ATHENS – As Greece takes regular bashings in media around the world and is struggling to stay alive during an economic crisis and deep recession, more than 20 of the country’s biggest businesses have teamed up to take out full page ads in several European newspapers urging people not to give up on the country. The Give Greece a Chance campaign, from branding expert Peter Economides, made its pitch just ahead of several crucial votes in European countries in the Eurozone who must decide whether to go along with a planned second bailout of $172 billion that Greece needs to pay its loans, pensioners, and workers. The ads ran in the Financial Times, International Herald Tribune and the Wall Street Journal’s European edition as well as in German, Dutch, and French newspapers. Germany and France are the biggest contributors to the loans.
The campaign, accompanied by the www.greeceischanging.com website, details the harsh austerity measures that the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) has imposed on Greece in return for bailouts, including a first round rescue loan of $152 billion. The government has been forced to make pay cuts, hike up taxes, slash pensions, and begin the firing of 150,000 workers over the next three years as a condition of the loan. That has led to nearly two years of protests, riots and strikes, to no avail.
“A new set of measures was recently voted on by the Greek Parliament. With a focus on structural reform, we have a chance to create a new Greece. A modern, productive and creative Greece with a sustainable future in Europe,” the advertisement reads. The business leaders, who are among the country’s rich elite, plead their case for Europeans to show patience and solidarity. “Our European partners have stood by us. But we need continued support and the breathing space to get out of this vicious cycle. And we deserve to know that there is a fair chance of success,” they argue. “We are Europeans who aspire to a constructive role within Europe. We will deliver on our commitment. We have already made sacrifices. We are ready to do more. We are betting our future on this.”
The businesses involved include Aegean Airlines, Cosmote, Costa Navarino, Coca-Cola Hellenic, Eurobank, Piraeus Bank and OTE telecoms, as well as the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE). The timing is particularly acute as, besides the pending votes in Eurozone countries, Greece has come under harsh criticism, particularly in Germany, as not being worthy of trust because successive governments have repeatedly failed to implement reforms, including privatizing state enterprises and selling or leasing state-owned properties, nor prosecute tax evaders costing the country more than $60 billion, although many have recently been arrested.
Economides, who designed the ads, is owner and founder of Felix BNI based in Athens, and has been pushing for Greece to re-brand itself and shed its budding reputation as a country with lazy, inefficient workers which has squandered its heritage and glory. It could be a tough sell, as the ads come just as many Members of Parliament have reportedly shifted their fortunes out of Greek banks in fear of the country’s economy collapsing, even as they were urging Greeks not to do so. While it’s legal to have accounts in other countries, it is not for MP’s to do so without declaring it, and not one of the 300 lawmakers on their recent declaration forms said they had any money outside Greece. Economides was featured in a Greek Reporter interview in which he lamented what was happening to the country.
“We’ve created a certain mindset and a certain culture in this country. That has really happened in the last 30 years and led us to the position we are in today,” he said. “This may be an economic crisis, but the way out of it is to solve the image crisis,” he said. “Brand is what people think of you, nothing more, nothing less. Everything is a brand,” he added. “We’ve spent millions over the years in promoting tourism, but we have not been branding Greece, we have not been managing what people think of us,” he said.
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