The Zimbabwean: Trillion Dollars Campaign Case Study

The advert titled Trillion Dollars Campaign Case Study was done by TBWA\ advertising agency for The Zimbabwean Newspaper company in South Africa. It was released in the June 2009. Business sector is Publications & media.

Credits:

• Type of Entry: Titanium and Integrated
  Title: TRILLION DOLLAR CAMPAIGN
  Advertiser/Client: THE ZIMBABWEAN
  Product/Service: NEWSPAPER
  Entrant Company: TBWA\HUNT\LASCARIS JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
  Advertising Agency: TBWA\HUNT\LASCARIS JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
  Creative Credits
  Name Company Position
  Damon Stapleton TBWA Executive Creative Director
  Nicholas Hulley TBWA Creative Director
  Raphael Basckin TBWA Copywriter
  Shelley Smoller TBWA Art Director
  Nadja Lossgott TBWA Art Director
  Details
  Describe the campaign/entry:
  Our client, The Zimbabwean newspaper, has been driven into exile for reporting on how the Mugabe regime has rigged elections, crushed the opposition, caused poverty, disease and the total collapse of the economy. And now, having been exiled, the regime has slapped a 55% luxury import duty on the paper (as if freedom of speech is a luxury) that makes it unaffordable for the average Zimbabwean. To get the paper into Zimbabwean hands, it needs to be subsidised, and our client can only do that by raising awareness and driving sales outside Zimbabwe.
  Give some idea of how successful this campaign/entry was with both client and consumer:
  Overnight, trillions of dollars of Zimbabwean banknotes achieved what they’d never been able to buy – real and meaningful advertising coverage. Within hours, we were in the national press. And a couple of days later, the campaign was on national television and radio. And then the internet discovered it and it spread across the world. Soon we were on the New York Times site, Yahoo news, the Huffington Post and hundreds and hundreds of websites and blogs. As the campaign continues, sales of The Zimbabwean continue to soar. In the week of the roll-out alone, the website logged over 2 million hits. More copies of The Zimbabwean than ever are crossing the border into Zimbabwe. We used Mugabe’s own creation against him.
  Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.
  We developed a unique solution. One of the most eloquent symbols of Zimbabwe’s collapse is the Z$ trillion dollar note, a symptom of their world record inflation. This money cannot buy anything, not a loaf of bread and certainly not any advertising. But it can become the advertising. So, we turned the money into its own medium by printing our messages straight onto it .In rush-hour traffic, malls and universities millions and billions were given out one note at a time. We sent bundles of cash to captains of industry, politicians and media personalities. Wherever the Zimbabwean was sold, we put up posters made of real money. At every public place we could, we had a poster-with notes that people could detach to keep the email address. We made trillion dollar wallpaper murals and even made the world’s first billboards out of real money.