Absolut Tolerance

Sometimes even a small thing is enough to change the world

Let’s start right away. You faggot! I’m just gonna hop for a pack of smokes. We do not want immigrants in the Czech Republic! Come back where you came from. Sadly, all this is still a reality that we do not like, and our client Absolut feels the same. There is so much intolerance in our society that it was time to come up with a project to promote freedom, to try to open people’s eyes and send a clear message to the world that one of the main global themes of the Absolut brand is tolerance.

We could think of nothing less than inviting our fellow citizens to open up to new ideas. To take the first symbolic step towards a diverse society where understanding prevails over limitations. Peace. But how to make people open up to new things? For this purpose, we made them a free-standing door with a clear message: Don’t be afraid to open up!

For the five hottest topics, gender equality, LGBTQI, freedom of religion, ethnicity and migration, a great Czech illustrator Pavel Fuksa produced five visuals to ornament the door with. And then, we sent them out into the world – that is, into the streets of Prague, Brno and Pilsen.

Each door proclaimed its mission and clear message. And if people decided to go through them, they expressed their consent to their message. In addition, we placed a counter on each door so that we could count open minds. In 3 weeks, more than 20,000 people passed through them. And that’s a decent crowd!

All bars are equal

We did not focus the campaign only on the cities’ streets, but we took it to an environment that could be described as the Absolut’s comfort zone – 150 selected bars and clubs. We didn’t want to be so serious here, even though it’s a profoundly serious topic. Together with Pavel Fuksa, we created a series of posters, menus for tables, door stickers, T-shirts for bartenders and clasps with various messages on the topic so it could become a spark for bar discussions.

Avalanche of tolerance on the Internet

Of course, then we have shifted our focus to the online world as well. With the help of a powerful beat that can unite all the people in the world, and the lyrics by Renne Dang, the song Live and Let Live saw the light of day. We almost didn’t want to trust the indicators of the number of plays, as they showed over 350,000 of them.

The very topic evoked by several doors in the streets of cities, communications in bars and on the Internet caused a huge stir on social networks as well as in magazines, newspapers and web portals. Thanks to pre-prepared press releases and communication with the media, we counted 87 articles in a few days, in which the Absolut brand appeared in relation with the hot topic of tolerance.

Thanks to the idea, graphic design and comprehensive concept, our project won the Czech Creative Award (Louskáček) and the PR award known as the Lemur in 2019, and both made us incredibly happy. So, we attach a nomination video from the awards.