TELUS International Bulgaria Bets on Belonging With Be Yourself
TELUS International Bulgaria's 'be yourself' campaign is an integrated social initiative launched in April 2021 by Sofia-based agency proof., which repurposed the Instagram handles of Bulgarian celebrities to expose the everyday prejudices that job seekers face during interviews, delivering a direct message about inclusion and diversity to potential employees across Bulgaria.
The campaign, also known by its campaign platform '#unseetheprejudice', confronts a measurable problem in the Bulgarian labour market. According to a research study by Bluepoint, over 50% of job applicants still encounter some form of prejudice during a job interview. For TELUS International Bulgaria, a global digital solutions company operating one of the country's largest outsourcing workforces, that statistic was not an abstract concern but a direct obstacle to attracting the diverse talent the company depends on. The campaign was designed to make TELUS International Bulgaria's commitment to inclusion visible, credible, and emotionally resonant to candidates who may have already been discouraged by experiences of bias.
The creative mechanics were built around a collaborative stunt. Proof. worked with celebrities who each carry a visible public identity — and, with it, a set of assumptions others project onto them — and temporarily changed their Instagram handles to reflect the specific prejudices those individuals encounter in daily life. The logic was precise: the same stereotypes attached to these public figures are the very odds they defied to reach their positions. In a single gesture, the campaign collapsed the distance between inspiration and social critique, making the act of scrolling feel meaningful. The campaign ran as an integrated execution in Bulgaria and contained one primary media asset anchoring the broader social activation.
TELUS International Bulgaria operates in one of Eastern Europe's fastest-growing outsourcing sectors. According to data reported by Kinsights Capital Bg, Bulgaria's outsourcing sector operating revenue grew 22.4% year over year in 2021, up from 12.7% the previous year, and salary expenditure in the sector reached €2.1 billion, representing 11.4% of Bulgaria's total salary costs. In that environment, competition for skilled workers is acute. TELUS International Bulgaria competes for talent against established players such as Concentrix and Sutherland, both of which maintain significant operations in the region and actively recruit from the same candidate pool.
The strategic insight that proof. identified was not simply that prejudice exists in hiring — it is that prejudice actively suppresses candidate behaviour. According to Bluepoint's research, people who experience bias first-hand during a job interview often become quietly discouraged and stop applying for certain roles altogether. This means that discrimination does not only harm individuals; it shrinks the effective talent market for employers who claim to value diversity. TELUS International Bulgaria's campaign was therefore framed not as corporate virtue signalling but as a direct address to the candidates it most needed to reach: those who had already begun to self-select out.
The choice of Instagram as the primary channel was strategically coherent. Proof. grounded the entire concept in a 2021 behavioural truth — that a person's Instagram profile and handle functions as a compressed public identity, signalling who they are before a word is spoken. By inverting that logic and using celebrities' handles to broadcast the labels society attaches to them, the campaign made prejudice legible in a format that the target audience already navigated daily. The '#unseetheprejudice' platform gave the activation a searchable, shareable anchor that extended organic reach beyond paid placement.
Kamen Kolarov directed the 'be yourself' campaign for TELUS International Bulgaria, with production handled by Pudding. The creative team at proof. was led by creative director Angel Iskrev, with creative lead Kaloyan Antonov, copywriter Petko Kolarov, and junior copywriter Valentina Dencheva shaping the language of the work. Head of art Emanuela Belovarski and junior graphic designer Katrin Kreovska oversaw visual execution, while strategist Ekaterina Mutafchieva built the conceptual architecture. Account director Sanya Stefanova managed the client relationship, and PR partner d:istinkt extended the campaign's earned media footprint across Bulgaria.
The creative idea has a structural elegance that resists easy imitation. Rather than producing a conventional diversity-and-inclusion manifesto film, proof. identified a format — the Instagram handle — that is simultaneously personal, public, and instantly readable. Changing a celebrity's handle to the prejudice they face most commonly transforms a passive profile element into an active statement. The audience does not need to interpret a metaphor; the dissonance between the face they recognise and the label they read does the interpretive work automatically. This is craft operating at the level of format design rather than execution alone.
