Title	VOTE NOT TRADE
Brand	FUNKY CITIZENS
Product/Service	FUNKY CITIZENS
Category	G06. Breakthrough on a Budget
Entrant	FUNKY CITIZENS Bucharest, ROMANIA
Idea Creation	KUBIS INTERACTIVE Bucharest, ROMANIA

Name	Company	Position
Alin Marghidanu	Kubis	Creative Director
Carina Toma	Kubis	Creative Group Head
Victor Firan	Kubis	Art Director
Stefania Bercu	Kubis	Strategic Planner
Stefan Chiritescu	Kubis	Head of Strategy
Silviu Stefanescu	Kubis	Front-end Developer
Paul Mustacescu	Kubis	Back-end developer
Cristina Rugina	Kubis	Front-end Developer
Daniel Placinta	Kubis	Chief Technology Officer
Vlad Iosipescu	Kubis	Social Media Manager
Vlad Iosipescu	Kubis	Social Media Manager
Vlad Iosipescu	Kubis	Social Media Manager
Vlad Iosipescu	Kubis	Social Media Manager
Sebastian Luba	Kubis	Head of Social Media
Ionut Avadanei	Kubis	DOP Lighting Cameraman
Marian Ciungu	Kubis	Editor
Oana Carcei	Kubis	Logistics Manager
Claudiu Mihalache	Kubis	Logistics Manager
Vlad Popovici	Kubis	Managing Director
George Popa	Freelancer	Visual Artist
Gabriela Petre	Freelancer	Scenographer
Dan Perjovschi	Freelancer	Visual Artist
Diana Papuc	Freelancer	Visual Artist
Cofetaria -	-	Visual Artist
Dume De Mestecat	Dume de Mestecat	Content Creators
Avanpost Production	Avanpost	Production Company
Cosmin Pojoranu	Funky Citizens	Communications Director
Elena Calistru	Funky Citizens	President

Why is this work relevant for Direct?

In a context of corruption in the political class and apathy in the population, Funky Citizens, a civic NGO, set out to convince people to enroll as election observers for the Romanian 2019 presidential elections. In Romania, rather than creating programs that bring change in society, politicians rely on offering short-term goods to vulnerable communities in exchange for votes. Starting from this wide-spread electoral bribery practice, we created an unconventional art gallery where visitors could experience a harsh reality, seeing the most traded-for-votes-goodies artistically reinterpreted. All exhibits led people to our online platform where they could register as voting observers.

Background

Romanian elections are consistently influenced by the phenomenon of “electoral exchange”. Items such as buckets, oil bottles, packs of flour etc. became a currency for a vote given to a specific candidate. Therefore, electoral exchange is a tactic of political campaigns that addresses a segment of population affected by poverty. Funky Citizens, a civic NGO monitoring political space, wanted to get people to enroll as election observers in order to supervise the voting process at polling stations. This was the first year Funky Citizens ran their own recruitment campaign for election observers. In previous elections, Funky Citizens was part of a four-NGO’s consortium that recruited observers among their volunteers. This approach made it difficult to “break the bubble” and recruit new people for this task. Objectives: 1. Valid applications: 250 (in previous elections, the four-NGOs consortium registered 980 observers, client data) 2. Unique visitors to the recruitment website: 10,000 visitors

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

While acknowledged by our audience, trading goods for votes was seen as a topic for online mockery and internet memes. We set out to demonstrate that the low-value items offered in exchange for votes have implications for us all. And, while we cannot stop this practice from happening, we can make sure that we have a fair voting process, by observing what happens at the polls. We created an unconventional art exhibition: the most popular items offered in exchange for votes in the past years were reinterpreted to demonstrate that this practice is a wide-spread phenomenon that perpetuates corruption and deceit. Each exhibit was accompanied by real stories of these goods being offered in campaigns, showing that these are not isolated incidents, but rather well-orchestrated political strategies. Visitors were directed to our online platform, where they could register as voting observers.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

We started our process by doing a search of news articles from the past years that reported politicians offering goods during campaigns. We curated a list of items offered throughout the years and the places where it happened. This list quickly revealed that trading goods for votes is not an isolated practice – it’s a consistent political tactic taking place every election, at national level. Therefore, this has consequences for the entire country, not just for the people who “sell” their vote. Our campaign targeted the new type of “social activist”: active on social media, educated and informed about the main social and political events, but who are satisfied with commenting and blaming others for things going badly, without taking actual steps to fix a situation. We wanted to empower this audience to get involved, by asking them to keep an eye on voting polls to ensure a fair voting

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Our campaign had two main pillars: the gallery and the website where people could volunteer as observers. For the gallery, we chose the goods that appeared most often in our research (from snow-shovels to packs of sugar) and reinterpreted them as art installations. These aimed to jolt the audience by showing the striking difference between the low monetary value of these items and the high costs they carried for democracy. The labels accompanying each piece told the story of these items being used as electoral bribery and called upon people to register of observers to counteract this phenomenon. A series of artists joined our cause pro-bono and created art pieces that were for sale in the gallery gift-shop to raise donations to cover observers’ costs (fuel and water). The gallery could be visited for 10 days in the biggest co-working space in Bucharest, ensuring high traffic from our desired audience.

List the results (30% of vote)

1. Valid applications: 488 - 210 of them were observers for the first time (objective: 250) Objective reached: 195.2% Source: client data 2. Unique visitors to the recruitment website: 15.330 (objective: 10.000 visitors) Objective reached: 153.3% Source: website analytics On opening night, hundreds of people (journalists, influencers, regular people and people from the co-working space) saw the exhibits, found out more about the role of observers and could enroll on the spot. Media also showed interest in our campaign - over 50 press outlets reported on the Electoral Exchange Gallery, resulting in 55 K Euro earned media (Source: PR agency). Additionally, 46 influencers visited our gallery and created social media posts about the initiative, completely unpaid, encouraging people to visit the gallery and enroll as observers. (Source: PR agency) The project was also invited to be part of TedX - Metamorphisis event on 16th-17th November.