Cannes Lions

The Future Peasants

McCANN POLAND, Warsaw / STORYTEL, MASTERCARD, GAZETA.PL / 2020

Case Film
MP3 Original Language
MP3 Original Language

Overview

Entries

Credits

Overview

Background

Situation:

Poland is the EU's biggest air polluter, threatening our common future and country of climate deniers. The coal mines are still running, people heat their homes by burning coal and rubbish as well. Awareness of climate change is very low, the topic is absent from schools.

Brief:

Raise awareness of climate change.

Objectives:

The goal of this campaign was to position Mastercard and STORYTEL as technologically advanced and socially engaged brands with impact and care of climate changes.

Idea

Sometimes if you want to change the future, you need to rewrite the past.

Poland is a country of climate deniers, the EU's biggest air polluter threatening our common future. How can we educate the society, and make Poles care about their environment and climate? How can we make them imagine the life of the future generations?

We decided to draw on our cultural heritage and traditions.

We rewrote our national epic and obligatory reading – a 1924 Nobel Prize awarded novel “The Peasants”, story about the harmony between men and nature written by Wladyslaw Reymont, and we set its plot in 2050 in the center of environmental disaster, based on and predicted by the WWF report "2050 Poland for generations".

Strategy

We decided to create an original audiobook that will not only be interesting or engaging, but will firstly express Storytel's commitment to pro-ecological topics. We wanted him to become an important voice in the discussion on the state of the natural environment. It was supposed not only to attract new readers, but also to influence the perception of our brand; give it a unique character ... and stand out from stronger competition. Looking for a specific ecological topic for the audiobook, we found the WWF, which carried out activities promoting the report "2050 Poland for Generations". These activities took place under the idea that became the starting point and for us, the idea of ??"ECOPATRIOTISM". In her opinion, caring for nature is a manifestation of patriotism, caring for Poland and Poles, for one of the greatest treasures of our country - our common good.

Execution

The audiobook itself was not everything. A campaign was also needed to encourage people to listen to it. Due to the limited budget, the paid activities focused on precise targeting. We introduced a digital campaign aimed primarily at smartphone users, targeted at people interested in ecology and using subscription services. Video content was also created for the purposes of communication in social media and city screens.

As a part of the cooperation with our media partner, a number of content related to the audiobook and environmental issues was created, including an "audio exhibition" of paintings inspired by the audio drama, referring to Polish works from the era, and supported by specially created narratives as an audio layer.

The campaigns were also supported by radio stations and the cinema networks.

Finally, we organized a series of meetings with the author, activists and WWF representatives on the future of the Polish environment.

Outcome

Over 5 million organic reach

Number 1 bestseller on Storytel platform

Biggest increase in paid subscriptions

Weekly episodes on national radio

Appearance in Polish literature schoolbooks