Brussels blog

Ad appeared in the FT, International Herald Tribune, and Wall Street Journal's European edition

[UPDATE] The German version of the ad can be seen here via Twitter (thanks to blogger @TeraEuro for the link). It was in the mass-market daily Bild. And here’s the French version via Le Figaro (h/t @hbeaudouin).

With just days to go ahead of an expected Thursday meeting of eurozone finance ministers where they will finally give the green light to Greece’s €130bn second bail-out, a group of Greek businessmen has taken out advertisements in a wide range of international newspapers to plead their country’s case.

According to a spokesman for the group, which calls itself “Greece is Changing”, the ads were rushed into print by a group of like-minded business leaders and designed by Peter Economides, the acclaimed marketing strategist who, among other things, helped develop the “Think Different” campaign for Apple in 1997.

Economides, born in South Africa of Greek émigrés, has been on a campaign to get Greece to “rebrand” itself for months, and the ads ran in three English-language newspapers – the FT, International Herald Tribune and the Wall Street Journal’s European edition – as well as German, French and Dutch papers. (Dutch blogger Michiel van Hulten posted the version that ran in NRC Handelsblad here.)

Yannis Olympios, the group’s spokesman, insisted the ad was not intended to “tell politicians what to do” ahead of Thursday’s meeting, but instead to make the case that the Greek government and citizens have already done quite a bit to reform their country, despite ongoing arguments by eurozone officials that Athens has not lived up to its reform commitments.

Although the ad campaign is upbeat – “We are Europeans who aspire to a constructive role in Europe” – the website and FAQ sheet sent to Brussels Blog is a bit more hard-edged, saying the organisers could not be “silent observers” as “substance is often overshadowed by stereotypes”.

In addition, it makes clear the ads are timed ahead of votes in national parliaments in key eurozone countries; both the German Bundestag and the Dutch parliament are scheduled to debate the bail-out this week.

“Parliaments across Europe are asked to vote in favour for yet another Greek package and deserve to know all the facts,” the FAQ states. “Populism inside and outside of Greece is misleading the general public and often downgrading the debate within the European community, disregarding the catastrophic effects of careless rhetoric on the future of both Greece and Europe.”

The campaign, which Olympios described as a “one-off”, is backed by more than 20 of Greece’s leading companies, which are listed on the group’s website and include Aegean airlines, Coca-Cola Hellenic, and the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises.