With populism on the rise, the EU’s future is up for debate in the continent. Many citizens don’t realize the EU’s relevance or the positive impact that it has on their everyday lives.

We needed to completely reinvent the way that the EU communicates to its young citizens with a simple idea, a brand-new look, and a fresh tone of voice. We also needed to communicate that the EU benefits and protects its citizens every single day by raising awareness of a particular set of EU consumer rights.

We needed to resonate and empower EU citizens by educating them on these little-known rights and show them how they can use them on an everyday basis. As well as to improve the overall perception of the EU by showing that it supports and protects its citizens to change attitudes and awareness across the continent.

By shaking off the EU’s typical formal communication style and gamifying how our audience could learn about their consumer rights we resonated with young citizens and showed them that the EU understood them and is relevant in their everyday life. From an online purchase that ruins a big interview to a misleading travel deal that kills a romantic weekend, we connected with citizens’ everyday frustrations and showed them that there’s something they can do because when things go wrong, they've got rights. Through gamifying how citizens learned about a set of little-known EU rights we also encouraged them to claim them, kick-starting a bold movement where they felt confident to announce, 'I'm Right!' - after all, who doesn’t like to be right?

Consumer rights aren’t the most appealing subject, but once people realize how they can help them on a daily basis, they become much more interesting and relevant. Our audience ranged from 18-35year-olds, 10+ nationalities, spoke 10+ languages and had varying levels of income, so we needed to communicate the simple, universal message that: 'When things go wrong, you've got rights' - EU rights. We piqued citizens’ curiosity and started a conversation through social content which brought to life frustrating everyday situations for EU citizens when a consumer-related experience does not go as planned. We reinvented and gamified the idea with a unique escape room which toured across the continent - getting citizens to work together and teach themselves about the details of their rights. Collaborations with national influencers truly localized our campaign. They shared their own experiences, created unique content and helped kick-start a bold movement.

PR activities were rolled out across 10 focus countries over a period of 8 months from July 2019 to February 2020. 7 consumer rights featured in the campaign and 3-4 were specifically selected for each market based on national relevance and context.

With a strong digital distribution focus with more than 60 influencer collaborations and a paid media campaign that was organized in three waves of four weeks between summer 2019 and January 2020, we focused on creating tailored experiences through local events along with a unifying PR activation: an escape room which we took to venues and events across the continent to reach our audience segments in their diversity, ranging from Comic Cons, Games Weeks, Vintage Markets, Design fairs, Universities and public galleries. More than 130,000 visitors were on site and thousands of participants played the Escape game across Europe.

Within 8 months of active campaign roll-out 602 earned media clippings were published across 10 markets with a total of 2,2 billion impressions. The message uptake was remarkable: 99% of clippings clearly mention one of the campaign’s consumer rights, 25% of clippings mention even more than one. 85% of all clippings feature at least one of the campaign visuals underlining their outstanding visual attractiveness.

Thanks to our activities on- and offline, between the ex-ante survey and the ex-post survey we see a massive increase in our audience’s awareness of their rights: With an increased awareness on single consumer rights of as much as 48% our campaign’s effectiveness speaks by its numbers. Survey respondents who recalled our campaign felt now not only more protected as consumers but there was also a 15% increase of respondents stating they felt well informed about the EU’s action in terms of consumer protection across member states. In regard to our campaign clips 67% of our survey respondents found their messages clear, 64% found them believable and 62% claim the videos are personally relevant to them. This clearly explains why within only 12 weeks of paid media promotion we achieved more than 530 million video views. With 75% of our survey respondents stating that our campaign gave them a better understanding of consumer rights and even motivated them to learn more about these rights, we can conclude that our campaign effectively helped to show that the EU has a relevant impact on its citizens’ lives.