An open letter to the authors of the ANO political party’s communication campaign

This open letter, to my colleagues in the industry, who are working on the campaign for A.B., is from september 2016. Consider now, colleagues–before the elections–if the money on your accounts, is worth it

I don’t pretend to be any sort of an expert on politics, but I have a civil opinion. Is it right? I’d like think so (ANO). It comes from my conscience. I sort out my stance by keeping up with a wide spectrum of media coverage. Media, which are not on the pay-roll of some influential group of people. And because the results of these senate elections made me quite sad, I’ve decided to author this open letter full of inquiries and honest interest.

Myself, I lead a graphic studio, which deals with visual communication in branding. I have two decades of experience in this field. At the start of my career, I was open to working with anyone (except communists). Only later have I made the realization, that when You try to paint the devil pink, it has to come out eventually. I’m not saying that I have no faults, and that I never went over the line. But I’m learning. Not to do it. That’s why I’m dealing with the topic of sustainability. I wouldn’t work for tabacco enterprises, Sazka and spurious credit companies, even if they’d pay me in tropical islands to do it. For brands, which don’t get along with their customers or suppliers, and I also don’t want to work for brands, which humiliate minorities, scoff at values or hurt animals. I have a conscience. And because I often feel “outside the bowl” with my stances, I’m interested in my colleagues’ train of thought.

So I want to ask my colleagues in trade, who have been working–for a few years now–with mr. Babiš on his preference growth. I regard his politics as continuous harassing of democratic processes in our country, and I’am also appalled at the digression of civil values and adversely, the course towards values not unlike those, pressed by the “Kreml”.

I’m interested in how a creative, strategist, copywriter, media planner, DTP operator, project manager or another asset feels while contributing to the ANO party’s campaign? What do they think of their employers’ policies and their impact? Of supporting a conspicuous fusion of politics and bussiness, which comes with millions of hazards? When planning where to place a banner or a billboard? What jokes do they tell, when coming up with the campaign? I wonder if it bothers them that the slogan hadn’t turned out so well today, or that they’ll have to work longer because of impending deadlines, and won’t see their children in the evening? In what country do they want them to grow up in? And since we’re already on the subject of emotions, does the money they receive at the end of the month, really make them happy? Or do they feel used and sold out?

I’d like to end with a message I’ve taken away from the Sustainable brands conference, which took place a forthnight ago in Copenhagen: The generation Y, the so-called “millenials”, are the target audience, which, it seems, will vote more with their wallets, rather than ballots. And that it will be for a politician, who mainly cares about his own future, isn’t at all a good turn of events. Maybe it would be a good thing, my colleagues, to advise mr. Babiš, to focus his attention on the future of this generation, instead of constantly pursuing his own ends. He can’t buy millenials with a donut and panoramas of Kreml on instagram or snapchat won’t impress them either.

So I’m thinking, isn’t it worth it by now, to start considering some things, and not just to do them for money?

Thanks for Your feedback in advance,

Michaela Thomas, Butterflies & Hurricanes