, leading to a better cultural understanding and education. For example, the Sri Lankan High Commission brought a traditional dance troupe to London during our May 2003 celebrations.
- A ‘London School’s Competition’ was held to celebrate London’s cultural diversity in an imaginative and creative way to support our multicultural agenda.
The various promotional aspects for the EMMA Festival 2003 was spearheaded by our telephone hotline 0700 CALL EMMA, sponsored by Greenland Interactive. Magazines and programmes produced by EMG and Me-Media, were distributed by EMG’s existing network.
The EMMA direct marketing campaign targeted organisations like education authorities, community groups, embassies, media companies, cultural centres and event promoters. The 2004 EMMA Festival benefited from the additional buzz of the annual EMMA Awards that took place a month earlier in May 2004 (and reached an approx. audience viewing figure of 2 million). This was complimented by a vast advertising campaign throughout the month of June, which ensured nationwide awareness of the festival, its events and its aims. A postcard and poster campaign as well as 100,000 dedicated EMMA Festival 2004 magazines were distributed to relevant organisations prior to the festival. The Magazine even highlighted a variety 2004 Festival participants through exciting reviews and interviews.
“Britain is lucky to draw from the talents of a community rich in ethnic diversity. The vital cultural contributions by people of African, Asian, West Indian and Middle Eastern decent are integral to the progress of British culture and business at large”.
Muhammad Ali
