Fairtrade Belgium Asks How Long You Would Work for 67 Cents
Fairtrade Belgium's '67 Cents' is a 2018 integrated awareness campaign created by Darwin BBDO in Belgium that confronts audiences with a single, disquieting fact: a cacao farmer in the Global South earns just €0.67 for a full day of labour, using the social experiment format to ask Belgian consumers how long they themselves would work for that amount.
Launched in October 2018, the campaign distils a sprawling and complex supply-chain injustice into one number. Rather than presenting documentary evidence of distant suffering, the creative device turns the question inward, positioning the Belgian public as the subject of the experiment. The central line — 'How long would you work for 67 cents?' — collapses the distance between a supermarket shelf in Belgium and a cocoa farm in the Global South, making the economic disparity felt rather than merely understood. Archived on clapboard.com as a single integrated media asset, the campaign is classified within the Finance industry in advertising records, reflecting Fairtrade's broader positioning around economic justice and fair income rather than any conventional banking or financial product.
In Belgium, where Fairtrade-certified products have maintained a consistent retail presence and where consumer awareness of ethical sourcing has grown steadily, the campaign had a receptive cultural context. Darwin BBDO — the Belgian arm of the global BBDO network — channelled that context into a creative proposition notable for its economy: one statistic, one question, one unavoidable moral implication. The Clapboard Score for '67 Cents' is 64 out of 100, reflecting a campaign that executes its core idea with clarity and conviction while operating within the constraints of a single-asset integrated format.
Fairtrade Belgium built its 2018 strategy on the recognition that abstract statistics about global poverty rarely produce lasting behavioural change. The organisation's strategic approach — developed with Darwin BBDO and guided by strategic planner Kendy Smits, as documented on adsoftheworld.com — was to convert a supply-chain data point into a visceral personal challenge. By asking Belgian audiences to imagine accepting €0.67 for their own day's work, the campaign bypassed the psychological distance that typically insulates consumers from ethical discomfort.
The Finance category classification in advertising archives is instructive. Fairtrade's mission is fundamentally about income redistribution and fair economic participation — territory that overlaps with how Belgian consumers think about wages, purchasing power, and financial fairness. In Belgium, the statutory minimum wage for adults stood at levels many multiples above €0.67 per day in 2018, according to the Belgian Federal Public Service Employment, making the contrast immediately legible to any working adult in the country. This gap needed no amplification; the campaign's strategy was simply to make it impossible to ignore.
The ethical finance space in Belgium and across Europe was also expanding in this period. According to a 2020 academic study cited by research aggregators, European ethical banks increased total assets by more than 37% and customer funding by more than 32% over the analysed period, signalling that Belgian and broader European consumers were increasingly connecting their financial decisions to their values. Competitors in the ethical consumption space — including Triodos Bank, which according to the same academic study held €8.327 billion in total assets — and Max Havelaar, a rival fair-trade certification body active in Belgium, framed the environment in which Fairtrade Belgium needed to differentiate its voice. Darwin BBDO's answer was to sidestep certification-brand comparison entirely and go straight to human economic reality.
Director Jeroen Willekens helmed the '67 Cents' film for Fairtrade Belgium, with production handled by Static Films, as documented on adsoftheworld.com. The documentary approach Willekens brought to the material is central to the campaign's credibility. Rather than a conventionally produced advertisement, the film adopts the register of a social experiment, capturing genuine reactions from Belgian participants confronted with the €0.67 daily wage question in a real-world setting. This formal choice — documentary over drama — strips away the aesthetic distance that polished advertising can introduce between a message and its audience.
Creative direction was shared by Raf De Smet and Klaartje Galle, with art direction handled by Mathijs Bettens and Sebastiaan Dessaux, and copy written by Bjorn Blockx, according to adsoftheworld.com. The creative team's decision to anchor the entire campaign in a single number reflects a discipline that is harder to achieve than it appears. '67 Cents' resists the temptation to layer on additional statistics, emotional music, or intercutting footage of cacao farms. The number alone does the work, and the Belgian participants' visible discomfort at the question does the rest.
