Our client, The Zimbabwean newspaper, has been driven into exile for reporting on how the Mugabe regime has rigged elections, crushed the opposition, caused poverty, disease and the total collapse of the economy. And now, having been exiled, the regime has slapped a 55% luxury import duty on the paper (as if freedom of speech is a luxury) that makes it unaffordable for the average Zimbabwean. To get the paper into Zimbabwean hands, it needs to be subsidised, and our client can only do that by raising awareness and driving sales outside Zimbabwe.

We developed a unique solution. One of the most eloquent symbols of Zimbabwe’s collapse is the Z$ trillion dollar note, a symptom of their world record inflation.

This money cannot buy anything, not a loaf of bread and certainly not any advertising.

But it can become the advertising. So, we turned the money into its own medium. We took this useless currency and printed our messages all over it.

In rush-hour traffic, malls, campuses, flyers were given out note by note. We sent bundles of cash to captains of industry, politicians and radio personalities. Wherever the Zimbabwean was sold, we put up posters made of real money. At every public place we could, we had a poster-with notes that people could detach to keep the email address, and show their friends. We made trillion dollar wallpaper murals and even made the world’s first billboards out of real money.

Overnight, trillions of dollars of Zimbabwean banknotes achieved what they’d never been able to buy – real and meaningful advertising coverage. Within days we were in the national press on national television and radio. Then the internet discovered it and it spread across the world. As the campaign continues, sales of The Zimbabwean continue to soar. In the week of the roll-out alone, the website logged over 2 million hits. More copies of The Zimbabwean than ever are crossing the border into Zimbabwe.We used Mugabe’s own creation against him.