A campaign encouraging Poles to buy Polish-made products is taking off this month as part of efforts to help Poland weather the global crisis.

Report by Krystyna Kolosowska.

Applauded by Polish firms, the Krakow-based advertising agency Demo Effective Launching and Dajesz Prace or Create Jobs Foundation have masterminded a campaign under the motto: Be proud of Polish products. Michael Heidtman, Creative Group Head at DEMO, says the idea this time is to make Poles realize that it is smart to buy Polish. The campaign aims to mitigate or even eliminate the popular belief that Polish goods are somehow inferior to products produced abroad. We want to show that when we buy Polish goods we not only get high quality, world-class products, we actually help to improve every aspect of life in Poland, he says.

Marek Misiak, president of one of the largest firms producing mayonnaise in Poland, fully endorses this view. His produce meets the Polish-made criteria in almost 100 percent, with practically all the ingredients coming from Polish producers. Misiak calls on Poles - buy Polish because it really works.

“Firstly, we make food of better quality than our foreign rivals, secondly – at the time of global crisis we should give the Polish market a boost, especially that Poland’s GDP depends in 70 percent on domestic consumption. Thirdly, by buying Polish we simply create jobs for our relatives, neighbors and friends.”

Studies show that about 1.5million Poles make their shopping choices guided to a bigger or smaller extent by whether the product is Polish. But consumer ethnocentrism of Poles is definitely less pronounced than in, say, Germany or Japan.

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