Romania Supports Innovation

In mid April a team of inventors set an extraordinary record in the history of the biggest International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva. The Grand Prix was awarded to a Romanian invention: an aircraft scanner able to detect even one-millimetre thick o

România Internațional, 09.06.2013, 13:38

In mid April a team of inventors set an extraordinary record in the history of the biggest International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva. The Grand Prix was awarded to a Romanian invention: an aircraft scanner able to detect even one-millimetre thick objects. It was the 2nd time that Mircea Tudor and his team won the Grand Prix. They first won it in 2009 for a truck scanner. They expected that the reporters of Romania’s big TV stations would be there in huge numbers eager to record their story, but that did not happen. The news of their success had not been taken over by any news agency and that was the spark for the campaign “We support innovation”, the initiative of the DDb advertising company, which set as a priority a campaign to promote the great Romanian inventors. Here is next Roxana Memeta, the general manager of the company:

“Romanians are inventive. We have seen that Romania boasts many inventions that have changed lives along the centuries and quite frequently have had an impact on the history of a whole generation or simply have changed the world. There are many passionate, creative Romanians who have invented very interesting things but who are faced with the lack of funds and of support for their ideas. It takes too long for their ideas to come to life. That is why we thought of a campaign meant to support innovation”.

However a business magazine from Bucharest, Biz, had carried the news of the Romanian inventors’ success in Geneva that very day. Marta Usurelu, the editor in chief of the publication, says that could not simply go unnoticed.

“We posted the news on our website that very afternoon and sadly discovered that nobody had taken over the news, neither news websites nor TV stations and we got angry. It was a moment of national pride mixed with frustration. And that prompted us to talk to Roxana Memeta, the general manager of the DDb advertising company and set up a strategy, to approach things differently” The result was that, in a few hours, several pubic personalities from Romania posted on the Internet pictures of themselves wearing red T-shirts that read “I won the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva. The strategy worked, it really drew people’s attention, says Marta Usurelu:

“The idea was really great. Because everybody started wondering: “What do you mean, you won the Grand Prix?” It had a snowball effect. We started receiving calls from big companies that said: We want to join in the campaign too, we want to support innovation, we want T-shirts. The fact that important Romanian companies and outstanding professionals are now supporting the campaign means that we have reached our purpose. Now we’re waiting for the moment when we have new inventions to launch. That will really make our campaign a success.” In just two weeks posters and people wearing red T-shirts that read “I won the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva” and “We support Innovation” could be seen throughout the whole of Bucharest. Organizers hope that in a month or two they will find several interesting projects that can be financed until fall, with the help of those who offered to support innovation. Besides that, Marta Usurelu says, the campaign’s effect are already being felt.

“Some friends of ours have asked us to make children T-shirts with the same message, to be worn at school. They want their kids to understand that they live in a country where good and interesting things happen and to inculcate a sense of patriotism and pride in them. I used to travel a lot and in the beginning I was one of those people who said This can only happen in Romania. But travelling abroad, I came to the conclusion that people have the same qualities and faults everywhere, bureaucracy is the same everywhere, good and bad things happen everywhere so we are by no means inferior to other people, on the contrary, we have more qualities than many of them. Of course, we should not compare Romania with France or the US, but we are not far from these countries either. Coming to think of it, things are not that bad here and it’s only those who never travel abroad and are daydreaming that imagine their life could be so much better in another country. They are wrong to believe that.” Roxana Memetea has told us that her purpose, when she started the campaign, wasn’t to make country branding:

“We initially wanted to talk about specific things like inventions and innovations and to come up with actions meant to support them. Indirectly though, the campaign is also about a ‘made in Romania’ positive brand and about a sense of pride that we hope to grow in as many people as possible.” In an interview with Radio Romania International, Mircea Tudor made it clear the invention belongs to the entire Romania:

“We told ourselves that this is not just our invention, it’s Romania’s invention. When you support innovation you become part of it. So we dedicate this invention to Romania and we are happy to see that people come to think of it as to their own invention.”