Our group was initially united over our mutual concern for one of the biggest social problems facing Poland today: human trafficking. Many of us we introduced to the topic after a talk from two representatives from the La Strada International (LSI), Poland’s leading human trafficking support foundation. The LSI representatives explained the evolution of human trafficking and where it is today. Historically, they explained, female sex trafficking has accounted for the majority of human trafficking in Poland. These sex slaves are subjected to brutal treatment and humiliation, and many are too ashamed to report violations to the law, or to seek help. Their captors often use addictive substances, such as heroin, to keep control over them. Recently, however, labor trafficking has become a bigger issue in Poland. Many immigrants have been brought in from South-East Asia and forced to work in inhumane conditions. For our project however, we decided to focus on sex slavery, as it continues to be the largest human trafficking concern in Poland.
Preparing the “advertising brief” was perhaps one of the most challenging parts of the whole social campaign. For the brief, we had to ask ourselves in the most cynical way: why should other people care about sex trafficking? For us, the answer seemed obvious. However, after drafting the brief, we realized just how challenging it was to make our audience care. Our scope was initially too grandeur to make any impact. Therefore, we spent days discerning which aspect of sex trafficking we could potentially make the largest impact in. Ultimately, we realized that if we wanted to make an impact on the issue, we would have to narrow our scope. Our campaign would address the men who use prostitutes, and encourage them to use the support hotline if they believed that they had witnessed any signs of abuse or human trafficking at the brothel. Following that, we had to determine both the tone of our campaign, as well as the main message of what we’re trying to say. Initially, we thought that it would be best to condemn prostitution and associate it with sex slavery. We realized that would be futile. Therefore, we made our main message “Enjoy Sex. Report Slavery.” because it doesn’t condemn men from using prostitution, and still calls them to be better people.
While writing the brief was challenging, the creative process was even more grueling. After finishing our brief on sex trafficking, we switched campaigns for the creative portion and were assigned the topic of “Polish Anti-Semitism in Soccer.” The campaign sought to combat the rabid anti-Semitism that surrounds polish soccer, specifically with a focus to the 2012 Euro Games that will be played here in Warsaw. For many of us, this topic put us out of our comfort zone. The majority of us had little exposure to polish soccer, and had to begin thinking like a soccer “hooligan” if we wanted to create a successful campaign.
We spent many days discussing and dissecting the different approaches we could take to this issue. Many of us liked the idea of anti-Semitism as a “suicide goal”—implying that cheering anti-Semitic things only hurts the polish national team. Others liked the idea of having a polish national soccer scarf soiled with mud being held by a hooligan with the slogan “Wash Out Anti-Semitism.” Another popular idea that we circulated was setting up a mock championship posters as if Poland had one, and having a slogan: “Poland wins when anti-Semitism losses.”
The debates over these topics were brutal and often unbearable. Every member of our group comes from a different home country, which made communication difficult. During this process, emotions often came into play, and discussions became heated. Many members of the group naturally developed strong allegiances to their own concepts, making discussion even more difficult. In the end, we decided to go with “Poland wins when Anti-Semitism losses” because we believed it was the most positive of the campaign ideas.
The process itself also taught us a lot about advertising and inter-cultural cooperation. After two weeks, we discovered how hard it is to make other people really “care” about your campaign, in our case human trafficking. We also learned how difficult it is to cope with different emotional capacities and respective work ethics. Ultimately, after many late night meetings, consultations with the advertising expert, and heated discussions we ultimately created a social campaign that we are proud of.
Asia Klimczak, Thomas Meyer, Halyna Vernyuk, Ann Kristin Wiethaupt, and Sunny Yuan
