The Fabric of a Nation
ALTA EN EL CIELO
Organizational Vision
Citizen Base Strategy
How It's Working
Lessons Learned
Argentina was a nation in turmoil when Vacaflor established Alta en el Cielo. Although it would be more than a year before Argentina’s “crisis” would reach its boiling point—with four presidents resigning in just 12 days—warning signs were everywhere in 1999. “The country was on its way to breaking into a thousand pieces,” remembers Vacaflor, not only economically and politically but socially as well. While many people were quick to assign blame for the country’s woes, trust was rapidly deteriorating and people were reluctant to unite in search of a solution. “We were all analysts and commentators of the problems,” explains Vacaflor, “and we placed the burden of finding solutions on others and not on ourselves.”
To energize and unite Argentina’s divided citizenry, Vacaflor launched Alta en el Cielo in June of 1999, using the Argentine flag as a platform to stimulate cooperation and to rebuild Argentina’s social fabric. The project’s goal is as straightforward as it is powerful: Alta en el Cielo invites individuals and citizen groups from throughout the country and around the world to create sections of a giant Argentine flag by sewing together blue and white fabric. On June 20th of each year, Alta en el Cielo’s collaborators descend upon the city of Rosario to unite their pieces of the flag, highlighting Flag Day celebrations that honor of Manuel Belgrano, the Revolutionary general and designer of the first Argentine flag. Although Alta en el Cielo has already achieved its goal of creating the world’s largest flag, Vacaflor plans to continue the project until 2012 to mark the 200th anniversary of General Belgrano’s death.
While uniting Argentines behind a project that is truly national in scope, Alta en el Cielo also strengthens local networks. In many cases, the flag is a total community effort, with families, school groups, businesses, and civil society organizations contributing fabric, thread, sewing machines, and volunteer labor. Communities also face the challenge of transporting the flag and groups of volunteers to Rosario, a trip that can take dozens of hours by bus. Despite these obstacles, families, schools, and individuals from all 24 Argentine provinces have participated in Alta en el Cielo, often knocking on the door of Vacaflor’s home to present their sections of the flag. In 2006, Alta en el Cielo celebrated its eight year with a flag that stretched for more than 12 kilometers, a testament, says Vacaflor, to the heights Argentine society can reach when “united by a common objective.”
Create an “excuse” for collaboration
Alta en el Cielo’s mission extends much beyond a giant flag. Vacaflor insists
that creating the world’s largest flag is merely an “excuse” designed to bring people together in pursuit of a common goal. The real aim of Alta en el Cielo is to begin repairing Argentina’s fragmented social networks, to reestablish old community bonds, and to foster new systems of mutual support. These objectives required a universal symbol to which all segments of Argentina’s population could relate, and in a country as patriotic as Argentina, the flag became the perfect choice.
For poor, remote communities with very little citizen sector activity, joining Alta en el Cielo can be extremely challenging in terms of resources and organization. Even for more developed communities, participation in the flag project provides a significant opportunity for community members to collaborate, establish common goals, and devise solutions to shared problems. Alta en el Cielo’s participants have started recycling programs, established partnerships between rural and urban schools, opened community libraries, and distributed food, clothing, and medicine to neighbors in need. In addition to these examples, Vacaflor is proud to point out that Alta en el Cielo has spawned dozens of other successful spin-off initiatives, giving rise to project’s mantra, “The people unite the fabric. The fabric unites the people.”
Unlock the power of images
To fully understand the social phenomenon that is Alta en el Cielo is to see it in action, which is why imagery plays such a critical role in the organization’s marketing strategy. Vacaflor, who spent many years working in television and radio, views visual communications as one of the organization’s greatest strengths and his team devotes considerable resources to ensuring that the public can see and appreciate Alta en el Cielo’s impact.
Since the project’s earliest days, Alta en el Cielo has meticulously recording its organizational evolution by maintaining a digital library of thousands of photographs, hundreds of hours of video, and scores of press clippings. The images come from a variety of sources: many were taken by Vacaflor himself or captured by members of his team, including aerial footage that was taken from a helicopter flying above Rosario’s National Flag Park. More than a thousand others were submitted by volunteers, participants, and “fans” of the organization, with some of the most spectacular shots donated by professional photographers working for some of Argentina’s most important media outlets. These photographs, videos, and press clippings are the raw materials that Vacaflor uses to produce an array of promotional materials, drawing on more than two decades of media experience to bring the story of Alta en el Cielo to communities throughout Argentina.
Alta en el Cielo leverages its website is one of its most important marketing tools, presenting a wealth of photos, streaming videos, and posting information about the project and how to participate. Users can browse hundreds of images from past Alta en el Cielo celebrations and are encouraged to submit their own photographs and videos. Since May of 2003, the site has recorded more than 200,000 visits. As the organization grows, and with many communities now holding Flag Day events in their own towns rather than making the trip to Rosario, the website has become an important gathering place for the diverse members of the Alta en el Cielo community. Argentines from Tierra del Fuego to Jujuy tell their own stories on Alta en el Cielo’s website, joined by Diaspora communities from Italy, Spain, Canada, and a host of other nations.
