Internetics 2016, one of the most important festivals dedicated to the online industry in Romania, awarded with Silver the online advertising campaign for Shakespeare Festival, „Craiova Right of Reply”, signed by Cohn&Jansen JWT and BCR.
The idea of the campaign come from the way Cetatea Băniei is represented in mass media, mainly through the „tabloid” subjects, street fights and other gangs’ wrangles. BCR, one of the oldest sponsors of Shakespeare Festival, wanted to communicate to the media that in Craiova something else than street fights and negative events happen.
Our creative proposal consisted in a right of reply offered to the community from Bănie. The right of reply was composed of a set of visuals that expressed alternative messages to the ones the media choose to publish. The campaign was supported by the largest community of people from Craiova on Facebook (more than 35.000), Craiova Cetatea Băniei, fact that has facilitated the right of reply.
Messages like The press see only scandals on the street of Craiova. Because, sometimes, the shows are held on the rooftop, or For the Romanian press, the capital of Sicily is Craiova. It is easy to understand why. Street fights between the Montague and Capulet gangs have been announced, have generated thousands of reactions and have been distributed in just few days by the people of Craiova, but also by actors, directors, authorities and other personalities from the cultural field. This way, without sponsored ads, without prizes and public figures involved, the campaign had an engagement rate of 165%, 608.000 reach and 1.041.000 impressions gained organically, without any advertising campaign.
“Unfortunately, the mass media tends to focus on the negatives topics, thinking that this way it will gain a higher audience and, for this reason, the information about the cultural events is left behind. It is a pity that it can’t be found an equilibrated way of depicting the world we are living in. For us this was quite obvious the case for Craiova, a beautiful city, with a lot of cultural events, but with the image of a violent city, due to the mass media. We are glad that with our campaign we’ve offered a way to equilibrate a little this unequal situation.” – Cornelia Pleșoianu, Head of BTL Department, BCR
“The campaign was well received by the media and the bloggers which covered the subject and helped spreading the news, but for us equally important were the direct reactions and the comments the visuals promoted under the hash tag #dreptlareplicapentrucraiova (#rightofreplyforcraiova) received: “Smart way to promote the city”, “Brilliant”, “Maxim”, “This is true. Some media representatives don’t see the good things that are done in Craiova.” These reactions showed us that we’ve offered something valuable to the community; we’ve demonstrated that their opinion interests us and offered them the necessary means to express it, which made us very happy. The prize received at Internetics, Brand Associated Communities category, has validated once again the way we’ve chosen to deal with the problem and the solution we’ve come with.” – Arina Stoenică, Account Director Cohn&Jansen JWT
You can watch the campaign’s study case here: