AfrikaBurn Burn Your Concerns Campaign

This is a brand challenge project, meaning that our team of creatives and marketers worked with a real client on a real brief. AfrikaBurn approached us with the need to transform their public perception from a music festival towards their roots in an absurdist movement. People have come to think about a music festival, glitter and exclusivity when they think of Burn. But this doesn’t reflect AfrikaBurn as a playful, kind, collaborative and creative movement. Because of this, we wanted to highlight some of the feelings of exclusion or fear people might feel around AfrikaBurn. To do this, we came up with the concept “Burn your Concerns”.

Below are three stop-motion videos which platform people's concerns. Each would live on AfrikaBurn's Instagram or Facebook. Our campaign is centred around giving a voice to people's concerns, whereafter they are given space to join together with burn veterans at Burning Questions events in order to discuss some of these concerns.

Caption: Worried about sunburn? So are we! Bring your nerves and your grannie to our Burning Questions event.

Caption: Find out everything you need to know about golden speedos at our next Burning Questions event.

Caption: Join us at the third Burning Questions event to get a step by step tutorial on the plumbing at AfrikaBurn.

Below are digital posters that will also live on AfrikaBurn's Instagram and Facebook

In the spirit of collaboration, we also conceptualised a Burn Book. These anonymous travelling notebooks (between 20 and 40 of them) would travel among seasoned burners. Blank notebooks would be gifted to Burn veterans at the next burn that can travel to all corners of South Africa after the week.

Once they’ve inscribed some sort of advice or shared a story, they can pass it on to another seasoned Burner who would do the same. The books will circulate freely for a year before they get returned at the following Burn. After this, they would be compiled into a pocket-sized Burn Bible which would live on the websites and be handed out at Burn meetups and at AfrikaBurn itself. The collaborators are, in this sense, burning people’s concerns.

Inscription:

These (pages, paper, ink, bound trees) have been conjured up out of random kindness. We know that in the marathon of life, loud words tend to make it over the finish line the quickest. Some sounds become heavier than others when boardrooms enter the space. Because of this, we wanted to rid the desert of all boardrooms and present you with a blank canvas. Walk, run, write, draw and paint your AfrikaBurn in the following pages. This is a safe space where you can shape your own gentle reminder to the burners-to-be that the desert belongs to everyone (and no one). A tip, a story or a moment is a gift in this space.