Education with an ‘H’
Issue 11 | July 2009
Agency
Shackleton, Madrid
Creative Team
General Creative Director: Juan Nonzioli, Executive Creative Director: Alfonso Marián: Creative Director: Alvaro González: Digital Executive Creative Director: Enric Nel-lo: Copywriter: Jorge Martínez: Creative Supervisor: Oscar Moreno: Digital Art Director: Jordi Surribas: Digital Creative Supervisor: Oscar Pérez; PR Copywriter: Lara García; Art Director: Marta Pueyo
Production Team
Agency Producer: Cristina Cortizas, Audiovisual Production Manager: Carlos Wassman, Director: We are Pacheco, Producer: Javier Gálvez
Other Credits
General Manager: Javier Suso, Account Managers : Asún Sela, Javier Perales, Digital Account Manager: Sascha Kraft, Digital Account Executive: Ana Caballero, PR General Manager: Lucia Angulo, PR Account Manager: Elvis Santos
Date
September 2008
Background
After its success in France, Random House Mondadori wanted Daniel Pennac’s book “Mal de Escuela” (The sickness of school) to be a best seller in Spain. They sought an idea which would not only generate interest among the reading public but with book distributors and bookstores.
Idea
Rather than sell the book itself, the agency opted to stir up a national debate about the quality of the education system in Spain.
What they did was to take a televised meeting between the new Minister of Education and the Vice President, when the Minister is handed her briefcase, and alter it in post-production.
In the video, the camera zooms in on the briefcase to reveal a spelling mistake. It is marked as belonging to the Ministry of Heducation. With an ‘H’.
This was uploaded onto the internet and comments invited.
At the same time, the agency created a website, www.heducation.com, where visitors could upload constructive criticism and suggestions with the promise these would be forwarded to the Minister herself.
There was intense speculation as to whether the video was or was not faked, which then widened out into a broader debate about education in general, with TV, radio and print media all picking up the theme.
Additional PR was generated by mailing key opinion formers copies of the famous briefcase and inviting them to air their views.
Results
The original objective was to sell 10,000 books but by the end of the first month of the campaign, 35,000 had been sold.
The website received 650,000 visits with over 1 million pages viewed. 60% of this came from links on other sites and 40% came by direct searches.
2,250 comments were uploaded to the site to be forwarded to the Ministry. Elsewhere, bloggers have put up over 300 posts and there are already over 4,500 links from Google.
Our Thoughts
Trust Shackleton to find ways of doing things differently. In some ways, this campaign is outrageous. Think about it. They doctored the news, tinkering with reality in their re-edit, and they shamelessly involved two figures in public life. The new Minister of Education can hardly say she doesn’t want to see any of the 250,000 comments and suggestions that have been collected for her, can she?
No-one knew they were being marketed to but the book seemed to be such an important reference point in the growing debate, 35,000 bought it.
One-day there will be another debate – about the legaility of media manipulation of this sort but until then Shackleton will continue to find new ways of bringing brands and people together.