At midnight, when Effie Europe allows the publication of results, Bosnia and Herzegovina receives recognition that marks an entire epoch of its advertising development. Via Media Sarajevo has won a Silver Effie Europe for the campaign „It’s Time to Stop” in the category „Best of Europe: Positive Change – Brand,” one of the festival’s most rigorous and competitive categories. Effie Europe rewards proven results, real behavioural change, and a clear ability of communication to drive societal shifts. It is precisely in such a category that the campaign from Sarajevo achieved a long-awaited success for this market.
The campaign was created in a context in which social issues in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region are often quiet, sometimes pushed too quickly to the margins of daily, institutional, and media life. That is why the moment on March 8, 2025, when more than 230 Bingo stores, production facilities, and logistics centres stopped working for half an hour, caused a powerful shock in the public. Thirty minutes of complete silence in the largest business system in the country turned into a clear and hard-to-ignore signal of support for women and a call for responsibility from the entire society. That silence, paradoxically, became the loudest moment of the year: a piece of news that crossed all borders and gave a new dimension to the conversation about violence against women, especially in a country where this issue persistently and dangerously returns to the front pages.
The campaign continued to live on even after that day. It gathered tens of thousands of signatures from citizens supporting initiatives for legislative changes, while women’s organizations, expert institutions, and numerous media outlets recognized it as a serious institutional pressure on a problem that has been demanding a systemic response for years. In the professional community, the reaction was equally strong: immediately after launch, the project began entering the shortlists of the most important regional festivals, and later international analyses, where it was recognized as an example of a campaign that creates momentum and changes the dynamics of public discourse.
The campaign’s trajectory through the industry in 2025 was impressive. Golden Drum awarded the first edition of the campaign gold in the Creative Media category, and Via Media was named Adriatic Agency of the Year, confirming its leading position in the region. SoMo Borac, a platform that examines digital formats through the lens of their real impact, selected „It’s Time to Stop” as the best project in the social impact category. At the domestic festival No Limit, the campaign dominated the scene: from the Grand Prix, to the Advertiser of the Year award for Bingo, to recognitions that shaped the creative profiles of the campaign’s authors. At SEMPL in Portorož, the campaign not only won the Golden Sempler in the category Best PR Strategy or Promotion, but also took home the festival’s top award, the Grand Sempler. At the end of the year, when Eurobest announced its results, Bosnia and Herzegovina appeared for the first time on their winners list, with double recognition in the PR and Glass categories, an outcome that was received as historic in professional circles.
All these milestones led to tonight’s Effie Europe recognition, in a competition that gathers projects from the world’s biggest networks and most influential brands. The campaign had already been highlighted in the selection of Europe’s best works in the category of social change, standing shoulder to shoulder with projects of large global systems and marketing giants. Effie Europe now confirms what creative festivals had already suggested: that the campaign has truly changed the way social interventions through communication are viewed and how their real, empirically measurable strength is defined.
The Adriatic region, and especially Bosnia and Herzegovina, which for years has fought for a more stable international position, now receives a solid professional reference through this success. It emerges as proof that a market often described as modest, fragmented, or limited can produce projects that compete equally with European and global challenges. In an industry that values arguments, not narratives, Effie Europe represents the most concrete argument one can present: a measurable result that changes the perception of an entire market.
The Effie Europe award for „It’s Time to Stop” now enters the professional history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This moment will be a reference for generations to come, as proof that the industry can build projects that move institutions, audiences, and, perhaps most importantly, collective consciousness.
Media Marketing extends sincere congratulations to the Via Media team, Bingo Group, the partners who took part in the campaign’s realization, and everyone who recognized the importance of this story. Tonight’s news represents a turning point for the domestic industry, and we look forward to a future in which we will see many more award-winning campaigns from other Bosnian agencies.
