Gazeta.pl is one of the leading Polish news portals, with 1 million unique daily visitors. It operates as a challenger to three bigger players: WP, Onet and Interia.

But Gazeta.pl isn’t just a challenger in size — unlike its bigger rivals, it doesn’t just report the news. It is a brand on a mission to change the world by initiating discussions on urgent social topics.

This opinionated mission differentiates the brand in a competitive news industry, gives it purpose and drives business. It’s what its readers crave.

What Gazeta.pl needed was a bigger stage to reach more readers — in a way that was true to the fiercely liberal brand.

This was our challenge.

Because misogynistic attitudes are deeply ingrained in Polish society, we didn’t have to look far for cultural context and inspiration for Gazeta.pl’s differentiating platform.

For example, according to the Polish Ministry of Labour, women in Poland earn 18.5% less than men. In 2018, a Polish Public Service Announcement for breast cancer screening explained women should take care of their breasts because men “like to watch them bounce.” And the right-wing president continues his openly anti-woman agenda.

In an era of #MeToo, how is any of this acceptable? Our “a-ha” moment came when we understood that despite these and other startling truths, gender inequality is simply not taken seriously in Poland. It’s considered an abstract problem, not one the average person feels confronted with every day or that they are in a position to change.

From there our mission became clear: We must confront this apathy in a way that’s impossible to ignore. And do it in a way only Gazeta.pl could.

We realized that if you can’t beat them, buy them.

For 27 years, Your Weekend has been Poland’s longest running and most read adult magazine. In December 2018, when it went up for sale, we persuaded Gazeta.pl, our client, along with Mastercard and BNP Paribas, two brands with a long-term commitment to empowering women, to buy the magazine. We planned to shut it down for good, but not before turning it into a beacon for gender inequality.

The Last Ever Issue challenged the established cultural norms it had so significantly contributed to building.

The cover featured an emerging writer, an inspirational actress and a martial arts world champion. Leading Polish female photographers offered powerful positive portrayals of gender and womanhood. The regular sections were reimagined to spark a national conversation on equal rights and sexism. And the online and social channels were transformed into powerful education platforms.

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.

We orchestrated an impactful integrated approach, including an influencer campaign that generated 25 million media impressions. The conversation we ignited engaged the whole country and established gender inequality and sexism as issues everyone must reckon with.

Poland is a conservative society. Sexist statements are still all too present in media, and women’s issues like the gender pay gap or underrepresentation of women in politics are ignored. This attitude is propagated by the lack of any equality education in schools. And a dominant Catholic church with a huge influence on public opinion only compounds an already difficult situation. Topics that are not comfortable for the church have been marginalised by politicians and media.

After taking power, the conservative Law and Justice Party the situation of women in Poland worsened. Autocratic government has often demonstrated its will to subordinate women. While global movements like #MeToo have made the issues of gender equality and sexism mainstream, in Poland, you have the likes of the most influential conservative politicians claiming that Poland doesn't have a gender discrimination problem. Poland needed to face its sexism and gender inequality.