A year and a half into the pandemic, people were longing for new experiences and perspectives beyond their home office screens. Great for a tourist city like Vienna. With the exception, that it was losing out against more intriguing destinations in an open minded and travel-hungry target group.

We needed to change the narrative. From traditional to progressive. Breaking norms and boundaries exactly like Viennese painters and sculptors were doing hundreds of years ago. And exactly the way the new creator-economy is doing today. So we combined the two, making Vienna a stand-out city of toda'ys zeitgeist.

Vienna is home to some of the world’s most iconic artworks. 100 years ago, their artists fought for the free expression of their art. 100 years later, Facebook and Instagram’s algorithms make their fight obsolete. And label Viennese art „pornographic“. Leading to blocked accounts and deleted posts. Our brief was to advertise Vienna’s cultural heritage in this very climate and help the city become a favorite among post-Covid travelling.

A year and a half into the pandemic, people were longing for new experiences and perspectives beyond their home office screens. Great for a tourist city like Vienna. With the exception, that it was losing out against more intriguing destinations in an open minded and travel-hungry target group.

We needed to change the narrative. From traditional to progressive. Breaking norms and boundaries exactly like Viennese painters and sculptors were doing hundreds of years ago. And exactly the way the new creator-economy is doing today. So we combined the two, making Vienna a stand-out city of toda'ys zeitgeist.

In our research, we found out that OnlyFans is a platform where creators with a libertine mindset meet and share their art with each other. We wanted to target those individuals and those that are libertine enough to consume their art. As OnlyFans itself had announced that it would ban nudity on the platform, the community was in high alert when it came to censorship. Our campaign sought to play on that fact.

To protest censorship, we took every piece of explicit Viennese art – and published them on OnlyFans. A content-subscription platform known for allowing pornographic content.

The PR-stunt quickly went viral. It resulted in 2,500 articles worldwide, reaching more than 730 million people. It garnered 2.5 billion impressions and 150 million engagements.

With these numerous articles, posts, videos and TV-coverage, the stunt started a global discussion on the question: Who has the right to censor the art we consume? The results outperformed every business target we had set for the campaign.