Situation: With the growth of large, international chain stores, Polish people lose their interest in small business. According to Businode Poland research, since 2009 our country lost over one hundred thousand small shops. The other peril comes from online trade, which is developing rapidly. But small companies are afraid of digital revolution and innovation.

Business objective: terminalisation of Polish SME sector and increase the number of cashless transactions in SME sector. Communication objectives: building awareness of Mastercard's support to SME companies and secondly - improving the quality of Polish commercial communication.

To help small business owners stay in business and at the same time make Poland pretty again.

To do that we created Good Sign – a digital platform connecting merchants with signboard makers and designers. At www.dobryznak.org small business owners can also learn the basics of modern marketing. Those who implement Mastercard technologies could win a makeover of their storefront conducted by Traffic Design – winner of the Fast Company 2018 Innovation by Design Awards and our partner.

Brand’s meaningful role among all the target audiences and sectors is to enable to experience the priceless possibilities. In this case, to empower Polish SME and equalize the chances between large and small companies. Because well performing small companies are crucial for the economy, cardholders, and Mastercard. Small companies have always had problems when it comes to marketing communication. It was bad, amateur, ineffective. Not only was it discouraging to enter these points of sale, but it was also making the entire neighborhoods look hideous. With the upcoming landscape act, which obliged all the small companies to adhere to strict communication rules designed for specific cities, we wanted to own this subject and to educate business owners about importance and rules of proper marketing design. We felt it's the high time we've professionally changed the look and feel of the small shops.

From the beginning we knew that Mastercard can provide cashless technologies and digital tools. It stands in no position to judge signboards.

That’s why we teamed up with two NGO’s specializing in urban design: Miastodwa, who is a cocreator of Polish landscape regulations, was responsible for creating marketplace www.dobryznak.org with its designers’ database, good practice and legal advice, while Traffic Design is a curator of the project and executor of all the work.

The platform was launched in June 2018.

To create organic buzz, we conducted a stunt: overnight we changed signboards on one of the busiest streets in Warsaw. Next launched a competition: those who use Mastercard technologies could win a makeover of their storefront.

It was supported with a standard campaign targeting SME (display, radio, OOH). At the same time, we used social media to build positive image of Mastercard among general public.

In the first month our campaign reached almost 5 out of 38 million Poles. Our market place gathered 25 independent design studios who started selling their services to merchants all around the country. In a limited time, it was visited by over 200k small business owners. Our competition initiated over 100 makeovers (some of them are still in the making).

69% of SME companies agreed the Mastercard supports small business. That’s 42% increase compared to campaign pretest.

79% of SME companies felt encouraged by the campaign to renew their signboards.

92% of SME companies want our campaign to be continued.