Award: 2015 – Hungarian PR Association’s Imre Sándor Award (Communications Campaign Category)

The Task

Autistic Art (AA) is a design-brand, alloying art and design with charity. The Foundation was established by György Jaksity. Through its art program, it assures regular workshops for autistic people living in care homes. The brand is built around the drawings created during the foundation’s workshops by people living with autism. The drawings are transformed into products with their own brand name and the sales revenue is returned to the caring homes. The task was to make AA a well-known fashion brand and to introduce the world of people living with autism through the process.

The Solution

We set the basic goals, which were making AA well-known and increasing the turnover of its web shop. We were on a tight budget, so we decided to exclude ATL tools and apply the following ones instead: besides continuous PR presence, we planned individual events, films and social media activities to draw attention to the project. The campaign was kicked off in November 2014, at the VAM Design Center. We organized a fashion show combined with a charity auction, where celebrities expressed their support related to the brand. They were led by stylist Márk Lakatos and the group included Dorka Gryllus, Sára Herrer, Eszter Ónodi and Krisztián Kovács. There were publications related to the event on national commercial TV (TV2-Aktív and Mokka), in the leading women’s magazine (Nők Lapja), on the leading news portal (Index) and also in a commercial magazine (Forbes). The after-launch campaign was PR driven: we put visuality in the focus. Besides a self-made film, we prepared testimonial type videos and infographics as well.

The Result

The Autistic Art silk scarf collection was included in the 2014 Year-Book of Design and it was presented at the Museum of Applied Arts’ Hungarian Design Exhibition of 2014. Furthermore, the Autistic Art and the Kele for Autistic Art projects made it to the “Highlights of Hungary” competition, among the 44 most creative initiatives of 2014. The former one was ranked 5th place, while the latter one was ranked 10th place in the public voting. As the communications agency of the brand, we received the silver award of Kreatív Prizma for the market launch of Autistic Art and we were also awarded the Hungarian PR Association’s Imre Sándor Award. The revenue generated by selling AA products is used for co-funding maintenance- and operational costs of civil operated care homes, and for continuing the art program. At the auctions, a fund of 15.6 million HUF was raised in 2014, and 18.7 million HUF in 2015. During the past years, the foundation supported the autistic caring homes with more than a 100 million HUF.