Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
Jelen (deer in Eng.), is a favorite Serbian beer, since 1756, supports the development of the Serbian society and its individuals. Before the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, in 2016, Jelen decided to support the Serbian Paralympic athletes.
The cooperation between the brand and the Paralympic Committee of Serbia inspired Belgrade’s Popular agency to give attention to all people with disabilities. The estimate is that there are around 700,000 of them in Serbia. And that’s as much as 10% of the population.
Instead of individual short-term actions, a series of activities were organized and later developed into a four-year support platform for people with disabilities called Champions every day.
As a start, we wished to point out that people with disabilities are equally valuable regardless of their diversity. That is why every tenth bottle of Jelen beer was labeled with a single-horned deer. And it stood equally among the other bottles.
For, even a Jelen with one horn is still a Jelen.
Questions about the campaign were answered by Vlatko Mladenović, Associate Creative Director at Popular.
We came to the idea… thinking about Serbian Paralympic athletes and trying to expand the story to all people with disabilities because their position in the society is very difficult. We wanted to show that people with disabilities are equally valuable because what makes a man actually comes from the inside. That is how the idea of a deer with one horn was born, a bit different but essentially the same.
The guiding idea was… what I just said. Everyone deserves equal treatment in the society, regardless of physical disadvantages. In a society full of prejudice, that’s not an easy task.
During the implementation, the biggest problem we encountered was… as in most cases, a shortage of time, but there was also a production challenge. We needed to stick the label with Jelen with one horn onto exactly every tenth bottle. And the labels are being slicked at the speed of light! :)
As the greatest contribution of this campaign we consider… the fact that we have succeeded in reaching one part of the public and pointing to the problems people with disabilities face in the society, the first one of them being prejudices. The idea later developed into a platform called Champions every day, within which there are still projects being implemented, projects aiming at the improvement of the living conditions for athletes and people with disabilities.
And it is special because… it is a simple idea, which carries a strong message.
When it comes to our project, we are most proud of… the fact that this campaign has brought about some change, and that is exactly what we all dream about when our industry is concerned. We are aiming to reach a certain part of the public, and to move things from a dead point.
If we were to go from scratch… we would do the same thing all over again. This time, we would only invest more energy and resources to making the campaign even bigger and making its effects more tangible.
We have learned throughout the process… that the number of people with disabilities is as high as 10% of the population, we have learned about all of the Paralympic sports, about ethics and much more…
What you certainly did not know was that the Serbian Paralympic athletes won 9 medals in Rio, one more than the Olympic team!
From BalCannes we took with us… At BalCannes we did not win a lion, but honestly, we would not trade our deer with a single horn, not even for 3 lions! :) We took with us some really nice memories, made new connections and got the confirmation of the whole hall that we did a good thing.