2021 Brand Experience & Activation

THE LAND OF ABSURDITY

TitleTHE LAND OF ABSURDITY
BrandAMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Product/ServiceTHELANDOFABSURDITY.COM - A WEBSITE WHERE YOU CAN SUBMIT RIDICULOUS ZONES TO THE POLISH GOVERNMENT.
Category G06. Breakthrough on a Budget
Entrant ANORAK Oslo, NORWAY
Idea Creation ANORAK Oslo, NORWAY
Media Placement ANORAK Oslo, NORWAY
PR ANORAK Oslo, NORWAY
Production NORTH KINGDOM Stockholm, SWEDEN
Credits
Name Company Position
Hallvard Fjeldbraaten Anorak Copwriter
Jens-Petter Aarhus Anorak Art Director
Marte Langfjæran Anorak Designer
Yngve Nilssen Anorak Designer
Thea Helgeland Anorak Social media manager
Camilla von Borcke Anorak Project Manager
Nokkvi Thorsteinsson Anorak Motion Designer
Darri Thorsteinsson Anorak Motion Designer
Erlend Dal Sakshaug Anorak Motion Designer
Emma Thorén Anorak Agency Producer
Janne Espevalen Anorak Client Director
Kaja Gilje Sekse Anorak Planner
Simen Eidsvåg Sesong 1 PR Director
Siri Hveem Sesong1 PR Manager

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

This campaign is relevant to Brand Experience because it was not only an internet satire, it was internet activism and a new approach to a signature campaign for Amnesty International. And with less than 5 k euros in our media budget we were totally depended on people living the brand.

Background

Background: Poland has established so called LGBT ideology - free zones; Zones where you're not allowed to express your identity if you're not heterosexual. Media had been talking about it for a while, but it felt like the fear that the LGBT-free zones was creating, just grew more powerful for every time they were mentioned. Brief: With a small budget Amnesty International asked us to come up with an idea that showed their support and love for the members of the LGBT-community. So, if our biggest challenge was fear, we decided to make it possible to laugh at them.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Idea: The land of absurdity - a webpage where anyone could create new and ridiculous zones and submit them to the polish government. Yes, just as absurd as the LGBT-free zones in Poland. Why? Because love is a human right.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

We had less than 5k in our media budget, so we needed to grab peoples attention. That's why we started with a tweet to the polish president explaining our new site to him and our followers. And then it just started. In a matter of hours 37 different countries were on our site and our hashtag trended on twitter. Polish LGBT-activists loved the idea and turned our tool into theirs. And since almost every new zone resulted in a a new share, the idea grew organically. And they didn't just repeat what the media had been talking about for a year, that the world found the LGBT-free zones scary and horrific. This time we had changed something in the story. This time the story was all about how stupid and silly they looked; how the world was laughing.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

Implementation: We created a website where people could create their own ridiculous zones and spread it in social media. We promoted the site with a tweet from Amnesty to the polish president, telling him(and everyone that saw the tweet) about the site. Timeline: The campaign went live on may 27. 2021 and ran up to June 27(pride parade in Norway) Placement: - Thelandofabsurdity.com - A tweet from Amnesty International Norway to the polish president. - A Facebook post. Scale: The campaign was depending on organic reach. It was a small budget campaign that was driven by peoples engagement, as they shared their zones in social media, as well as earned media.

List the results (30% of vote)

Our site got a lot of attention. Our hashtag was trending on Twitter. People from all over the world contributed and created their zone. Thousands of zones were created, liked and shared. We made some polish headlines. And in the end over 2000 unique zones were handed over to the polish government. (We don't have the tools to measure the exact numbers of reach, because of closed profiles on Facebook, but we know that the numbers of engagement was way beyond benchmark.)