Hariri Foundation Khede Kasra

Leo Burnett Beirut has won another award for “Khede Kasra”, a campaign developed for The Hariri Foundation, an organisation in Lebanon focused on empowering women. The integrated campaign, online at Facebook, centered around a simple “kasra” accent to inspire Lebanese women to bring about gender equality in society. The campaign won the Grand Prix for Outdoor at the Golden Drum awards in Slovenia, adding to the Gold PR Lion at Cannes, five golds and two silvers at the Dubai Lynx Festival, and a Grand Prix at the Cristal de la Mena.

The Hariri Foundation and Leo Burnett Beirut had the challenge of designing a campaign that would help to raise awareness about the inequalities and disadvantages suffered by women, and that would hopefully lead to widespread cultural reform. Lebanese women cannot give their nationality to their children if married to a foreigner. Lebanese women automatically lose custody of their children above 9 years of age in any divorce battle. Domestic violence against women is widespread. Lebanese women need to actively participate in society and stand up for themselves.

The Hariri Foundation’s research into depiction of women in the media and revealed that spoken and written words in the Arabic language are often assumed to be addressed to men, not women. The agency chose to tackle gender inequality with the use of the a “kasra” accent, transforming words to indicate that they were addressed to women. Lebanese women were called to “make your mark” by adding the red kasra accent on posters strategically placed in public places. Knowing that the Lebanese watch a lot of television, their favorite shows were used as yet another channel to communicate the campaign.

The integrated campaign was taken to the whole country with the use of a mobile interactive billboard, along with posters and stickers. The campaign was introduced digitally through emails, YouTube and Facebook. On International Women’s Day (March 8, 2009), TV personalities were invited to wear the “kasra” on air and endorse the campaign. As the highlight of the campaign, during a filmed event, the Minister of Education distributed stickers and encouraged prominent women in society to get metaphorically involved with the interactive billboard as well as literally involved on the ground.

Khede Kasra was picked up by newspaper reports, magazine editors, bloggers and became the topic of everyday conversations. As hoped, the campaign sparked debates and roundtables about female regulations in the Lebanese judicial system.

Credits

The Khede Kasra campaign was developed at Leo Burnett Beirut by regional executive creative director Bechara Mouzannar, creative director Chermine Assadian, art directors Tania Saleh, Nayla Baaklini, Reem Kotob, Lea Salibi, Roula Asmar, art director/designer Yasmina Baz, Rana Najjar, copywriter Rana Khoury and Rana Najjar, deputy managing director Nada Abi Saleh, account executive Dima Kfouri.

Filming was shot by director Ghada Oueidat at The Post Office, with editors Marwan Ziadeh and Farah Fayed and composer Ahmad Awad.

Million Baby Crawl

http://www.seventhgeneration.com/million-baby-crawl/

Babies on a Soapbox (We'll Crawl)

Babies Seen Crawling Through a Crosswalk

WWF:::The Impact on Global Climate Change"meltdown"

Most people only get to experience the Arctic region through nature programmes on TV, so the problem of Arctic warming is not something we are immediately aware of.

WWF wanted to make sure that ‘out of sight’ did not mean ‘out of mind’ by highlighting the risks of Arctic warming and show the direct effect of climate change in the Arctic on the whole planet. A major report compiled by WWF, entitled Arctic Feedbacks: The Impact on Global Climate Change, reveals that rapid retreat of ice could lead to the sea level rising by one metre in this century alone, threatening a quarter of the world’s population. Warming in the Arctic could also substantially increase carbon dioxide and methane emissions in the atmosphere as a great quantity of those gases are stored in the Arctic’s frozen soils or wetlands. WWF wanted to ensure that climate change was seen as a political priority for the months leading up to the United Nations Climate change conference in December.

To coincide with the release of the report, WWF teamed up with Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo to create 1,000 tiny ice sculptures of people. These were positioned on the steps of the music hall in Gendarmenmarkt public square in Berlin.

The sculptures began melting in 30 minutes, perfectly illustrating the impact of melting ice caps on humanity.

BRAND:WWF

BRAND OWNER: WWF

CATEGORY:Charities

REGION:Germany

DATE:Sep 2009

MEDIA CHANNEL

COI: Choose A Different Ending

Choose A Different Ending is an interactive film that allows you to decide what happens next. You can interact with it, choose what to do and decide how it ends. In Choose A Different Ending you decide whether to live or die.

Advertising Agency: Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, London, United Kingdom
Agency Producer: Ben Catford
Director: Simon Ellis
Production: Mad Cow Films
Post Production: The Mill
Brand: COI

Print: Denver Water: IQ “Grass Is Dumb”

Released: July 2009 Avertiser: Denver Water Brand name: WATER SAVING MESSAGE Agency: Sukle Advertising & Design Country: USA Credits: Advertising Agency: Sukle Advertising & Design, USA Print Producer: Gail Barker Sukle Advertising + Design has a new conservation campaign for hometown client Denver Water that asks people to curtail their lawn watering by two minutes a day. You'll get away with this, the ads suggest, because "grass is dumb" and won't know the difference. The work includes quote bubbles stuck in the ground that reveal the depths of grass's stupidity, and a couple of TV commercials (the one below and this other one) in which a few personified blades fail to grasp even the basics of the reality that surrounds them. Sukle's "Use only what you need" campaign has been down this road before, of course, with the pretty great drunk-flowers spot.

NATO 60 Years of Peace and Security

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is celebrating its 60th anniversary with a set of three videos designed to remind people of six decades of solidarity, collective defense and the shared goals of peace, security and stability. The three commercials show what at first appear to be situations of danger, each one resolving into peaceful activity. The treaty was signed on 4 April, 1949, by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

Run

Children run and fall over. Dogs bark… People often take freedom and security for granted. We don’t.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

Basement

Is this a prison? Is that the cold sweat of fear or the hot sweat of exhaustion? Freedom to do what you want. We help that happen.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

Staircase

A woman closes her windows and checks security while outside the sky lights up with explosions. You want a life of freedom and stability. So do we.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

Credits

The 60 Years campaign was developed at Scholz & Friends Antwerp

Filming was shot by director Nico Beyer (Represented by Crossroads) via United Visions, Berlin.

Editor was Tom Seil. Post production was done at NHB, Berlin, by creative producer Yesim Altilar. Sound was designed by Lars Lohn.

Buzzing the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing

Energy BBDO helped create buzz for the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing using OOH, Print and Digital media - in short, they went all out.

The basis of their idea is that the most modern thing of the modern Wing is the museum itself - architecht Renzo Piano has created a fitting masterpiece to host all others.

OOH work included: train cards, bus kings, double-decker bus wraps, two-sheet posters, bulletins, retailer windows; while the Print included newspapers and magazines; and the digital space utilized banner ads. All elements worked together to bring news of the new wing of the AIC to Chicago, Mid-West and NY art enthusiasts.

print:

Credits:

Client: Art Institute of Chicago
Project: Opening of the AIC's Modern Wing
Agency: Energy BBDO
Photographer: Dave Jordano

OVK Let It Ring in Belgium

OVK (Ouders Van Verongelukte Kinderen) is an organisation in Belgium supporting the Parents of Child Road Victims. The organisation partnered with Belgium’s most popular video sharing website GarageTV to raise awareness of the danger associated with using mobile phones while driving. The campaign won three awards at Cannes International Advertising Festival 2009: Promo Gold, Direct Gold and Media Silver.

The Let It Ring experience begins at www.letitring.be, where anyone can send a message in French, Dutch or English to their friends, providing an e-mail address and cell phone number. Their friend receives an e-mail with a link to Crazy Car Crash, what seems to be a typical internet movie. What the friend doesn’t know, is that he/she is playing the main part in it. As the video starts to play the viewer’s cell phone starts ringing. If the person answers, he/she generates an accident in the viral movie.

