Nazis Against Nazis ("Rechts gegen Rechts")
EXIT-Deutschland2014
Nazis Against Nazis ("Rechts gegen Rechts") is a 2014 live stunt (involuntary charity walk) for EXIT-Deutschland, created by Grabarz & Partner and GGH Lowe, Hamburg.
The line
Germany's most involuntary charity walk.
Why it works
The march that paid for its own undoing. Every November neo-Nazis paraded through Wunsiedel, the Bavarian town where Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess was buried from 1988 to 2011. In 2014 residents and local businesses quietly pledged €10 for every metre the marchers walked to EXIT-Deutschland, a programme that helps people leave the far right, and the route was dressed as a sponsored charity walk, with start and finish lines and cheering slogans on banners and on the road itself. Around 250 marchers raised €10,000 against their own cause. A film was on YouTube three hours after the finish; German TV and print coverage alone reached 24 million people, private donors added another €10,000, and other towns copied the mechanic — all on €5,000 of production costs and no paid media. It won D&AD White and Yellow Pencils. It is studied as advertising judo: using an opponent's momentum instead of confronting it.
Techniques
- Guerrilla and ambient Dresses a neo-Nazi march route as a sponsored charity walk, with start and finish lines and banners, on a tiny budget.
- Humour Cheers the marchers on with mock charity-walk slogans, so the far right unwittingly raises money against itself.
- Purpose and cause Every metre walked raises money for a programme helping people leave the far right, turning opponents' momentum against them.
Sources · 4
- Wunsiedel macht aus Nazimarsch Spendenlauf (Wunsiedel turns Nazi march into charity walk)
- German town tricks neo-Nazis into raising thousands of euros for anti-extremist charity
- Rechts gegen Rechts – Der unfreiwilligste Spendenlauf Deutschlands (effectiveness case)
- Nazis Against Nazis (White and Yellow Pencils)
Updated
