In 2009, before the World Cup became an immensely successful reality, Joburg residents were unlikely to be able to find a reason to love their city. This was painfully obvious to everyone, including the City of Johannesburg Municipality.
The COJ briefed us to produce a campaign which evoked pride in the residents of this World Cup host city, and that improved local, national and international brand perceptions of Joburg.
As most would agree, the reason that Joburg is the greatest city in the world is that it is the home of the greatest and friendliest people in the world.
To get the message out there, we would need to use these phenomenal people as our very own brand-ambassadors.
In order to spread the message in the early phases of the campaign, we used the residents as the catalyst, and promoted their messaging in conjunction with ours through social media, radio spots, and word of mouth.
Our branding was found all over the city, in the form of hand-written signs, bumper-stickers and T-shirts, and all feedback and stories were featured on the You Make Joburg Great Blog.
Take a look at the fantastic responses we received during the activations: