Ever since joining the European Union, Romanians have been the subject of choice for negative headlines in international press. The vast majority of news about Romanians talk about thieves, beggars, prostitutes, pimps and hackers. Millions of honest, decent, hard-working Romanians living abroad suffered from this wave of negative PR.The Idea:We designed a series of posters with punchy headlines about Romanians who did great things, like Henri Coanda, the inventor of the jet engine, Stefan Odobleja, the inventor of Cybernetics, Nicolae Paulescu, the scientist who discovered insulin, Nadia Comaneci, the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 and Ilie Nastase, one of the most important tennis players in the history of the game. We uploaded the posters to the internet where bloggers challenged their followers to spread them further.The Development:The posters reached Mediafax, one of the most important media groups in Romania who decided to commission them for their National Day initiative for Romanians everywhere. Romanians across the world were asked to get involved and download the posters, print them and post them in the street to raise awareness in their communities and help change the negative perception.The Results:The posters were downloaded in their tens of thousands in over 20 countries and several companies like Xerox, Société Générale and Vodafone volunteered to join in and posted the posters in their headquarters. Even the Romanian Prime Minister applauded the sustained effort to help change Romanians’ image abroad.

The campaign went live a few days before December 1st and reached the Romanian community living abroad mainly via online and social media.

Deceiubescromania.ro registered over 30,000 downloads of the posters in over 20 countries. The campaign's Facebook Page registered almost 10,000 Fans in under 3 weeks. Thousands of blog posts and tweets shared the campaign's website and several companies like Xerox, BRD Groupe Société Générale and Vodafone volunteered to join in and posted the posters in their headquarters. Even the Romanian Prime Minister applauded the campaign in his statements.