A creative competition for Romania’s future launched by several civic and social movements

Cristina Blanaru Comm & Politics, Creativity

As there are several rounds of elections in Romania in 2019 and 2020, several civic and social movements – Geeks for Democracy, Funky Citizens, Expert Forum, Forum Apulum and Declic – launch, together with Romanian creativity online magazine IQads, the competition „Convince Romania that every vote counts!”, taking place between February 21st – March 31st. The competition calls all creatives to get involved in activating as many potential Romanian voters and independent observers.

Next 2 years translate for Romania in 4 rounds of elections, during which all Romanian citizens are called to vote to elect their representatives. The recent past showed that a significant segment of Romanians that have the right to vote are not going to the urns, but there are also suspicions regarding the correctness of the voting process and of votes’ counting, a factor contributing to boosting the electoral absenteeism.

The competition has as main target the Millennials, a public disinterested of politics, but that was activated in the past with visible movements, like the protests sparked by OUG 13/2017.

Geeks for Democracy is a civic movement that formed in the eve of the Parliamentary elections in november 2016, when there was a steep lack of independent observers to supervise the elections in the 19.000 voting sections in Romania. Together with Funky Citizens and Expert Forum, they developed the platform FiecareVot.ro, offering info and resources to all potential interested observers. As a result, more then 1500 observers were present in the voting sections, four times more compared to previous elections.

The creatives can submit their ideas individually or in teams by March 31st, on TheCreator platform, and their proposals have to either include ideas to attract voters or to attract independent observers. There is no limit in the number of entries accepted from an individual or a team. Each work submitted must include a KV and a description of top 500 words regarding the strategic and creative direction behind the execution.

The proposals will be evaluated by the public (30%) and a jury formed of professionals (70%), people with experience in communication and representatives of the initiating civic movements:

  • Serban Alexandrescu (Headvertising);
  • Robert Tiderle (Papaya Advertising);
  • Catalin Tenita (Zelist Monitor & TreeWorks);
  • Vali Suciu (Jazz Communication, ADC Romania);
  • Paul Kasprovschi (Graffiti PR);
  • Liviu David (Next Advertising);
  • Claudiu Dobrita (McCann PR);
  • Crenguta Rosu (DC Communication);
  • Manuela Gogu (MullenLowe);
  • Lorand Balint (PSE Romania);
  • Sorin Tranca (Friends\TBWA);
  • Irina Roncea (Golin);
  • Cosmin Pojoranu (Funky Citizens);
  • Septimius Parvu (Expert Forum);
  • Diana Filimon (Forum Apulum);
  • Roxana Pencea Bradatan (Declic).

In the end, 5 campaign ideas will be selected to increase the number of observers within the voting stations and 5 ideas for campaigns aimed to increase the effective participation to vote for young Romanians.

The 10 winning ideas will be announced on April 8th.

More information is available on IQAds, while the brief can be consulted here (in Romanian)