2009 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

The campaign was the talk of the town and the headline news story of the day in print, radio and television. News spread quickly across the region about the initiative, achieving free PR coverage valued at over $300,000. It also proved a surprise hit on You Tube, exceeding 1,800 views in just three weeks. Financially, the “Pause for a Cause” initiative exceeded all expectation, by raising over AED 1.2 Million. The beauty of the chosen media was its ability to make people stop and take notice - to pause for a moment, to think and take action – which is what great advertising is all about.

Creative Execution

Our creative idea was to use people as the medium and the message. In an unprecedented event that grabbed the attention of even the most focused shoppers, 140 people stood silent and still – timelessly frozen - in Dubai’s busiest Shopping Mall during its busiest period in the week before Christmas. These people literally “Paused for a Cause”, operating as human billboards, carrying the sign, “Pause, Think & Choose”, echoing in-store point of sale communication and convincing people to reflect before shopping, and consider the impact their purchase decisions could have on those less fortunate than themselves.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

P&G’s “Create Heroes” campaign was an important and worthy initiative – using P&G brands to raise awareness of the region’s intellectually disabled inhabitants and to maximize consumer contributions to help them. Unfortunately, today’s consumers are so bombarded with charitable initiatives that many go unnoticed. We know consumers want to give back to society, but they have so much on their minds it becomes hard to reach them. Our objective was to break through the clutter. Given the challenges that faced us, we needed to do something out of the ordinary, something new and ambient to grab attention, generate curiosity and spark word of mouth to deliver a simple message and trigger consumer participation in our good cause. Simply put…. We needed people to Pause, Think and Choose P&G products when making their purchase decision at the supermarket; and to realize that by doing so – P&G would donate a % of the sale of the purchase and give directly to intellectually disabled individuals in the region.