PSI Romania

Position held: Regional Representative, 2002 – 2004

PSI Romania is a non-profit organization that was established in 1998. It is a member of PSI Global Network, with branches in over 60 countries. The mission of PSI in Romania is to improve the reproductive health of low income and vulnerable groups. This is done through social marketing campaigns and direct sales of qualitative products at reasonable prices. Part of the sales revenue goes to supporting the organization’s own projects and campaigns.

During 2002 – 2004, I coordinated the social marketing projects, the promotion events and the sales of “Love Plus” condoms and lubricants in four Romanian counties: Galati, Braila, Buzau and Vrancea.

The sales activity consisted mainly in supervising, controlling and coordinating the sales of “Love Plus” products. I kept a close collaboration with the two main distributors, Interstar Chim and Altro. Although I started this job as a recent Bachelor’s graduate, the national Sales and Promotion Manager, Valy Dumitrescu, took the time and patience to teach me everything about conducting sales and meeting targets. Together, we exceeded the sales target in 2003 and 2004 and maintained Love Plus condoms as a market leaders.

The social marketing activity was much more interesting to me. This was done through creative “Below The Line” (BTL) projects:

1. Love Plus Olympics

This sports festival was organized in 10 university centres from Romania and included sports like soccer, volley ball olympics and basket ball. Approximately 160 students won the reginal competitions and met in Galati for the great finals! I organized the accommodation in nine army tents, in “MASH” style. I will never do this again, as I signed for ammenities valued at over USD 50,000 that included the tents, beds, bed sheets, pillows, electricity cables, trash cans, security, and medical services. All these to accommodate 160 persons. The effort was huge and the “Mash” was done with the support of teh local authorities from Galati like the Romanian Army, Lower Danube University, the City of Galati, the County Council of Galati, the water district Apaterm, the waste disposal district Ecosal, the Direction of Public Health, teh power supply agency Electrica, the County Direction of Sports, the Cultural House of Students, the Fire fighters, and the County Center of Police. Sponsors were Ursus and Luxten, while PSI contributed with prizes, food and promotion. Everything ended with a concert performed by Class.

The “Mash” and the sport events:

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“Love Plus” Party and “Class:”

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And to have an idea who are the guys from Class, here’s one of my favorite songs:

2. “Love Plus” Police Academy

This was one of the most unique and exquisite projects that I ever coordinated! Together with a team of 10 “cadets” of the “Love Plus” Police Academy, we were doing direct educational campaigns on reproductive health. We used to go in bars, clubs, pubs, public places, trains, and showed young people how to correctly use a condom. The cadets were dressed in branded police uniforms, inspired from the famous movie “The Police Academy.” It used to happen very often that people showed us their ID cards when we stopped them.

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