The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024
European Parliament's Pass It On turns grandparent advice into a voter campaign
Grandparents across all 27 EU states pass life advice to grandchildren on film, and the viewer — the secondary addressee — is urged to vote.
European Parliament
What it had to solve
The European Parliament's communication directorate had to engage citizens in the European Elections 2024 across 27 states, an ask that usually arrives as abstract institutional politics. The campaign instead built on the most personal relationship available: the advice grandparents pass to their grandchildren, tapping the collective past, present and future at once.
How it works
Ahead of the European Elections 2024, the European Parliament's communication directorate had to engage citizens who tune out institutional politics. Instead of arguments, the campaign built on the most personal relationship available: the advice grandparents pass to their grandchildren.
Elders and grandchildren from all 27 EU states took part in shortform documentaries produced with Kind Film Production. The viewer is placed as a secondary addressee of the exchange, overhearing advice meant for someone younger, so the stakes of the future land as family wisdom rather than a lecture.
The Parliament's stated results: two-thirds of viewers completed the films, 48% talked about the campaign with relatives and friends, and voters who recalled it were 45% more likely to turn out — a 20 percentage-point gap. D&AD keeps the campaign in its awards archive.
Why it lands
- Basing the campaign on grandparent-grandchild advice gives an abstract institution an intimate, universal story across 27 member states.
- Making the viewer the secondary addressee lets people receive the message without being lectured, which raises the chance they finish and share it.
- Shortform documentary gave the Parliament shareable, PR-friendly content instead of a traditional political advertisement.
- The reported behaviour — 48% discussing the films and higher turnout among those who remember them — suggests the personal framing carried past the screen.
What it did
The Parliament reports that two-thirds of viewers completed the films, 48% talked about the campaign with relatives and friends, and those who recalled it showed 45% higher voting turnout — a 20 percentage-point gap — turning an institutional message into family conversation.
What you can take
An institutional election campaign can borrow the most intimate conversation of all: advice from grandparents to grandchildren makes the future personal and lets viewers overhear why it matters.
Since then
Pass It On ran around the 2024 European elections and is preserved in the D&AD awards archive, which credits Kind Film Production and names the European Parliament's Directorate-General for Communication as client. The archive page records no agency or pencil level and no overall turnout figure, so the campaign's evidence stands on the Parliament's own completion, word-of-mouth and recall metrics.
Sources
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