Ideate

Zimbabwe dollar is only good for smart advertising

by Fred on 30/03/09 at 2:19 pm
3 comments

Check these out (thanks Nadja), from the “Trillion Dollar” campaign for The Zimbabwean Newspaper. You can see more here.

“A Trillion Dollar campaign for The Zimbabwean Newspaper”

The Mugabe regime has destroyed Zimbabwe. It has presided over the brutal oppression of the opposition, a cholera crises, massive food shortages and the total collapse of their economy. Furthermore anyone brave enough to report this has been bullied, beaten and driven into exile. One such group is ‘the Zimbabwean Newspaper’. However, not content with having hounded these journalists out, the regime has slapped an import ‘luxury’ duty of over 55% on them which makes the paper unaffordable for the average Zimbabwean. In order to subsidize the paper they need to sell it in England and South Africa, to raise the foreign currency.

A unique campaign was devised to promote the paper to raise awareness and increase readership. One of the most eloquent symbols of Zimbabwe’s collapse is the Z$100 trillion dollar note, a symptom of their world record inflation. This note cannot buy anything, not even a loaf of bread and certainly not any advertising, but it can become the advertising, it can be a powerful reminder about Zimbabwe’s plight and the need to hold someone accountable.

Billboard made out of real money
A billboard for ‘The Zimbabwean Newspaper’ made entirely of worthless Zimbabwean bank notes. What more proof do you need of a country’s total economic collapse than being able to paste trillions and trillions and trillions of dollar notes onto a billboard and it is still cheaper than if you had used paper?

Money Wallpaper
1,5m x 5m
Wall murals for ‘The Zimbabwean Newspaper’ made up of worthless Zimbabwean bank notes. A trillion Zimbabwean dollars can’t buy you any advertising, it can’t even buy you the paper to print your message on, so you might as well turn the money into your advertising.

Trillion dollar flyers and posters
A trillion dollar hand-out. To highlight the plight of Zimbabwe and the cause of the ‘Zimbabwean Newspaper’ we handed out trillions of dollars of worthless Zimbabwean money stamped with provocative messages and a call for support for the Zimbabwean newspaper, we also turned the money into giant posters, with trillion dollar tear-offs.

Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. He runs a web marketing company called World Wide Creative and loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. View more articles by Fred.

Tags: advertising

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