Why don’t you come over? A question that generated a lot of buzz!

Cristina Blanaru Case Studies, Creativity

Romanian “Why don’t you come over campaign”, launched by Gandul.info and GMP Advertising, invited Brits to come to Romania, offering them couches to sleep on and jobs. The campaign ended with Romanians’ message for British Prime Minister David Cameron, published in The Guardian on February 11th.

Started by GMP Advertising and Gandul and continued with Webstyler’s help, the “Why don’t you come over?” campaign started as an answer to “Don’t come to UK” campaign initiated by The Guardian. In just 2 weeks, Romanian campaign spread all over the world and showed foreigners, but also to Romanians, that positive talk around Romanians is possible and Romanians can promote themselves with humor and positive information.

In terms of results, the campaign delivered:

  • over 5M impressions in Romanian press  (print, online, radio, TV);
  • over 100 articles in international press
  • over 1.5M impressions on Facebook
  • 49,000 Twitter impressions
  • over 17,000 impressions on blogs and in comments
  • over 60,000 comments in Romanian online press
  • over 300 Romanians offered their couches to Brits that would come visit Romania
  • 2 Brits applied for jobs in Romania

The campaign had international impact and visibility in known titles from UK, US, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Hungary, Belize, Brasil, India, Switzerland, or Pakistan. Titles that wrote or talked about “Why don’t you come over?” campaign were Financial Times, Associated Press, BBC News, Huffington Post, Reuters, ZDF, Daily Mirror, The Independent, El Mundo, The World or BBD Lincolnshire. The subject also got in Time, becoming the 1st Romanian campaign the publication writes about.

Brits have a say: “We walk the talk”. With this campaign, we showed them that us, Romanians, do believe in this principle also. We invited them here with posters, we also offered them accommodation and jobs. All for real

Mihai Gongu

Creative Director GMP Advertising.

The couchsurfing idea came to us when we saw Romanians’ reactions to the 1st posters within the campaign. A positive energy was created and people wanted to get involved. The  couchsurfing platform offered them the occasion to show their are hospitable beyond words

Bogdan Nitu

General Manager Webstyler.

 I think we discover an important thing here: you cannot make a positive campaign for Romania just talking about sceneries and traditions. Romania must show it is modern, adapted to current reality and intelligent. That’s what we tried to do: to show Brits that they have whom to talk with. With Romanians with no inferiority complexes, that are ready to use humor to build understanding and dialogue

Claudiu Pandaru,

Editorial Director Gandul.info.

Webstyler joined GMP Advertising and Gandul initiative coming with the idea of a “couchsurfing” platform, www.whydontyoucomeover.co.uk, to show Brits that Romanians mean it when they invite them to come over. A jobs module was integrated to the same website, allowing Brits to apply for a job in Romania with just one click. The jobs list was made together with Ziarul Financiar and includes well paid jobs available in Romania that need extensive experience.

As the campaign became viral in Romania, it also went out on the streets, with support from A&M International (print production) and Euromedia (outdoor), that got involved pro bono.