The European Parliament’s new campaign to encourage Europe to vote

The stakes in this election are high. Maybe higher than ever. And with just one month to go until the most important elections in the history of the European Union, the European Parliament is launching a campaign in all member states to encourage people across the EU to vote.
 
& Co, the Copenhagen based agency behind the creative development, is a sub-contractor of European Broadcast Partners, with whom the European Parliament has a framework contract. Previous work from & Co. like Denmark TV 2’s All That We Share” struck a chord with the EBP, and the campaign & Co. developed for the elections is no less spectacular.
 
The campaign is a message of hope in an increasingly uncertain world. Today’s challenges can’t be solved individually or even on a national level, but if Europe stands together it’s possible to lead the way. And the more people vote, the stronger European democracy becomes.
 
The campaign is orchestrated around a 3-minute hero-film for digital and social media. In the film, director Frédéric Planchon documents the intense beauty of new Europeans coming into this world. Planchon is known for numerous global, award-winning campaigns through the last decades, but even with all his experience, this project was very different.
 

 
Frédéric Plancho: “We witness the nervous last hours of pregnancies, going into labor, and finally the actual birth of these children that will inherit our decisions in the upcoming elections. We see the love and hope that meets the newborn. All the people who participated and let us into their lives at these crucial moments were absolutely fantastic. It’s been an honor and a privilege to make this film.”
 
But how do you go from being briefed on increasing voter engagement to documenting real-life births across Europe?

Johan Køhler, Partner and Copywriter at & Co: “The biggest act of hope and will to believe in a better future is putting a child into this world. And this is not a political campaign. It’s not about who and what to vote for. It’s about why we vote and, in my mind, we vote because we have to deal with the challenges we face globally, unless we want to leave the coming generations worse off.”

Rune Petersen, Partner and Art Director at & Co.: “The parliament saw the potential in the idea from the very beginning. The ambition was to document reality, so we couldn’t promise what exact scenes we would bring home. That’s a brave decision, and Frédéric was stand-by, waiting for births to film over a period of 15 days to get the material just right”.
 
Trine Aagaard Eisinger, Partner & Client Service Director at & Co.:  “We can’t think of anything more important than to unite Europe right now. It’s been a pleasure and a dream to work with the parliament. They have been brave and agile in their decision-making, and we are so immensely proud to have worked together on this campaign.”

The goal of the campaign is ambitious: reach 500 million Europeans. And that’s why distribution is such a big part of the creative idea.
 
Emil Towity, media strategist at & Co. :  “With a limited budget, and a target audience of 500 million people, we had to tailor a distribution strategy that combines TV, cinema, print, PR, social media and The European Parliament’s thousands of volunteers and partners, to create maximum engagement and awareness around the message. And both the distribution strategy and the campaign itself is essentially about making Europeans stand together.”
 
Johan Køhler, Partner and Copywriter at & Co.: “Democracy should unite us. But in the heat of the battle, politics often divide us. We tend to forget all the things we agree on. Once in a while, we need to rediscover that we share our human circumstances and a lot of our dreams for our own and our children’s future. Or as the voice-over in the film explains: “From the second, we come into this world, we’re in it together”.

Credits:
Client: The European-Parliament | Name: Jaume Duch Guillot, EP spokesman and DG COMM Media Director | Client Partner: European Broadcast Partners | Creative Agency:  &Co. / NoA (Copenhagen) | Creative Director: Thomas Hoffman | Art Director: Rune Petersen | Copywriter: Johan Køhler | Social Media Planner: Emil Towity/Morten Saxnæs | Account Manager: Eva Rabenhøj |Account Director: Trine Aagaard Eisinger | Strategic Planner: Lone Tvedergaard Bach / Aylin Kanpak | Agency Executive Producer: Anders Toustrup Darre | Agency Producer: Filippa Borg von Bülow | Agency Producer Assistant: Philip C. Sem Dambæk | Agency Editor (additional content): Søren Jespersgaard Albrechtsen | Agency Editor (mood film): Alexander Topsøe  | Agency Post Producer: Sidsel Ihle Eliasen  | Production Company: New Land/Academy Films  | Director: Frédéric Planchon | Executive Producer: Thor Brammer Jacobsen, New Land | Executive Producer: Simon Cooper, Academy Films | Producer: Julia Fetterman | Director of Photography: Melodie Preel | Focus Puller: Andrés Gomez | Production Manager: Gemma Priggen  | Post Production Editor: Sam Rice-Edwards | Edit House: Assembly rooms  | Colour grading: Jean Clément Soret @ MPC | VFX: The Mill | Music Title: “Familiar” | Composed and performed by Nils Frahm | By Permission of Manners McDade Music Publishing Ltd | Courtesy of Erased Tapes Records | Post-Producer: Katrine Juul, New Land  | Service Production Companies   Hungary: Company: Pioneer Productions  | Producer: Dorka Klim | Denmark: Company: New Land  | Producer:  Arlette Walsøe  | Producer: Katrine Juul Svendsgaard | Czech Republic: Company: Unit Sofa | Producer: Eva Perez Lescay  | Greece: Company: Green Olive Films | Producer: Maria Kopanou

www.europarl.europa.eu
www.andco.dk