Objective: to attract attention to advertising campaign of the independent information portal ZNAK.COM

Problem: ZNAK.COM portal, which is known for their confrontations with government, had faced a problem of advertising campaign realization. All main owners of outdoor resources in the city refuse to place znak.com lay outs. The official reason was that any ads of this web portal were perceived as containing incitement to extremism. So, znak.com was refused a possibility to place outdoor campaign that is illegal according to Russian laws.

The situation looked absolutely absurd and to highlight it in public, we decided to integrate quotes from Constitution of Russian Federation to advertising campaign and posted future lay-outs to the website.

No one can usurp power in the Russian Federation.

Everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of ideas and speech.

All people shall be equal before the law and courts.

After layouts started being discussed by mass-media, the outdoor operators obviously could not refuse ZNAK.COM to place their campaign under color of “content with incitement to extremism”.

Thereby, the fact of placing outdoor advertising became one of the instruments of the global PR-campaign of ZNAK.comportal, incriminating state in using dual standards.

Constitution campaign caused enormous resonance in public, political and social life of the country and made a great positive feedback in social media. The news about campaign rapidly shattered all over the world and was quoted by more than 150 mass media. Site traffic doubled.

We reminded the citizen of Russian Federation that we do live in democratic country, and rights and freedoms, which are declared in Constitution, should also be respected in real life.

The refusal to place outdoor campaign under the color of extremism itself is a PR- and newsbreak, because it violates the rights, which are declared in the Constitution and makes Russian Federation the country of dual standards. To strengthen the effect of this news, we decided to force the operators place the layouts eventually. There was only one and simple way to do it: to integrate quotes from Constitution of Russian Federation to advertising campaign and post layouts on the website. In the advertising campaign we quoted the most actual and “painful” articles of RussianConstitution.

No one can usurp power in the Russian Federation.

Everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of ideas and speech.

All people shall be equal before the law and courts.

As it was expected, the news was promptly picked up by almost all independent mass media in the country. The outdoor operators were put into a very awkward position: they could refuse us to place campaign with quotes from Constitution and violate Russian law by that. Or they could place the layouts and admit our rightness. ZNAK.COM would benefit from both variants.

Eventually, the layouts were placed in the streets of Ekaterinburg, that made one more newsbreak and a lot of discussions in federal and world media.

Quoting Constitution campaign caused enormous resonance in public, political and social life of the country and created great positive feedback in social media. The news about the campaign rapidly spread all over the world and was quoted by more than 150 mass media. Site traffic doubled.

We reminded the citizen of Russian Federation that we do live in a democratic country, and rights and freedoms, that are declared in Constitution, should also be respected in real life.