Taking a Creative Stand For Things That Matter
Prijatelji Životinja Creative Campaign
In 2022, during the winter start, we joined forces with Animal Friends Croatia, the domestic partner of the European organization Fur Free Alliance—a campaign with a noble but also an important cause. We needed to collect 8,460 in Croatia to contribute to an EU-level petition that aimed to ban animal breeding for fur processing across all EU countries. Animal farming was already banned in 2017. But clothing makers found a loophole by importing the fur from non-EU countries. This had to be stopped as animal breeding for fur farming is not only a cruel practice, but also totally necessary in todays day and age when all sorts of replacements exist.
Creative direction
Art direction
Design
Copywriting
Web design & development
Digital advertising
OOH advertising
Social media management
Our main message in Croatian is a word-play of the proverb “Blood’s thicker than water”, which, directly translated, means “Blood’s not fashion. That idea is based on the thought that we are all living beings and evolutionary – animals. Signing the petition meant being on the right side of history where we don’t kill our proverbial family to attire ourselves. Especially not at a time when there are many alternative clothing options.
It was challenging, but we collected 10,099 signatures, contributing to the bigger cause. Knowing we’re making a real difference with our creative endeavours is incredible, taking a step towards a more compassionate future for animals.
Challenge
As is the case with most activist endeavors, there are several legal and execution challenges to face. With great help from Animal Friends Croatia, a very experienced activist group, we’ve managed to overcome all of these. One of the marketing challenges was to receive a special grant from Meta to allow “political questions” advertising. Another challenge was of course, the budget. Kontra not only donated all our services but also a budget for digital advertising. We’ve also presented our idea to the Fur Free Alliance, and they approved the maximum grant of 1.900 EUR for OOH advertising.
What did we do?
The “technical” idea behind the project was to connect all three divisions of Kontra. Each division had its own role in the project, and the idea was to showcase what we can do when all of our divisions work together. The creative standpoint of Kontra is that the concept (or creative solution) is not tied to a single platform or media; it must be modular and prepared accordingly so it can be fitted to any placement, even the unusual ones.
So, the communications division created the idea, art direction, and everything visual needed for the campaign. Additionally, the comm division took over Animal Friends Croatia’s social media channels for the duration of the campaign. The performance department, on the other hand, was using the minimal budget to move the initiative as close to the goal as possible. Last, but not least, the web development division created a beautiful, functional website that served as a landing page for all public communication.
By leveraging the synergy of three Kontra divisions, we’ve created a bulletproof strategy that can’t fail. The campaign results, as displayed further in this case study, prove that.
The Result
The campaign goal of collecting 8,460 signatures for Animal Friends Croatia was surpassed as we collected over 10k signatures two months before the campaign ended. The campaign was an overall success across Europe, as enough signatures were collected. After the campaign, the matter was referred to the European Union committee to push forward the motion to ban animal breeding solely for fur farming. With this campaign for Animal Friends Croatia, we’ve earned finalist status in the IdejaX and Balcannes competitions.