Alta en el Cielo also relies on more traditional communications strategies to reach the general public, distributing magazines and pamphlets and presenting photo expositions in universities and cultural centers around the country, including the prestigious Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires. One of Vacaflor’s most recent projects is a documentary exploring the past, present, and future of Alta en el Cielo. Vacaflor plans to present the documentary to groups and communities around the country with the goal of inspiring even more Argentines to join Alta en el Cielo before the project concludes in 2012.
Form media and advertising partnerships
Vacaflor leverages his experience and connections in the Argentine media to create deep community involvement and generate resources for Alta en el Cielo. In the organization’s first two years, Flag Day was largely a regional event. Vacaflor reached out to local media organizations—including Rosario’s Channel 3 where he worked—and received tremendous support from friends and colleagues who helped him to publicize the Alta en el Cielo project. His friends’ work, explains Vacaflor, was “an invaluable pillar” that enabled Alta en el Cielo to extend its impact rapidly. In 1999, Alta en el Cielo launched its first Flag Day celebration and succeeded in attracting more than 3,000 participants, despite advertising for only two weeks. The following year, more than 6,000 people gathered in Rosario’s National Flag Park and created a flag that stretched for 250 meters.
Alta en el Cielo’s early media campaigns accomplished more than mobilizing popular support, however. They also helped the organization to develop a donated infrastructure by raising awareness within the local business community and the municipal government. Community support came in a variety of forms. The owner of a taxi company, which advertised on Channel 3, sent his drivers to collect fabric throughout the city at no charge. A local sewing machine manufacturer contributed seven machines, which are still used by the “Women of Rosario” to join thousands of meters of fabric on Flag Day. And the municipality of Rosario spread word of Alta en el Cielo’s mission to schools and public institutions throughout the province.
Although by the end of 2000 Alta en el Cielo had most of its key local alliances
in place, it still lacked a forum to appeal to Argentines on a national scale. All of that changed in 2001, however, when the organization approached marketing executives at the consumer product company Unilever and successfully pitched an idea for a joint advertising campaign. That campaign, which cost Unilever US $1.5 million, marked a turning point for Alta en el Cielo, catapulting it to national prominence. Three different television advertisements featuring images and footage of Alta en el Cielo’s Flag Day celebration were broadcast nationwide, accompanied by massive radio and newspaper campaigns. Almost immediately, Vacaflor and his team were inundated with questions, phone calls, and interview requests from around the country, many of which came via a toll-free number that Unilever provided. Even in Argentina’s most remote communities, school children and their families were talking about Alta en el Cielo and learning how they could help create the largest flag in the world.
Despite (and also because of) the tremendous success of the Unilever campaign, Alta en el Cielo works vigilantly to ensure that Flag Day remains a “day of the people” and not just another corporate public relations strategy. Alta en el Cielo adeptly maintains the delicate balance between corporate sponsorship—ensuring that the organizations keeps control of it’s the campaign message. Corporate sponsors are noticeably absent from Alta en el Cielo’s annual festivities and the organization has turned down all other offers to feature the organization in new advertising campaigns because “we already have a national base of support.” Finding the right balance between corporate support and organizational integrity is not easy, Vacaflor cautions. Although initially hesitant to propose the alliance with Unilever, fearing that it would compromise the spirit of the Alta en el Cielo movement, the organization decided that the Unilever campaign was the best way to transform Alta en el Cielo into a project that was truly national in scope. While not completely ruling out future corporate alliances, Vacaflor says he will remain very cautious, carefully considering the risks and implications of such a move, “not just the potential benefits.”
- In 2006, Rosario’s Alta en el Cielo flag stretched for 12 kilometers and was constructed from 54,000 square meters of fabric.
- More than four million people had participated directly in Alta en el Cielo by the end of 2006, representing all 24 of Argentina’s provinces. In addition to residents of Argentina, individuals living in Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Thailand, the United States, and several other nations also contributed sections of the flag.
- <!--[if !supportLists]-->125,000 participants gathered in Rosario’s National Flag Park to celebrate Flag Day in 2006, a record turnout for the event.
- <!--[if !supportLists]-->Alta en el Cielo has inspired countless new citizen networks and collaborations, including recycling programs and community libraries.
- Create an excuse for collaboration. Alta en el Cielo uses the goal of constructing the world’s largest flag as an excuse to bring various community actors together and stimulate cooperation.
- Harness the power of the media. By reaching out to members of the local and national media, Vacaflor ensures that citizens throughout Argentina learn how to participate in Alta en el Cielo’s annual Flag Day event.
- <!--[if !supportLists]-->Communicate with images. Alta en el Cielo invests heavily in visual communications, using photographs and videos to demonstrate the project’s impact and recruit new members.
- Evaluate the costs and benefits of potential alliances. Alta en el Cielo’s successful marketing campaign with Unilever and the organization’s subsequent growth highlight the benefits of forming corporate alliances while drawing attention to potential costs. Vacaflor and his team rely on corporate sponsorship sparingly because Flag Day “belongs to the people.”