Heralding change

When the euro replaced the Slovakian koruna, the change demanded a large-scale campaign

 

All through last year, prices in Slovakia were displayed in both koruna and euro, a small but significant way of smoothing over the transition between the two currencies. Slovakia is the latest of the new member states to adopt the euro, following Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus, while Estonia looks set to be the next country to adopt the euro in 2011.

Common concerns when facing currency conversion include fears of inflation growth, consumer protection, security and pricing. In this particular case, the Slovak koruna had a peculiarly symbolic significance, as it was the currency proudly adopted when Slovakia gained independence from the former Czechoslovakia in 1992. Such a monumental change clearly needed to be communicated sensitively yet on the broadest possible scale. To prepare Slovakia’s 5.5 million citizens, a long running and thorough communications campaign was coordinated by the National Bank of Slovakia and the Ministry of Finance, with contributions from other ministries and institutions such as public television. The early planning stages occurred as far back as 2005, with the publication of a national changeover plan that included a section on communication, with more detailed planning following in 2007. According to Martin Suster, Director of the Research department at the National Bank of Slovakia, the reason for this relatively long lead time was because “public procurement in Slovakia, especially for things such as a communication campaign where you don’t have exact technical details which you could have published in the tender, can be quite difficult and time-consuming.”

Looking outward

In developing the campaign, the coordination team looked at the experiences of several other countries in the European community and the European Central Bank that had undergone their own changeovers, as well as similar communication campaigns in some of the 12 original countries that adopted the Euro in 2002. A “twinning programme” was established with the Austrian Central Bank, as well as an exchange with Belgian National Bank. During 2007 and 2008, the coordination committee also visited Cyprus and Malta and talked with Slovenian colleagues who had only recently completed their own campaign in 2007.

The projected start date for the campaign was July 2008, but following a public opinion poll in February that revealed general dissatisfaction with the level of information on the changeover, the start date was brought forward to March. In less than a month, TV spots were produced in order to communicate basic milestones that would lead to the changeover, with more practical information left to the later stages.

Originally, the idea was that the first tender would see advertising agencies cooperating with each other in contributing to a national campaign; however, according to Suster, “agencies really took this as very fierce competition among themselves so we had to change the public procurement format to select just one agency and not allow any of the other agencies to have any influence in what the project would look like.” The chosen advertising agency – Bratsilava-based Creo/Young&Rubicam – helped to deliver the media aspect of the campaign, as well as proposals for individual fringe elements, such as the Euromobile truck that toured the country, visiting small towns and specifically targeting the elderly and the less well off. Several exhibitions on relevant topics such as the making of the euro and design of the Slovakian euro coins were also created by the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the National Bank.

Although the campaign was on a nationwide scale, simplicity was key. According to Suster, the campaign did not “have to be very fancy, it doesn’t have to be masterpiece of art since you are not competing with anybody. But it has to be very simple and very straight-forward so that all the segments of the population, even the ones that have some difficulty in understanding things, will get it.” While the campaign also addressed the concerns of banks, enterprises and professionals, Suster stresses that “the largest part of the campaign was directed towards the general population, and it was not really rocket science: even though it’s about finance, it’s about a couple of simple procedures – exchanging money, converting prices, making sure you understand what the new currency looks like.” The general population is a blanket term that covers many smaller sensitive target groups, including the Roma and the visually-impaired. This is one element that Suster points to as setting this campaign apart from normal advertising campaigns. “We stressed these disadvantaged groups which otherwise in a commercial campaign would not be targeted because they have little purchasing power,” he explains. “But from our point of view where we wanted to deliver the information to everybody, we had to concentrate on where the information needs are more difficult.”

Each group demanded a different approach, and some rather ingenious solutions. For example, a special greetings card similar to a musical Christmas card was designed for the sight-impaired, but instead of the traditional Christmas carol, opening the card would trigger a recording that explained the euro. A video with information in sign language was delivered to the hearing-impaired. Above all, the campaign turned to what were called multipliers – organisations that supported disabled groups. These people were given training in how to handle the changeover and would in turn translate this information into messages that would be understood by disadvantaged groups. The same approach applied to communications with hard-to-reach minority groups, including Roma people.

Despite all the measures to make sure that it would be as inclusive as possible, from the get-go the campaign encountered resistance to the changeover. Suster explains: “We always encountered a minority of people who are against the adoption, and if we had discussions or seminars then we had to argue or explain the things in mass media, we always had to be aware that there might be some reaction to some of the claims, and so we took this into account when we created the messages.”

In the light of this resistance, monitoring public opinion and the effectiveness of the campaign was crucial. Twice a month, the National Bank’s statistical office conducted a survey that measured satisfaction with the level of information available. For sensitive target groups, the trained multipliers gave feedback on their progress, and reports of the seminars and training sessions they organised gave qualitative evidence of the number of people reached, and also helped with requests to modify the strategy when needed.

Back in February 2008, just 18 per cent of the population replied that they were satisfied with the level of information about the euro changeover. In January 2009, when the final survey was conducted, 93 per cent of the population was satisfied with the information that they had received.