Campaign: "Let it ring "

Agency: Happiness Brussels

Client: Red Cross

Year: 2009

David Plouffe's::: lessons from a historic presidential victory

As far as a campaign brief goes, taking a man with barely two years in the U.S. Senate and making him the most powerful person in the world is a pretty tough nut to crack. That's what David Plouffe, Barack Obama's campaign manager, discussed in his Cannes seminar on Thursday, laying out some lessons from the winning presidential run. Plouffe tied the success of the Obama campaign, beyond having a tremendously gifted candidate, to its marriage of grassroots activism and digital technology. "We benefited in many ways that we could look at everything from a fresh set of eyes," he said. Here are some of the key points Plouffe made:
1. Small is the new big. Obama was not the first politician to realize the collective power of small donors. But the former community organizer imbued his campaign with the notion that individuals on a local level can make a big difference beyond mere donations. Those donations helped power the campaign, of course, as Obama attracted 4 million donors through the Web. But innovations like My Barack Obama, a social network, allowed the campaign to go beyond that and have supporters involved directly in outreach and in combatting attacks on the candidate. "It started with a dictate from him," said Plouffe. "He wanted to run a grassroots campaign."

2. Word of mouth rules. On the local level, the Obama campaign eschewed paid operatives and out-of-town volunteers in favor of those within the communities. Plouffe noted that while people would tune out chattering from a political junkie, they'd listen to a neighbor energized by a candidate for the first time. The campaign tried to encourage word of mouth by stressing authenticity. Volunteers weren't given scripts, for example. "We said, 'Speak from your own heart,' " Plouffe said. "Nothing is more powerful than authenticity. People can have a very sensitive bullshit meter."
3. Conventional paths are dangerous. The campaign went against the grain in many of its choices. Obama directly confronted the issue of Rev. Jeremiah Wright with a high-profile speech. He held his convention speech in a huge outdoor stadium. He traveled abroad as a candidate. "When we did [conventional things], we paid a price for it," Plouffe said.
4. Integration and ubiquity. One of the biggest challenges for the Obama campaign, Plouffe said, was making sure its messaging stayed consistent on a daily basis. If the candidate was talking health care on a particular day, the ads in that market needed to reinforce the message, and local volunteers needed to be armed with information on the subject. Not coordinating the messaging "is a mistake a lot of organizations make," Plouffe said. The campaign also wanted to be everywhere—online, on the air and on the ground.
5. Traditional media is still king. The Obama brand's biggest challenge early on was a familiar one: It had very low awareness and wasn't in the consideration set for many voters. TV was the key to changing that. The Obama campaign has been praised for its online efforts, but TV still played a major role, Plouffe said, particularly in helping to introduce the candidate. The campaign made different use of the medium, however, most notably with the 90-minute infomercial it aired two weeks prior to the election. Even within its online efforts, its most important tools were fairly old school, particularly e-mail. The campaign also made extensive use of Web video. "I know it's fashionable to suggest TV advertising is less and less important," Plouffe said. "In our campaign, it played a critical role."
The presentation, hosted by DDB, got a rapturous reception from the international crowd. It remains to be seen if the Obama campaign is seen as groundbreaking enough to garner a Titanium Lion.

Bleeding shame:::hard-hitting road safety ad

“Rain changes everything. Drive to the conditions”

BRAND:Papakura District Council

CATEGORY:Government/Public Sector

REGION:New Zealand

DATE:Apr 2009 - May 2009

OTHER AGENCIES:Colenso BBDO

MEDIA CHANNEL

The rains after the summer in New Zealand can be torrential, and have been known to cause many road accidents. Drivers don’t adapt their driving styles to accommodate the wet weather and often don’t realise how compromised their breaking abilities are until it is too late.

After a weekend in which 15 people were killed on the roads, the Papakura District Council decided to act quickly to warn drivers to slow down in rainy conditions in an attempt to reduce the road death toll. It developed a roadside billboard which showed a young boy’s face. When it rained, sensors in the billboard triggered fake blood to flow down the boy’s face – from his nose, ears and eyebrows. The message on the billboard read: “Rain changes everything. Please drive to the conditions.”

There were no deaths on the road in Papakura during the Easter period

Local and national media picked up the story, helping motorists everywhere make the connection between the weather conditions and their driving habits. The end result for Papakura District Council was a zero-fatality Easter season

Credits

The Bleeding Billboard was developed at Colenso BBDO, Auckland, by executive creative director Nick Worthington, art director Emmanuel Bougneres, agency producer Paul Courtney, account director Scott Coldham, account manager Janelle Van Wonderen, photographer Steven Boniface, and produced by Greg Skinner at Rollercoaster Design.