2012 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

In Tunisia, corruption is part of our everyday life but the problem is only whispered about. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) challenged us to change attitudes on corruption, recruit the media and raise awareness to the problem in the public eye. The goal was to take corruption from the darkness and place it front of the Tunisian scene. So we launched The Corruption Stock Exchange Market, la boursedelacorruption.com, a satirical website where users can declare the amount of money they paid for everyday life favours and where everyone can follow the different stock values. Flash news aired on TV and Radio to deliver the value of the day and explain with an ironical tone the dramatic consequences it had on the country. The campaign was covered by most Tunisian media. It ended up sparking a national debate, successfully helped raise awareness on the matter and introduced in people’s minds the necessity of behavior change. It was the very first step of a long process to come.

The Brief

The United Nations Development Programme challenged us to raise awareness to the problem of corruption in Tunisia. The goal was to take corruption from the darkness, place it in front of the Tunisian scene and make sure that our message would be covered by all national media channels. The target audience was all citizens in the country but especially the youth.

Results

The idea allowed us to directly engage a large young audience through humor via social networks. With over 150,000 unique visitors on the website, the operation was a real success. People spontaneously engaged on the campaign Facebook page, submitting drawings or making fun of corruption. Finally, it was covered by most Tunisian media and ended up sparking a national debate. The campaign helped raise awareness on corruption and introduced in people’s minds the necessity of behavior change. It was a successful first step of a very long process.

Execution

First, we launched a satirical website: The Corruption Stock Exchange Market (laboursedelacorruption.com). A crowdsoursing and direct visualisation platform where users can follow the corruption stock market values and are invited to declare anonymously the amount of money they paid to obtain everyday life favors. Secondly, flash news were aired on Radio and prime time TV (just after the regular news) to report the values and explain with an ironical tone the dramatic consequences for the country and the individuals. These were presented by Haythem el Mekki (@Bylasko) a famous and very influent web activist who use to denounce the former regime's corruption. A Facebook page was created for people to denounce corruption and give tips on how to refuse it. Press releases were sent to the media across Tunisia.

The Situation

In Tunisia, corruption has always been part of our everyday life. It's been institutionalized by former dictatorship at the highest level of State and became the solution to everything: get a job, an exam, a driving license, an illness certificate, facilitate administration procedures etc... Unfortunately, Ben Ali fled but corruption remained an entire cultural mindset.

The Strategy

The problem with corruption is that everybody does it, but those who admit it are very rare. They see corruption as a convenient and immediate solution, they don't see its long-term consequences. So, instead of just telling our target audience the necessity of attitude change, we thought it would have greater efficiency if we managed to encourage them to actually participate in changing attitudes. We chose to make them admit they do it. But in a fun and playful way. We created The Corruption Stock Market Exchange website, an engaging way to make people admit they know everything about corruption and raise awareness on its long-term consequences.