The Trillion Dollar Campaign is an outdoor advertising campaign launched in 2009 to promote the newspaper The Zimbabwean in South Africa. The campaign was created by advertising agency TBWA Hunt Lascaris in conjunction with the Zimbabwean's marketing manager, Liz Linsell, with the goal of both increasing awareness of the newspaper itself, and of the growing problems of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe and increasing restrictions on free speech by the government. The Trillion Dollar Campaign made extensive use of Zimbabwean banknotes, repurposing them as printing paper for handouts, billboards, and poster advertisements. The campaign was highly successful, and gathered significant publicity; first in other South African newspapers, then in other media such as television and radio, and finally in international publications such as The Guardian and The Times. The Trillion Dollar Campaign went on to win several honours from the marketing community, receiving Golds at The Art Directors Club Awards and the ANDY Awards, and taking home the Grand Prix in the Outdoor category of the 2009 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the most prestigious awards ceremony in the advertising industry. Production Background In 1999, Wilf Mbanga founded an independent Zimbabwean newspaper titled The Daily News, with the goal of providing neutral coverage of events occurring in the country. The paper operated for three years before Mbanga was arrested for anti-government activities. While he was eventually acquitted of the charges, The Daily News was banned by the government of Zimbabwe, and Mbanga was declared an "Enemy of the People". Following several death threats, Mbanga fled to Europe, staying first in the Netherlands before moving on to the United Kingdom. With monetary assistance from the European Union, Mbanga founded The Zimbabwean, a daily newspaper featuring stories provided by in-country correspondents, edited in London, and printed in South Africa, close to the Zimbabwean border. Within five years, The Zimbabwean had a daily print run of 150,000, the majority of which was exported to Zimbabwe itself. However, in June 2008, the country's government re-classified the newspaper as a luxury, imposing a 55% duty on its import from South Africa. This made it impossible for the paper to break even while selling the paper at a price that the average citizen could afford. By 2009, circulation of the newspaper fell from 150,000 to 30,000, and the paper had to cancel its Sunday installment. Campaign The Zimbabwean approached Johannesburg-based advertising agency TBWA/Hunt/Lascaris for ideas on how to