Aurora Prize

The Aurora Prize required a communications programme capable of operating across the full complexity of pan-African media and political landscapes — understanding not just where the story would land, but how it would be interpreted through the lens of each country's political context, media ownership structure, and community sentiment.

This is the kind of intelligence that global firms operating from outside the continent cannot produce reliably.

Newmark was commissioned to lead the pan-African strategic communications — working in collaboration with Edelman, one of the world's largest communications firms.

The programme was designed around political and media sentiment analysis in each key market, with a narrative architecture that could express the same core message in ways that were locally resonant rather than globally generic.

Political and media sentiment analysis was conducted across multiple African markets, mapping the landscape of relevant voices — political, cultural, media, and civil society — whose engagement would determine the programme's effectiveness.

A multi-market PR coordination structure was established, with market-specific communications planning informed by the sentiment analysis. Stakeholder engagement strategies were tailored to each market's political and media context.