2011 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

Tunis, January 14th 2011. Tunisians put an end to 23 years of brutal dictatorship. It was a moment of intense hope. But we were all too soon brought back to reality. The entire country went on strike and economic activity was soon left to a standstill. The advertising industry, like many others, was completely stuck. Brands were quite willing to advertise in order to kick-start the economy, but they were afraid of public perception. We needed to find a way to encourage the people to get back to work and start rebuilding the country we had all fought for.

Creative Execution

Tunisia’s post-revolutionary context needed political answers explaining the path to democracy and showing a clear roadmap towards free elections. But the transition government was unable to provide such guidelines and kept warning population on the many risks threatening the country, especially its economy. Therefore, not only couldn't they offer a projection of their political future to the people, but at the contrary the key messages that government sent to the public were all negative ones. The outcome was that people couldn't project themselves anymore and future had become uncertain. The campaign allowed people to look ahead and recover hope.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

So we decided to show everyone how bright our future could be if we all started building it now. We convinced 6 brands and 5 major Tunisian media of which 1 radio, 1TV, 2 newspapers and 1 online magazine to participate in the June 16th 2014 campaign. During a whole day, the media acted as if it were June 16th 2014 and presented Tunisia as a prosperous, modern and democratic country. To further engage people, we launched a hashtag on Twitter and 16juin2014.com, a website with all the content and where people could share their own vision of the future.

Results

The media content spread to social media via 16juin2014.com and people began to imagine wonderful futures and called everyone for action. #16juin2014 hashtag was n°1 top trend topic on Twitter all day long. At 6pm, the debate was everywhere on TV, radios, blogs… Getting back to work quickly became an act of resistance. The operation was covered by most Tunisian media and several international networks. As getting on with life had become a political act, people progressively got back to work the next day and the 6 brands recommenced traditional marketing. Others soon followed.