'GET TO LIKE A GERMAN'
SOCIAL AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

_status:
Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts project.

_about:
Changing the way people think is always
a hard thing to do. Especially when it
comes to breaking with old cliches and
stereotypes.
One of the strongest polish cliche is to
dislike our neighbours - the Germans.
It had been fed by the communist pro-
paganda and based on a false dogma,
that all Germans are Nazis. In fact, it
was only a government-supported image
that played a minor role among other
Polish prejudice against Germans.

I decided to fight this cliche by showing
how little in Poland is known about our
old western neighbours. I picked three
common cliches:
1) German women are ugly,
2) Germans are boring,
3) Germans have no imagination.
Each of them I contrasted with a proof,
that all these statements are false:
@1) german popular supermodels:
Claudia Shiffer, Heidi Klum etc.
@2) architecture in Germany: BMW Welt,
Bundestag wrapped by Christo etc.
@3) german artists: Ernst L. Kirchner
(die Brücke), A. R. Penck etc.

My main thesis is that Poles have got
used to think of Germans using cliches only. Hence, the slogan of my campaign
('Do not let the stereotypes lead you astray. Explore and judge for yourself!')
should encourage the target-group to be
more self-reliant in their assessment.

Exerpts from the brief:
• client: e.g. Göthe Institut in Warsaw;
• product: Germans (as nation, people);
• target-group: people aged 35-50,
raised up during polish communist era;
• media (in order of apperance):
outdoor, Internet, press.

2008