Accenture selected to design and deliver Vatican News portal

Global consulting firm Accenture has revealed a holy engagement for the New Year, with the news that the Vatican’s Ministry of Communications has selected Accenture Interactive to implement an overhaul of the Vatican’s communications network. The project will include defining a digital communications strategy for the Vatican, which is seeking to consolidate and improve its channels of digital engagement.

Following discussions by the two groups, figurative white smoke came from Rome as the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Communication selected Accenture Interactive as its global experience agency. The firm will be tasked with defining a digital communications strategy that increases the consistency and clarity of its communications, while also unifying the current array of independent communication channels under a single new portal: Vatican News. The consolidation bears a stark resemblance to a major contract carried out by the consulting firm last year for global publishing giant Pearson.

The project is part of a new Vatican reform aimed at finding new ways to communicate with and engage all people in today’s digital world, as the Papal administration further seeks to modernise an institution which had increasingly become seen as out of touch with global society. The appointment comes at a time when Accenture’s Interactive arm has gone from strength to strength, thanks to a string of high-profile acquisitions over the past 12 months, including Irish creative agency, Rothco.Accenture Interactive will now take on the task of designing the Vatican’s communication channels from top to bottom, starting with new logos and other brand elements of the various Vatican communication channels: Vatican News, Vatican Media and Radio Vaticana Italiana, to ensure consistency between the new visual identity used for the portal and its social media properties. Further, the firm will be involved in the creation of a singular multi-language editorial team able to work with a multimedia, multi-device and multi-cultural approach, and a content strategy that allows for efficient content management and distribution. Once complete, the transformation will enable the Vatican media team to have a defined and united online identity, while providing a high-quality digital source of multi-media content for people all over the world, with an aim of reaching new audiences, rather than preaching to the converted.

Monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò, Prefect of the Secretariat for Communications said, “We are launching the last part of the reform sought by Pope Francis. Each reform does not originate from a mistaken past but from a present that calls for a change: in this case, today’s cultural and digital convergence require the adoption of production processes that are different from traditional ones. Today, in fact, information production and dissemination happens through agnostic software, in multiple media formats. The collaboration with Accenture Interactive, thanks to their solid global experience, has allowed us to develop an extensive strategy capable of uniting various working groups, the diversification of formats and the strengthening of brand identity, all while maximising the value of our talented in-house professionals working in the Holy See media.”

“This project strikes at the core of what we do at Accenture Interactive: building human-centered experiences for today’s digital world,” said Anatoly Roytman, head of Accenture Interactive for Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Latin America. “We’re honoured to partner with such a venerable institution to reinvent the way it communicates. Accenture Interactive was chosen by the Ministry for our ability to bring a broad range of digital capabilities across user experience, design, content, branding, analytics, search, and social, as well our ability to help large institutions with the change management required for digital transformation to be successful.”