It’s not easy to convince people that inclusion of disabled people in society makes sense and can actually work. It’s especially not easy in a country, where even the president calls inclusion “a monstrous social experiment”. Erste Bank decided it was time for a change and came with the first campaign of this scale and for such a big brand that was working almost entirely with disabled people.

The only way how Erste could prove to the whole nation that disabled people can contribute to society just as much as anyone else, was by giving the disabled people from Neratov a chance to become the real heroes and voices of the entire campaign. In other words, we needed to create a campaign that would be just as inclusive as the village itself and that would make it visible across the country. Visibility was the prerequisite to attract tourism, which was necessary to turn Neratov into a self-sufficient community and to finally change the perception of disability and inclusion.

In November, we kicked the campaign off with PR, prints and 60s Neratov film in which 90 percent of the cast were people from Neratov. Next came Neratov documentary, which was shot by local disabled kids supervised by the documentary director. Prior to shooting the director spent a week in Neratov getting to know the group of mostly Down syndrome kids. After a week-long workshop, they were given video cameras and shot a one-of-a-kind documentary about themselves and the village. The second phase came during Advent. At Christmas markets people could ask for personalized gifts live through a City light which connected them with the individual Neratov workshops, where the gifts were made in real time. For those who couldn’t attend the markets we did the same on social media. During the daily 4-hour live stream people could order a gift while learning something about Neratov from their favorite celebrities.

The campaign reached 99 % of Czech internet population, which translates to 7.78 million users. In average, every person saw the Neratov Campaign 5.2 x compared. We managed to increase positive sentiment 5-fold. In 3 months, the campaign page generated more than 150 000 unique visitors and the average time spent on the site was 10 minutes 21seconds. The positive emotion rating of the campaign was 76 %, which also exceeded the average and helped us reach our target to be among the 30 % of the best rated campaigns on the Czech market. The Neratov Community now employs 30 % more disabled people. Thanks to 65 % tourism growth, the campaign also had positive effect on the revenue. The Neratov Community earned 9M CZK more than the year before and for the first time ended up in black figures.

In our integrated campaign, we wanted to empower the locals and so the whole campaign was designed around the people of Neratov, whom we wanted show as heroes not victims. In order for our campaign to succeed it was important that it stood-out among the other charity campaigns. With Christmas being the time when charities run their campaigns and ask for donations for the less fortunate ones, we decided to do the exact opposite. Instead of receiving gifts, we asked people from Neratov to make Christmas presents for the whole country. In order to reach the entire Czech adult population, we ran the campaign content in all the essential channels – TV, newspaper, magazines, outdoor, ambient, social media, headline news.

Erste Bank’s brand tagline is “When somebody believes in you, you can do more”, which also serves as the brand’s communication platform. It helps the brand to align with people’s values and dreams and also allows them to make a statement about their commitments towards society. Erste’s Neratov campaign wanted to touch people on a personal level but also wanted to show everyone that disabled people have a lot to offer to society when given a chance. Erste helped the locals to rebuild the once abandoned village of Neratov into a functional inclusive community. Parallel to this it started working on an integrated campaign that would make the community visible and that would eventually help them become fully self-sufficient.