In 1994, five years before the birth of the ARC (‘Face’) billboard exhibitions, we launched a nationwide competition titled “Attack against monotony”, in which young graffiti artists, actors, dancers, singers, journalists and other well-known personalities were invited to paint a total of 400 billboards all across Hungary. Entries were assessed by a panel of experts, led by Ray Cokes, the legendary figure from the MTV show Most Wanted, who we brought to Hungary to judge the competition. The selected entries were simultaneously painted on billboards bought in various corners of the country, introduced by Sándor Fábri, one of Hungary’s best-known chat show hosts. We organised an exhibition of the works at Buda Castle, where the audience could also vote for the best compositions, and the six-month-long campaign was closed by a grand techno party in a hangar of Budaörs Airport. Our nationwide marketing PR campaign in support of the Symphonia cigarette brand was Hungary’s first such open-air exhibition and generated a huge media response.
You can bee more active!
The aim of the complex sustainability programme “You can bee more active!” is to raise awareness of the ecological importance of pollinators, to improve the economic position and competitiveness of Hungarian beekeeping and the honey-production sector, providing a living for about 20,000 families, and to encourage domestic honey consumption. Through educational publications, interactive exhibitions and extensive offline and online media coverage, the campaign intends to make society and economic operators aware of the need to act to protect pollinators. The programme is targeted at everyone, with particular emphasis on specific social groups. Examples include story books for pre-school children, and publications, educational hives and bank account packages for sustainable development primarily targeting young adults. Previously missing from the domestic market, these channel 0.2 percent of all purchases by card towards supporting beekeepers. Highlights of the programme include the One with Nature World Exhibition on Hunting and Nature, the realisation of one of Europe’s largest bee-related exhibitions at the Hungarian Natural History Museum and a cross-border and national kindergarten roadshow across more than 6,500 kilometres. At a highly successful national drawing competition for small children, around 6,300 entries were submitted from 707 kindergartens in 468 municipalities from six countries. The campaign “You can bee more active!” was selected as No. 1 in the International Public Relations Association’s 2021 regional competition in the category “Supporting urgent action against climate change and its impacts”, and was also chosen as one of the four best communication programmes of the year in Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the programme has also won two of the most prestigious national awards: the CSR Hungary Award 2021 “Best Environmental Responsibility” category and the special environmental prize of the Good Doing CSR Award. The campaign website is https://www.tehetszmehtobbet.hu/.
UFO in Budapest
Planning and successful implementation of a PR campaign for the launch of the Delta cigarette brand in 1994, a decade before guerrilla marketing generally appeared in Hungary. The ATL campaign before the market launch introduced creative elements with the distinctive triangle logo of the Delta brand that prophesied the appearance of a mysterious creature with the slogan “Coming Soon”. The PR campaign supported the ATL teaser with a carefully prepared creative UFO story. For several days, the national tabloid media ran a front-page story we had constructed and “documented” about a UFO caught on camera over Budapest’s Feneketlen Lake. Far ahead of its time, the UFO story immediately went viral nationally, until the moment of “unveiling” a week later. This happened when Kurír, the leading tabloid at the time, noticed that the triangle on the billboards and in the UFO footage was the same logo belonging to the new cigarette brand. The tabloid then published two lengthy articles on the PR campaign they described as ingenious.
