A young Romanian graphic designer and copywriter has taken on a project which the Romanian Government should have tackled instead: promoting her country abroad, and re-branding Romania by focusing on things which are usually not mentioned in the country's classic advertising campaigns. Ioana Negulescu, created the project called Discover the mania in RO+MANIA, and already had a first conference at the Romanian Cultural Institute ICR in Paris to present this campaign and exhibit her visual work.

"There is too much poetry when promoting Romania", the young Romanian says, "and Romania hasn't been promoted for what it is". “We talk about the Carpathians and the Delta, but there are other things as well, and we never talk about them,” she adds. “We should talk directly and tell things how they are, we should never hide the bad aspects” she argues. “We should respect our value and traditions too, of course, the young generations started to do that, but in general our traditions have been somehow forgotten, and I sometimes have a hard time even finding them,” the young Romanian goes on.

This is how her campaign came to life. A series of posters highlight the things foreigners should expect when coming to Romania, wrapped as negative, funny statements: "Looking for a relaxing holiday? Don't come to Romania. You'll party all night long and forget what sleep feels like' /”Are you Planning on spending all your savings on a holiday? Don't come to Romania – the prices are so low you'll only need your change.”

Ioana, who runs the Happyhollic project, targets young Western Europeans with her campaign. “I discovered there was a huge contrast between what people who had never been to Romania thought about it, and those who had been here thought about it” said Ioana when explaining why she started this project.

She found there are several categories of foreigners who never visited Romania: those who do not know anything about the country, those who think they know all about it and speak only about the negative issues picked up by the international media, and those who study political science and who probably know more about the country that the average Romanian.  “When we talked to the people who came to Romania, they went through several states of amazement, about the low price of beer, cheap taxis, friendly people,” she said during the Paris conference.

Her piece of advice to people who never came to Romania: “Come to Romania and I think you'll really become a Ro-maniac!” Ioana's Happyhollic project is online here and more about the Discover the mania in RO-MANIA project, here.

editor@romania-insider.com

(illustration: Ioana Negulescu with the Happyholic)