The mission of Fairtrade is to make sure that everyone in the international food value chain gets a decent income. By buying Fairtrade label products during the year you contribute to that goal.

In the South 530 million farmers live below the extreme poverty threshold. They provide us with a lot of food, but cannot afford to serve 3 meals a day for their families.

People in the First World often don’t see this as a major problem, as the injustice is far away from our daily lives. The greater the distance, the smaller the problem becomes. Our objective was to increase awareness and understanding of this issue and to make them care.

We asked people here “how long you work for 67 cents?” (the average daily income of cacao farmers). Bringing the reality close to home. Beside traditional media (TV commercials, radio and print) we partnered with KU Leuven and Brightfish to turn the idea into an experience. A lecture for law students lasted all of 17 seconds (67 cents worth of the professor’s time), a movie screening ended abruptly in the middle of its intro. leaving the audiences perplexed. We also partnered with editorial partners produced columns with only 12 words. The experiences were turned into social content.

Our challenge was to make people care about a big injustice far away. We did that by making it into a metaphorical small problem nearby. And by making it personal.

The campaign explores what would happen if we here in Belgium only got paid 67 cents a day. And voiced that in a very personal question: “How long would you work for 67 cents?”.

Although the subject matter is very disturbing, we know that likeability is a key variable for advertising success. So we decided to bring this painful message using humour, but always bringing it back to the problem (a farmer in Africa works a whole day for 67 cents) and a solution (Fairtrade).

We launched the campaign with 2 different tv commercials (Barber and Counter clerk), which were also shown on social media. Later that week, we executed and filmed the 2 live audience stunts (at the university and the movie theatre) and immediately – in a matter of days - made case movies with the recorded footage, which were then shared online. At the same time, we had our partnership with newspapers and magazines, where journalists wrote 12-word articles.

“How long would you work for 67 cents?” was very successful. Our awarness KPIs of reach and earned media were up dramatically: Online reach during the campaign was up 130 times. Earned media generated an estimated reach of 6 Million readers and viewers (ao De Morgen, La Libre, Le Vif, etc)

Our indicators for making people care scored very strongly:

Organic reach was two times as important as paid reach: 87% of interactions were generated by organic reach.

Consumer feedback was abundant and positive.

Chocolate producers contacted Fairtrade for advice, leading to 45 projects.

The campaign was celebrated within Fairtrade as “the best Fairtrade campaign ever” (Peter d’Angremond, managing director Fairtrade Nederland) resulting in 4 other Fairtrade countries adopting the campaign.