Passing the country borders is not a matter of course. And often we often forget that this is a privilege that our grandparents fought for and won for us. In Slovakia and Czech Republic, symbol of the struggle for freedom became November 17th, the Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day. On this day, thousands of students went to the streets to protest against the Russian occupancy of the one-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, starting a non-violent nation-wide protests, the "Velvet Revolution".
However, this important day in democracy is starting to be less known throughout the country, that's why we looked for the ways to keep the awareness of this day to people who did not live through the 17th of November of 1989.
We've created to create a virtual iron curtain for one day with O2. Its customers visiting a foreign website using carrier data (did not have a Slovak/Czech .sk/.cz top level domain) saw a website blocker, informing them that before 17th of November of 1989 people traveling outside of their country of residence would serve a 5 years jail sentence, that's only if they haven't been shot by the border police, of course. An accompanying article linked in the digital iron curtain blocker has been written, explaining the history in the details and helping to educate the public.
Additionally, O2 customers traveling abroad their home country received an SMS message communicating the grim reminder of times before the 17th of November.
We're especially proud of this campaign, because not only it has won multiple awards in Slovak Zlatý Klienc festival and gold on Czech PIAF, but also Grand Prix, Gold and Silver on Golden Hammer awards in Riga, Latvia. And even though the topic of iron curtain is mainly felt by us, eastern Europeans, we've won some awards from the countries from behind the curtain as well: two shortlists from New York festivals and 2 shortlists from Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
