Epica d'Or 2005 (press)

The 2005 print Epica d’Or was won by Foote Cone & Belding, Lisbon, for the Grande Reportagem "Flags" campaign.

Grande Reportagem is a Portuguese news magazine that is recognised for its investigative reports and excellent photo-journalism. In 2004 the magazine switched from being an independent monthly publication to a weekly supplement in the Saturday edition of the daily national newspaper Diário de Notícias, owned by the same publishing company.

The creative challenge of the campaign was to reaffirm the magazine’s unchanged commitment to serious journalism by focusing on topics that are important for people’s understanding of the world today.

This led the creative team to the concept "Meet the world" and to the idea of using flags of different nations as vehicles to transmit it. In each case, the colours that appear on various national flags were used to symbolise a social or political issue that is specific to the country in question. For example:

China – the dominant red background of the Chinese flag is used to symbolise the proportion of 14 year-old child workers in China, while the smaller yellow stars represent 14 year-old children in school.

USA – the red stripes represent those in favour of the war in Iraq, the white stripes represent those who are against it and the blue area of the flag are those who don’t know where Iraq is.

The campaign encompasses eight fundamental themes. In addition to child labour and the war in Iraq, other subjects addressed the distribution of wealth in Brazil, child mortality in Burkina Faso, drug trafficing in Columbia, the abuse of woman in Somalia, the spread of infectious diseases in Angola and energy wastage in the European Union.

In each case the agency consulted organisations like Amnesty International, the United Nations and various national institutions to ensure that the points made in the campaign were supported by facts and hard data.

The Grande Reportagem campaign won the 2005 Epica d’Or for print advertising in a final vote against Swedish campaign for the Stockholm Stadsmission. It marked the first time that one of Epica’s top awards has gone to a Portuguese agency.

 

Behind the Flags

by Mark Tungate

A flag is a powerful symbol. Burning a flag is the ultimate gesture of defiance when a nation wants to express anger at its own government or that of another country.

When Foote Cone & Belding, Lisbon was asked to devise a campaign for globetrotting Portuguese news magazine Grande Reportagem, it also used flags to express its message. But its approach was more subtle than simply reaching for a box of matches.

FCB’s brief was to underline the magazine’s commitment to quality journalism. Grande Reportagem had long been respected for its investigative reports and excellent photography, but in 2004 it shifted from a monthly independent title to a weekly supplement in the Saturday edition of the daily Diário de Noticias newspaper, owned by the same publisher. The magazine wanted to reassure readers that despite this change in distribution, its journalism would remain as sharp and hard-hitting as ever.

The obvious response would have been to reproduce some of the publication’s striking photographs and dramatic headlines. Instead, the "Meet the World" campaign uses national flags to explore current events. The colours and patterns that appear on flags are hijacked as symbols of the political or social issues afflicting each nation.

The dominant red background of the Chinese flag is used to symbolise the proportion of 14-year-old child workers in China, while the smaller yellow stars represent the number of 14-year-olds in school.

Similarly, the red stripes on the US flag represent those who are in favour of the war in Iraq, and the white stripes symbolise those who are against the conflict. The sea of blue represents those who don’t even know where Iraq is!

But it was a Portuguese-speaking nation, Brazil, that provided the impetus for the campaign, says agency creative director Luís Silva Dias.

"The idea came from an e-mail we received showing the huge differences that exist in Brazil in terms of the distribution of wealth and opportunities," he reveals. "While trying to express that idea in a journalistic way – as if it had been done by Grande Reportagem – we experimented with graphics. The most striking visual representation we came up with was the flag. The next step was to look at other pressing issues around the world and see if we could apply the same approach. We developed a total of eight themes."

All the data was checked with the United Nations and Amnesty International, as well as other national institutions.

"The client was one hundred percent behind the campaign from the very start," says Luís. "And when it launched, the general public was very responsive. Many people told me that it made them stop and think. I personally find that extremely rewarding, because it becomes more than ‘just advertising’."

Although the campaign was designed as a national one, it soon spread beyond the borders of Portugal, thanks to the ‘viral’ capabilities of the internet. Luís says: "Internationally, the campaign became huge…I lost track of the times I received examples of it by email, just because people wanted to show me something great – not realising it was our own campaign!"

Needless to say, the campaign also ruffled a few feathers among the countries targeted. "We received some ‘bad reviews’, but I consider that the result of touching people. Some people don’t like to be touched – especially those who refuse to accept some of the things that are happening in their countries."

The campaign’s intelligence and lucidity appealed to the Epica jury, which awarded it the Epica d’Or in the print category. FCB Lisbon is the first Portuguese agency to win one of Epica’s top awards.

 

Mark Tungate is a British journalist and author based in Paris. He is currently hard at work on his next book, a history of advertising, due to be published in summer 2007.