1. Challenge
On September 1st this year, SP.A education minister Frank Vandenbroucke launched two new regulations which should lead to the best possible education being affordable for every family: the introduction of a maximum charge for school trips and the extension of school allowances. The SP.A asked Boondoggle to give it the appropriate publicity.
2. Solution
On September 1st, we put a 'top topical' full-page ad in every Flemish newspaper. The ad showed a schoolboy holding a big fish. The headline was, "From today, every family can afford the best education. Talk about a big fish." This was a huge wink to the notorious ‘big fish' communication from the latest provisional government that no-one has yet benefited from.
(In Dutch, 'vette vis' – big fish means a winner, and the campaign referred to a promise from the provisional government that they would solve all the country’s language problems as agreed).
3. Results
Thanks to its topical political reference, the ad attracted a lot of extra attention from political journalists and commentators, even the day after it ran.