Arina Avdeeva, Co-Founder, mads courses & friends moscow

Arina has been in the communications industry since 2004. She studied at Miami Ad School Europe and Berlin School of Creative Leadership; then got her start at Leo Burnett Moscow, later moving on to THEY Amsterdam, Duval Guillaume Brussels, and ultimately establishing her own agency, Friends Moscow, – which made Top-3 Most Creative Ad Agencies in Russia for several years running, and eventually became an exclusive creative partner for the legendary Droga5 creative agency. Arina, along with her partners and their projects, has been celebrated among the Top-100 most creative Russians. She herself has won a total of over 200 awards at regional and international advertising festivals, and is a proud owner of 4 Cannes Lions. She sat on the jury at festivals such as Cannes Lions, Clio, One Show Festival, Golden Drum, LIAF, ADC, and others.

Arina is the creator of mads courses, an educational program that's become widely recognized inside the Russian creative industry, and was named the top international creative school of 2020 by Young Glory. She also maintains and develops pixride.com, an online service for inspiration seekers.

Deadline: May 31st 2021 at Midnight PST.

BRIEF:

Context: In Russia, there is an ever-increasing clampdown on the freedom of speech and political expression. Today, it's not just the ardent political activists who routinely face jail time, but regular “discontented citizens” as well: they often find themselves behind bars for submitting a post on social media that was critical towards the current government or its actions, or was ever so slightly misaligned with the state's views on foreign policy, religion, and history... Or merely for reposting one.

Meanwhile, there are more grounds for discontent every day: the economy is receding, people's real income keeps falling, the government has put a tight chokehold on all news reporting and national discourse, elections are mostly a sham, more people are imprisoned for their political views or ambitions, key executive and judicial government offices are corrupt and acting in concert with the ruling clique, breaking laws with impunity, independent media outlets are pressured to close down, and their journalists harassed or worse.

Today, people are not only afraid of taking to the streets to express their political or civil demands, but even hesitate to express their opinion on the internet. Now, such bold online rhetoric can land you in trouble with your employer or with law enforcement (of course, not nearly 100% of the time – but the examples aren't isolated anymore). And honest, open public discussion about national politics has become a topic to avoid in conversation.

Who is it for: Those who are not content with the current government, but grew dispirited and jaded. Before, people had become almost comfortable with the idea that they cannot affect the situation in any way; that nothing they do matters. But now they can't even vent their frustration or safely talk about these issues any more. There is an increasing, pent-up protest energy growing inside them, which has nowhere to go.

Creative challenge: Think of a safe, non-political* way to help people materialize their protest energy.

*by non-political, we mean anything besides conventional political action (which is rapidly becoming grounds for criminal prosecution): e. g. joining parties or policlubs, protest rallies, picketing, agitation on social media, etc.

Our goal: We want to give people an opportunity to act – safely. To do this, we need to think of a way for freeing up the pent-up energy of frustration and indignation, and channeling it into positive action. Such that it would be utterly impossible to persecute people for these actions.

How the idea should work:

1) offer people a way to do something, to take a stand, with a possibility for lots of small separate actions/words to be combined into a common cause/task.

2) show as many people as possible that regular folks can affect the situation, too; they have the strength and the will, and there are many of them.

What is the expected result: Make sure to test out your idea / hypothesis / mechanic in the field, and show us the initial results. These could be PR-worthy news stories or mentions, social media shares, pre-orders, or anything that would indicate interest in the idea and its potential.

Brief's checklist (evaluate your idea before submitting):

it never puts people at risk of becoming a target of persecution
it gives an opportunity to act or speak out, and do something
it unites people, and evokes a desire to join in
it "leaves a mark" — has a potential to keep attracting new people later

Why did I, of all people, offer a brief like this:

For the longest time, I was an apolitical person. But the situation in my country has come to a head; the government, with its bullying, and its constant rewriting of laws and breaking them with impunity, has pressured many apolitical folks like me into thinking really hard about what’s happening to my country.

When it is painful to keep silent and do nothing – and to do or say something puts you in grave danger – you start growing numb; start averting your eyes and blanking your thoughts, the energy of indignation and injustice never finding any outlet.

I like the SickKids case very much (as a great example of completely re-framing the issue), and I am certain that one could do the same in the political space: something that would bring back the disheartened ones, and galvanize them into action.

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