Brilliant marketing paved way for the euro’s enthusiastic reception

Date: 10/01/02

By Gareth Harding

AT ONE point during The Who's rock opera Tommy, the eponymous hero pleads: 'See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.'

For months, Europeans have been able to see images of the euro on television and in the newspapers but, until starter packs were launched last month, they weren't able to actually get their hands on the world's newest currency.

Some politicians wanted to bring forward the 1 January launch date, but the European Central Bank was wise to ignore their grandstanding.

You don't have to be Pete Townshend to know that the longer the public has to wait for something, the more ecstatic the reception will be when it finally arrives.

And ecstatic the reception certainly was. Dredge up images of New Year celebrations across the continent. Now ask yourself this question - when was the last time you saw crowds of Europeans screaming and cheering for anything cooked up by the EU?

The answer is never.

The almost glitch-free launch of the single currency is due to many factors - the meticulous preparation of the European Commission and the ECB, the military precision of the money-movers and the genuine enthusiasm that most Europeans have for the new currency.

But as important as the product itself is the way it has been sold. When French firm Publicis won the €80 million marketing campaign contract two years ago, its advertising gurus must have felt as chuffed as if they had just clinched a deal to promote vegetarianism in Greenland.

A large chunk of the European population were against scrapping national currencies that had served them well for hundreds of years and the logistics involved in printing and minting 14.5 billion notes and 50 billion euro coins were fraught with danger.

Publicis masterminded Europe's biggest-ever publicity campaign - one that involved posting leaflets through 180 million mailboxes and blitzing the airwaves with TV ads.

It was a risky strategy. Too much propaganda would have scared the public; not enough and the greatest European event in a generation would have passed by without any political capital gained.

In the end, the central message - 'The Euro, Our Money' - was spot on.

Bland enough not to offend, yet emphasising a common goal and challenge, it was a stroke of advertising genius.

So too was the slogan plastered all over the Commission's Breydel headquarters: 'The Euro, the European Union in your hands'.

Messages like this, simply expressed and translatable into all of the EU's languages, make everyone a player in the new venture.

The euro also makes the Union much more real to people who have never had anything to do with the 'European project' before.

'Imagine what you could buy for €10 ,' goes one advert currently running in Europe's papers, 'three pints of Guinness in a central Dublin pub, two shots of vodka in a Helsinki bar, a bottle of Riesling wine from Luxembourg's Moselle valley.'

There is nothing abstract about this. It tells you exactly what the new currency will buy you, while at the same time filling the reader with a sense of wonder at Europe's diversity.

The Who talked of healing as well as seeing, feeling and touching. This is part of the process as well.

Many people felt short-changed about giving up their currencies, so the advertising campaign didn't indulge in any hard sell.

Instead of trying to persuade sceptics to love the euro, the campaign just got on with the job of urging them to live with it.

The European Commission could do a lot worse than to adopt such an approach when trying to sell the EU or enlargement. To date, its attempts have been lamentable because its communications policy is largely operated by amateurs who don't realise the difference between information and propaganda.

Instead of boring the public with high-falutin' speeches and endless reams of statistics, politicians would be better off telling Europeans what concrete gains they have made from EU membership and what further gains they stand to make by enlarging the club.

To most Europeans who have known peace for more than 55 years, talk of cheaper cars, safer food and easier travel is far more likely to endear them to the EU ideal than lectures about Europe's bloody past or pipe dreams about the future.

http://ec.europa.eu/comm/economy_finance/euro/our_currency_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/comm/economy_finance/euro/our_currency_en.htm

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