The production itself was designed to feel native to social media rather than imported from broadcast. As documented on behance.net, the campaign's visual identity maintained the aesthetic grammar of Instagram, ensuring that the celebrity handle changes read as genuine rather than constructed. The PR partnership with d:istinkt amplified the stunt into earned coverage, multiplying reach beyond the campaign's paid media investment. The integration of celebrities as active collaborators — rather than passive endorsers — gave the work a participatory quality that aligned with the '#unseetheprejudice' platform's broader invitation to audiences to recognise and reject bias in hiring contexts across Bulgaria.
The 'be yourself' campaign generated 6 million impressions and 34,000 clicks, according to figures reported by proof. and documented on clapboard.com. Those numbers sit inside a single integrated campaign built around one primary media asset — a ratio that points to strong earned amplification driven by the celebrity Instagram handle mechanic and the PR partnership with d:istinkt.
The campaign's award record provides independent verification of its creative and strategic quality. According to Iabeurope Eu, 'be yourself' won Silver in the Brand Advertising Campaign category and Bronze in the Direct Response and Lead Generation category at the IAB Europe MIXX Awards 2022. It also received Bronze in the Social Media category at the ADC*E Awards 2022, as reported by designdiscoveryawards.com. Multiple shortlist recognitions across IAB Europe MIXX Award categories further confirm that the work was competitive at a European level, not merely within the Bulgarian market.
Clapboard scores the 'be yourself' campaign 69 out of 100. The score reflects a campaign that executes a genuinely original social mechanic and earns meaningful reach from a compact asset, but one where the available performance data — impressions and clicks without conversion or hire-rate metrics — limits a full assessment of downstream business impact. The structural effectiveness of the work is high: the celebrity handle format is inherently shareable, the insight from Bluepoint's research is specific and counterintuitive, and the '#unseetheprejudice' platform creates lasting search and social equity beyond the campaign flight. For TELUS International Bulgaria, the campaign also extends a creative lineage with proof. that previously produced the 'Come Back to Bulgaria' initiative, which according to iabeurope.eu generated 650,000 social impressions, more than 500 CVs, and a documented return on investment of BGN 1.56 per BGN spent.
The 'be yourself' campaign is an integrated social initiative created by proof. for TELUS International Bulgaria, launched in April 2021. It used celebrity Instagram handle changes to expose job interview prejudice under the '#unseetheprejudice' platform, generating 6 million impressions and reinforcing the company's commitment to diversity and inclusion across Bulgaria.
Research by Bluepoint found that over 50% of job applicants encounter prejudice during an interview. The campaign addresses the downstream effect: candidates who experience bias often stop applying for certain roles altogether, actively shrinking the available talent pool for employers like TELUS International Bulgaria who publicly champion inclusion and diversity.
Proof. agency in Sofia created the campaign. Creative director Angel Iskrev led the team, which included director Kamen Kolarov, creative lead Kaloyan Antonov, copywriter Petko Kolarov, strategist Ekaterina Mutafchieva, and PR partner d:istinkt. Production was handled by Pudding. The campaign was submitted by Angel Iskrev of proof.
According to iabeurope.eu, the campaign won Silver for Brand Advertising Campaign and Bronze for Direct Response and Lead Generation at the IAB Europe MIXX Awards 2022. It also received Bronze in Social Media at the ADC*E Awards 2022, as reported by designdiscoveryawards.com, confirming the work's competitive standing at a European level.
Proof. temporarily changed the Instagram handles of Bulgarian celebrities to reflect the specific prejudices each person faces publicly. Because those same prejudices were obstacles the celebrities had already overcome, the handle change became simultaneous social critique and inspiration, making bias legible in a native social format without requiring audiences to interpret a traditional advertising metaphor.
Clapboard scores the 'be yourself' campaign 69 out of 100. The score recognises an original social mechanic and strong earned reach from a single media asset, while noting that available data covers impressions and clicks rather than downstream hiring outcomes, which limits a complete assessment of the campaign's full business impact for TELUS International Bulgaria.
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