Cannes Lions

The Last Ever Issue

VMLY&R POLAND, Warsaw / GAZETA.PL / MASTERCARD / BNP PARIBAS / 2019

Case Film
Case Film
Presentation Image

Overview

Entries

Credits

Overview

Background

In Poland, everyday sexism is still acceptable, women are marginalised and patronised, and schools don’t offer sexual education. And since 2015, Poland’s autocratic government has demonstrated their will to subordinate women: threatening, among other things, draconian restrictions on abortion.

Movements like #MeeToo have put gender equality and sexism issues front and centre globally, but in the very conservative and religious Polish society, they remain a taboo. It was time to change that.

Gazeta.pl is a leading Polish news portal that aims at not only reporting about the world but also at changing it. It has built its credibility and success on provocative reporting and mass online engagement, starting numerous cultural debates.

We teamed up Gazeta.pl with Mastercard and BNP Paribas, two brands with a long-term commitment to empowering women, to start a conversation that would engage the whole country to truly change the narrative around women in Poland.

Idea

For 27 years, “Your Weekend” – one of Poland longest running and most read adult magazine - reduced women to sex objects. In December 2018, when it was up for sale, we bought it immediately.

And used it to challenge the culture of sexism and gender inequality it had contributed to building. We transformed “Your Weekend” in a conversation-sparking, ground-breaking magazine promoting diverse and progressive narratives of femininity.

We teamed up Gazeta.pl, our client and leading Polish news portal, with Mastercard and BNP Paribas, two brands with a long-term commitment to empower women, to create this last issue.

We published it on International Women’s Day. We kept the regular sections and columns but reimagined the content around sexual education, gender portrayal, equal rights, sexism and more. It was the symbolic end of an era and a spectacular beginning for a much-needed national conversation.

Strategy

Due to the lack of formal sex education, entire generations of Polish men learned about women from porn publications. So, we decided to use the same vehicle that contributed to the issues, to tackle them.

In a powerful twist on the most iconic Polish porn magazine, we created “The Last Ever Issue" - a print and online platform to spark a national conversation on sexism and gender portrayal.

We wanted to provoke and offer a new perspective, but we didn’t want anyone to feel judged. The success of this high visibility and sensitive project depended greatly on having the right language and clients aligned on campaign goals, key messages and timings.

The Last Ever Issue launched on International Women Day when we had the best chance to create a groundswell that would mean people brought up on the magazine’s biased gender portrayal would have no other choices than to listen.

Execution

A teaser campaign started a week before the launch creating excitement about the iconic magazine’s last ever issue.

Nationwide offline and online sales were launched on 2019 International Women’s Day. Gazeta.pl sold “The Last Ever Issue” through their publisher’s distribution networks such as Empik (a chain of 200+ bookstores), Relay/Inmedio/1 Minute (chain of 1000+ newsagents / convenience stores), publio.pl and kulturalnysklep.pl (online platforms owned by the publisher).

Sales were supported by an integrated campaign including OOH, cinemas, radio, social media and PR. 100+ copies of the magazine were sent out to journalists and influencers which ignited a fierce social media debate.

A content section was created at gazeta.pl. It publishes content related to sexism, equality and diverse narratives of feminism. This content is redistributed through the media channels of what used to be an objectifying adult magazine.

Outcome

Our most impressive result is... 0. That’s the exact amount of impressions of “Your Weekend’s” objectifying content since 08/03/2019.

The campaign organically reached 4.5M people and generated 25M media impressions (Poland’s adult population is c.a. 28M) according to media monitoring services.

“The Last Ever Issue” content generated 500k+ visits to gazeta.pl.

The campaign was mentioned by Poland’s most influential TV shows such as “Pytanie na Sniadanie” and “Szklo Kontaktowe”. It was even featured as the main story on gazeta.pl’s biggest competitor’s news site - onet.pl.

The online edition of the magazine was the best selling e-magazine in Poland of March 2019 (although readership of e-magazines in Poland is still in its infancy).

Projected offline sales make it the best selling issue of “Your Weekend” in 10 years.

But most of all we transformed a vehicle for objectifying women into a platform for gender equality.