The Zimbabwean: The Voiceless Campaign

Credits & Description:

Category: Titanium and Integrated
Advertiser: THE ZIMBABWEAN
Product/Service: NEWSPAPER
Agency: TBWA\HUNT\LASCARIS JOHANNESBURG
Date of First Appearance: Feb 25 2011
Entry URL: http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/voiceless
Chief Creative Officer: John Hunt (TBWA)
Executive Creative Director: Damon Stapleton (TBWA)
Art Director: Shelley Smoler (TBWA)
Copywriter: Raphael Basckin (TBWA)
Account Director: Bridget Langley (TBWA)
Operations Director: Carol Soames (TBWA)
Production Director: Craig Walker (TBWA)
Featured photojournalists: Dirk-Jan Visser, James Oatway, Robin Hammond
Project Photographers: Christof van der Walt, Michael Grobler, Lucas Mathebula, Tebogo Suping
Editor: Tongai Furusa (14 10th Street Productions)
Digital Developer: Simon Gill (NXT)
Project Manager: Leanne Ferris-Woods (TBWA)
Retoucher: Rob Frew (Rob Frew)
Stills Producer: Simone Allem (TBWA)
Creative Assistants: Thato Moatlhodi, Luyanda Ngobese (TBWA)
Technical Consultant on VoiceBox: Rose Shuman (Open Mind)
Media placement: Press campaign- 5 adverts - The Zimbabwean - 6 March 2011
Media placement: Press- Insert - The Zimbabwean - 27 March 2011
Media placement: Poster Campaign- 4 posters - News agents - 8 March 2011
Media placement: Outdoor campaign- 9 Billboards - POP outdoor - 25 February 2011
Media placement: Tactical- Voicebox - Methodist Churches - 8 April 2011
Media placement: Online- Website - http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/voiceless - 21 February 2011

Describe the campaign/entry
Calls for change have swept North Africa. Further south, in Zimbabwe, the continent’s most brutal dictatorship arrests people for simply speaking about what’s happening in Libya.
Our client is a newspaper called The Zimbabwean. For speaking-out against this regime, its vehicles are burned, and its vendors are beaten. This newspaper could not rely on street sales in Zimbabwe. They needed to target over a million Zimbabweans who have fled to South Africa and abroad.
In a global news environment noisier than any in history, we had to sell subscriptions to a newspaper Robert Mugabe was desperate to silence.
We contacted every photojournalist who had managed to work in Zimbabwe over the past year for images of the reality on the ground. We positioned the iconic map of Zimbabwe to appear as an empty speech bubble at the corner of the subject’s mouth, illustrating that these people were voiceless.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched across each channel in the order of implementation
The map of Zimbabwe was positioned onto genuine photojournalism, appearing as an empty speech bubble, imploring viewers to act. Billboards, print and P.O.S posters directed consumers to a website where they could read, hear and locate the incidents. They could also disseminate them via social media and add their voices to the blog.
Poverty, lack of internet access and oppression were bypassed for poorer Zimbabweans by a brand new medium: 'VoiceBoxes' – simple telephonic devices we designed and erected in safe houses for people to comment orally to desks in South Africa, where operators transcribed their comments, including them on blogs. Subscriptions on the website could be purchased personally, or on behalf of people inside Zimbabwe. No media owners in Zimbabwe would run the campaign, so we included decals in copies of the paper. When people saw the print advertisements, they knew exactly how to use decals to make their own.

Give some idea of how successful this campaign/entry was with both client and consumer
In our first two months, The Voiceless Campaign has increased hits to The Zimbabwean website by 287%.
The Zimbabwean’s subscription base is growing by 10% weekly. Over half these subscriptions are bought for people inside Zimbabwe.

We used the silence the regime imposed, to talk to the world.