This paper is about Colombia’s struggle against the world's oldest guerrilla group, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC.

The agency was asked to create an idea to demobilise them - to deliver a message of peace, inviting them to give up their arms, recover their lives and their freedom.

Delivering demobilisation messages to the guerrillas is a difficult task. The remaining guerrillas are hard-core fanatics. They eschew conventional media and connecting with them is fraught with danger and risk. Additionally, those who want to demobilise risk their very lives in attempting to leave as they face a life-long death sentence for desertion.

By gaining access to demobilising guerrillas as soon as they were laying down their arms, we obtained immediate and accurate insights into their motivations and behaviours to help us shape both strategy and delivery. The research conducted threw up the unique strategic insight that the guerrillas were lost: both geographically and emotionally.

Our Peace Process campaign was created and executed as a direct result of this insight. We created 3 distinct but closely co-ordinated campaigns, utilising senior ex-guerrillas, national football heroes, and beacons of light deep within the jungle, to motivate and guide demobilising guerrillas home. Our campaign shows how even in the most challenging and arduous circumstances, a creative approach and strategy can deliver.

We encouraged 288 FARC guerrillas to demobilise, a 3.6% reduction in the total number of guerrillas. This reduction in numbers potentially could save the lives of 15 Colombian security force members. In addition, the campaign is estimated to have returned over $12.2m to Colombian government in tax receipts, with wider benefits from the reduction in FARC’s illegal ‘fund raising’ estimated to be $10.1 million in the first year alone .

This unique campaign, targeting three distinct audiences, has had a remarkable impact on Colombia. For the first time in three generations there is a real feeling within the country that the 60 year struggle could be drawing to a close.