Best Romanian online charitable auction in 2011, signed by Graffiti Public Relations

“Be a champion with Bute’s gloves”, a campaign made by Graffiti Public Relations for Okazii.ro, Romanian e-commerce site, transformed the gloves that protected the worldwide belt in the most expensive official object sold in Romanian sport’s history.

Wore by Lucian Bute during the match he won on July 9th in Bucharest over the French Jean-Paul Mendy, the gloves were offered by Bute to his 1st coach, Felix Paun, that decided to use Okazii.ro to auction them. Felix Paun, that continues to be a coach at Pechea Boxing Club, decided to sell the gloves to get the money needed to make survive the clun where Lucian Bute started his career in sport.

The auction, started on November 1st, was supported by a communication campaign that covered the entire auction period. Made by Graffiti PR, the campaign highlighted the potential of Pechea – a 11,000 inhabitants village – that gave Romania 2 great sport performers: Lucian Bute (worldwide champion in box), Steluta Luca (world vice-champion in handbal with Romanian national team) and Cristian Ciocan (worldwide champion juniors, now professional boxer).

The auction got really fast an impressive support, both from public and from mass media. Okazii.ro continued this way a tradition of the auctions dedicated to future champions with the most successful initiative in Romanian online’s history. That is why we would like to thank all people that got involved, and also Lucian Bute, that makes Romanians to be proud at each of his games

Costin Cadelcu

Marketing Manager Okazii.ro

The campaign also got an impressive media support, with over 250 news being written about the auction. The blogs were also involved in the campaign, with important bloggers inviting their readers to get involved in the auction.

For such a promising auction, Graffiti PR only helped people get over the noise and controversies that are usually surrounding Romanian sport. The story of the gloves and of Pechea county is both strong and without any make up on. Lucian’s gloves were exposed in University Plaza’s passage to show the passers by – around 300,000 of them a day – the occasion to see close objects that are related to Romanian sport’s history. For mass-media, we chose an experience from the “money can’t buy” league: all interested journalists and bloggers had the opportunity to join a boxing introduction class at Pechea club, with Felix Paun, Bute’s 1st trainer. We offered them a chance to live a similar experience with the one Lucian Bute went through in the first days of his career

Mircea Tomescu

Managing Director al Graffiti PR

At the end of the auction, Euro 10,001 reached to Pechea Boxing Club, money that will be invested integrally in renovating and buying equipment for the club.

Okazii.ro team involved in the project includedCostin Cadelcu (Marketing Manager), Ramona Hromei (PR&CSR Coordinator), Raluca Berceanu (Brand Socialite), Marius Concita (Art Director) and Ioana Dogaru (Marketing Consultant).

Graffiti PR’s team consisted on Bogdan Tomoiaga (Senior PR Consultant) and Sergiu Petre (PR Specialist).