European Parliament

27 countries, 23 languages: with Aperto’s help, the European Parliament motivated people all across Europe to vote. An online campaign was created for the EP, which was based on a heavy dialogue and closely knit with traditional means of communication. Aperto focused on high coverage across a lot of different channels for this online campaign, as well as extensive social media measures in collaboration with internationally leading social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

The Task

The objective of the pan-European online campaign was to get as many young and first-time voters as possible to vote, and to further develop offline measures.

The Solution

The main focus of Aperto’s strategy was on the close collaboration with leading international social networks and Internet platforms such as MySpace, Facebook, Google and YouTube. Display advertising, social media marketing and consulting, search engine optimisation and marketing, collaboration management and media planning were also included. The microsite “Waiting for the results” and a navigator which linked the campaign with the European Parliament’s existing website both also boosted the level of attention generated.

All together, Aperto developed and placed over 3,000 banners during the campaign period, which were ultimately seen over one billion times throughout Europe. Aperto also increasingly focussed on viral effects and the power of social networks. Entertaining, informative widgets turned Internet users into advocates and opinion leaders of the campaign’s message.

To optimally reach the young target group, Aperto further developed the visual concept of the offline campaign for web-based media formats, putting particular emphasis on strategies for dialogue and networking in social networks.

Aperto also defined guidelines for social media communications and compiled social media guidelines according to which the editors of the European Parliament managed the social media profiles and communicated with citizens.

Aperto carried out the project in collaboration with Scholz&Friends European Agenda, the lead agency for the entire campaign.

The European Parliament is the only directly elected body of the European Union. Members of Parliament are elected every five years from voters in the European Union’s 27 member states. With their votes, they represent a total of 500 million EU citizens. In early June of 2009, the people of Europe elected their parliament for the seventh time.