The integrated campaign format, as archived on clapboard.com, is built around one core media asset. This constraint is itself a creative statement: the idea is strong enough to require no supplementary execution. Copywriter Bjorn Blockx's central line — 'How long would you work for 67 cents?' — is a question that functions simultaneously as a headline, a social media prompt, and a conversation starter, giving the single asset considerable reach beyond its initial placement. The lineage of the '67 cents' proposition in Fairtrade Belgium's communications — which, as reported by adsoftheworld.com, pre-dates the 2018 Darwin BBDO execution, appearing in Fairtrade Belgium materials as early as August 2016 — suggests the creative team inherited a proven rhetorical device and sharpened it into its most deployable form.
No verified performance data for the '67 Cents' campaign — including reach figures, earned media volume, or conversion metrics — is publicly available. What exists on the public record is a concrete award recognition: the campaign received a Bronze at the Caples Awards in 2019, in the Not for Profit category, credited to Fairtrade Belgium, as documented on clapboard.com. The Caples Awards, a long-running international direct and digital marketing competition, evaluate campaigns on their measurable persuasive impact, making the Bronze a signal that judges found the campaign's mechanism — the social experiment question — genuinely likely to move audiences toward action.
It is worth noting a credit discrepancy in the public record: the Caples Award entry as documented on clapboard.com names Ogilvy rather than Darwin BBDO as the agency of record, while the campaign is simultaneously attributed to Darwin BBDO across adsoftheworld.com and clapboard.com's main archive entry. This inconsistency has not been publicly resolved and may reflect a production partnership or submission arrangement rather than an error.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on mechanisms that advertising research consistently identifies as high-impact: a single, memorable statistic; a direct second-person address to the audience; and a format — the documentary social experiment — that carries implicit authenticity. In Belgium, where consumer trust in institutional advertising is historically moderate, the choice to film real reactions rather than scripted testimonials would have materially increased the campaign's perceived credibility. These structural choices, rather than any reported metric, explain the Clapboard Score of 64 out of 100, which reflects a well-constructed awareness campaign that stops short of the systemic integration needed to score in the upper tier.
Fairtrade Belgium's '67 Cents' campaign reveals that a cacao farmer in the Global South earns just €0.67 per day. Created by Darwin BBDO in Belgium and launched in October 2018, it uses a social experiment format to ask Belgian consumers how long they would personally work for that amount, making supply-chain inequality immediate and personal.
Darwin BBDO created the '67 Cents' campaign for Fairtrade Belgium. The Belgian agency, part of the global BBDO network, developed the integrated campaign with creative directors Raf De Smet and Klaartje Galle, copywriter Bjorn Blockx, and director Jeroen Willekens of Static Films, as documented on adsoftheworld.com.
The '67 Cents' campaign won a Bronze at the Caples Awards in 2019 in the Not for Profit category, as documented on clapboard.com. A credit discrepancy exists in the public record, with the Caples entry naming Ogilvy while the primary campaign archive credits Darwin BBDO as the agency responsible for the work.
Fairtrade's mission centres on fair income and economic justice rather than a conventional product. Advertising archives including clapboard.com classify '67 Cents' under Finance because the campaign's core argument is about wages, economic fairness, and purchasing decisions — territory that intersects directly with how Belgian consumers understand financial equity.
Jeroen Willekens directed the '67 Cents' film as a social experiment documentary, capturing genuine reactions from Belgian participants confronted with the €0.67 daily wage question. Produced by Static Films and documented on adsoftheworld.com, this format replaced scripted advertising with authentic human responses, strengthening the campaign's credibility with Belgian audiences.
The Clapboard Score for '67 Cents' is 64 out of 100. This reflects a campaign that executes its central idea — one statistic, one moral question — with clarity and conviction, while operating within the limitations of a single-asset integrated format that restricts the systemic integration required to reach the upper scoring tier.
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