2012 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

Our client, the Brand Protection Group (BPG) asked us to create an anti-counterfeit awareness campaign. We wanted March 15, the International Counterfeit Day, to be the climax of our campaign, so we decided to carry out the biggest social media stunt in the history of the Middle East. We wanted to unconventionally use Facebook to directly target selected 250 influencers, bloggers and journalists who would help spread awareness.

Creative Execution

The best way to demonstrate the danger and inconvenience of counterfeiting is to give people a direct taste of it. Knowing that Facebook in Lebanon is the number 1 social network, and building on the idea “the closest things to you can be fake”, what would be closer to you on social media than your own Facebook profile? By targeting these key influencers, we turned our victims into ambassadors as they helped us spread our message online.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

On International Counterfeit Day, the Lebanese social media scene was shaken by a disturbing reality when 250 influencers were impersonated on Facebook. We created fake profiles using our victims’ real profile pictures and very similar names. When the victims received friend requests from their impostors, panic struck the social media scene. Within 24 hours, all our victims had asked their friends to report the fake profiles as news of the issue spread. We then sent a personalized message to the targeted individuals, explaining the campaign and offering them an exclusive media kit. Our Facebook stunt online coverage reached more than 40,000.

Results

Without a budget, our Facebook stunt technically reached 250 major influencers, but subsequent coverage reached more than 40,000. Our prank had turned our victims into ambassadors; all were excited to start a conversation on counterfeit, helping us reach 80% of the Lebanese blogosphere. It has now even reached the Middle East’s leading university, The American University of Beirut, where it’s being used in class as a successful case study on the creatively effective use of social media.