Can we learn to stop worrying and love the euro?(Publicis Frankfurt campaign to promote the euro)(Brief Article)

Joao de Almeida will have a hard job selling the euro

It is probably one of the most difficult advertising briefs ever issued: develop a campaign to run across 12 countries and appeal both to businesses and to consumers of all age groups. Your campaign must also face hostility towards the product that is only intensified by the public's ignorance of it. Oh yes, the product in question is a new currency and it has to be launched on the cusp of an economic downturn.

This unenviable task -- the launch of the euro--has fallen to Publicis Frankfurt, which has set up what it calls the Euroburo to handle it. The network has developed the campaign with Portuguese-born Joao de Almeida, the European Central Bank's project manager for the euro 2002 information campaign.

The fruit of the partnership -- an 80 million euro campaign (50 million [pounds sterling] or thereabouts)--was unveiled at an all-singing, all-dancing press conference in Frankfurt last week. The first of the TV ads features a flying euro coin that passes over Greek temples, Atlantic coastlines and ends up being used as currency in a nightclub. Others highlight the notes' watermarks and holograms. Were they run in the UK, they'd be unlikely to convince the country's europhobes.

The feeling of the campaign is summarised in the strapline: "The EURO. OUR money."

Almeida and the Euroburo are targeting 300 million Europeans with the work, or all "cash handlers", as Almeida puts it. "The campaign targets everybody," he says. "We didn't structure it by targets. We have combined and developed the communication in a way that is suitable for everyone."

He adds: "We developed the same creative campaign for 12 countries. They are the exact same TV and print ads, with the exception of language."