Executive Summary
The WPP GPSP consortium designed a relatable campaign on consumer rights for the European Commission’s Directorate General for Justice and Consumers which, thanks to an interactive gamification experience, artistic look and creative influencer content collection, reached even niche audiences across Europe to make them aware of how to confidently make use of their rights as European consumers.
Challenge
Citizens across Europe benefit from a substantial set of consumer rights, for the protection of which the EU serves as a guardian. However, many citizens are neither aware of the extent of their rights and how to exercise them nor that the EU is playing a key role in ensuring these rights. Furthermore, many citizens do not realise the EU’s relevance or the positive impact that it has on their everyday lives.
The European Commission’s Directorate General for Justice and Consumers was therefore looking for a partner to promote EU consumer rights targeting an audience of 18-35-year-olds.
To make the topic of consumer rights as relatable and tangible as possible, we reinvented the way that the European Commission communicates to its young citizens with a simple idea, a brand-new look, and a fresh tone of voice. We resonated with and empowered EU citizens by educating them on often times little-known EU consumer rights and showed them how they can use them on an everyday basis. Other than increasing awareness on consumer rights across the 10 focus countries of the campaign and beyond, we also aimed at improving the overall perception of the EU by showing that it supports and protects its citizens to change attitudes and awareness across the continent.
Solution
In order to resonate with younger citizens and show them that the EU is relevant in their everyday life, we used the simple, universal message that: ‘When things go wrong, you’ve got rights’ – EU rights. The seven selected consumer rights of the campaign were illustrated through everyday frustrations and mishaps that can go wrong when purchasing services or products: from the malfunctioning toaster ruining a peaceful breakfast to the romantic getaway that was killed by a misleading travel deal.
Short campaign video clips depicted these frustrating situations confirming our audiences to be right to not accept these situations but to rather make use of their rights as EU consumers. To further spread our campaign’s messages and be able to also meet niche audiences we gamified the idea with a unique escape room which toured across the continent – getting citizens to work together in teams and teach themselves about the details of their rights by resolving the escape game. From Comic Cons and Games Weeks, to Design and Vintage Fairs as well as the University context, with the campaign’s escape room we were able to actively engage citizens with the topic of consumer rights and create real touchpoints with the campaign.
