Hitler goes Social. Wake-up call of the non-profit organisation "Gesicht Zeigen!" ("Show Your Face!") against racist propaganda on the internet.

Background

It looks downright spooky. Adolf Hitler conquers social media. In the new and provocative video from "Gesicht Zeigen!", the Dictator presents, in voice-over, to his young audience, "…the internet will carry the National Socialist idea across all borders. We will use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to find young followers. We will spread fake news via our portals and we are going to manipulate the search engines to move up in the rankings."

Idea

In this way, the spot strikingly illustrates exactly what right-wing groups and activists are doing on the net today. They get into contact first and then try influence and win over young people on social media networks with propaganda in order to get into contact with them and eventually win them over as supporters. This admittedly provocative spot should be a wake-up call: "Attention, we must not leave social media open to racist misanthropes. We must defend our freedom on and offline against hatred and agitation," commented Sophia Oppermann, one of the two CEOs of Gesicht Zeigen!, for their liberal-minded call-to-action in Germany.

"Our goal is to show the dangers of racism and to attract new members to our association because we need more people who will actively engage and act against the right in the public sphere," added Rebecca Weis, the managing director of Gesicht Zeigen!. The goal of the organization is to promote respect and tolerance in Germany and to combat racism, anti-Semitism and right-wing violence. With campaigns, training courses, educational work and many events and workshops, the association has been actively working against inhuman ideologies and fighting for an open society since the its foundation in 2000.

The spot was launched on February 5th on the platforms Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo and YouTube which are all frequently used for right-wing propaganda. The goal is to disseminate it virally through online PR support. It will be shown in selected cinemas as well.

In addition, Gesicht Zeigen! will make various Facebook visuals available to share from their website. Social media users can post them via their own Facebook accounts and thus position themselves against right-wing propaganda online: https://www.gesichtzeigen.de/hitlers-online-strategie/.

"We want to activate and achieve the maximum media attention for this topic. That is why we have let Hitler himself explain the online strategy of the right. No one else can show us the danger more clearly," explains Stephan Vogel, Creative Director of the agency Ogilvy who created the idea for the spot.

The original recordings used in the spot were recorded from the Nazi propaganda film "Triumph of the Will" directed by the Nazi propagandist filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl in 1934 during the infamous Nuremberg rally of the Nazi Party. In the scenes shown in the spot, Hitler is speaking directly to the Hitler Youth.

Already having worked together in 2016, Gesicht Zeigen! and Ogilvy started a joint campaign with the publication of the book "Mein Kampf – gegen Rechts" ("My Struggle Against Racism"). At the time, the copyrights of Hitler's inflammatory publication had just expired and everyone was able to republish the book so the association and the agency, together with a European publisher, released their own 'counter-statement'. The award-winning work combined testimonials from activists who have engaged in Germany against racist propaganda and violence.

Results

The main awards of the joint project of Gesicht Zeigen! and Ogilvy are the Grand Prix from the Art Directors Club Europe as well as the award for 'World's Best Campaign' at the Sabre Global Awards 2017. In addition, the campaign received several gold prizes at international creative competitions such as the Clio Awards, Lia, The One Show and the Eurobest Festival.

Link to Gesicht Zeigen! website: www.gesichtzeigen.de