2012 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Aliqtisadi business biweekly, announced the title “Person of the Year” goes to the Syrian Citizen, whose hard work, commitment, and perseverance kept the country alive through what’s thought to be the most difficult year in the history of modern Syria, honoring every Syrian citizen regardless of their political orientation. Aliqtisadi’s cover featured an actual mirror that reflects the image of the reader as they held the magazine and looked at it. Written under the mirror was: “You are our Person of the Year 2011… and every Syrian Citizen.” Aliqtisadi initiated and spread a contagious social media engagement campaign, where people changed their profile pictures on Facebook to photos of the cover while they were looking into the mirror. And within the next weeks, many Syrians from different professional backgrounds took photos of them on the cover and posted the photo on social networks. A video of the participants we were aware of, will be uploaded on YouTube to thank them, on February 4. The campaign was a huge success for the magazine in uniting Syrians, and further establishing its brand name, and the red brand of Aliqtisadi as a household name for all Syrians.

The Brief

- The goal of the campaign was to unite Syrians in a way and increase their feel of citizenship, that needed a boost during these difficult times. - This is part of the mission of the magazine, as a national publication that promotes itself as the Magazine of Every Syrian. - The target audience was Syrian readers, mainly youth in the business field, which we know to be 70% of our subscribers.

Results

- Increased subscriptions by over 15% during the same period in 2010, which is an excellent rate based on the country's economic crisis. - Increased Likes on Facebook for the page of over 447 during one month of the campaign (and still counting during the time of submission of this application). Currently, Aliqtisadi has 2261 Likes on Facebook. - Increased Twitter followers by 200 during one month of the campaign (and still counting during the time of submission of this application). - Improved the image of the magazine as being as a national medium that united Syrians under the crisis.

Execution

We acquired a couple tens of issues from the print house once they were ready, and started contacting participants to be photographed in the campaign. On the day the issue was out, at 11 a.m. all of them changed their profile pictures on Facebook to their photo looking in the mirror. Same day, our team started getting feedback about the campaign, and replying to everyone who wanted his/her photo taken. A couple of hours after, the press release was run by several media across Syria, and the team had to work over time to follow up on all requests and inquiries. Till the end of January, our team was simply following up on photos, adding the ones we knew of to the album on Facebook and tagging people. On February 2, a Thank-you video will be on YouTube thanking everyone for participating in the campaign.

The Situation

Syria has suffered the toughest crises in its modern history. Members of the same family were separated by their political views of the causes and the solution. We noticed they were united under their bearing of the toughness of the economic crisis. Seeing that the Syrian citizen dealt with the crisis in the most patient and caring way towards his/her country and other Syrians; no panic selling, or greedy buying, no greedy profits, no massive layoffs, etc. That’s why we decided that the most influential person this year was every Syrian citizen, not any business person, nor any government official.

The Strategy

Once the editorial board decided to pick the Person of the Year as the Syrian citizen: - Worked on the design of the cover - Prepared the editorial piece to be published in the magazine - Prepared the press release to be distributed and the production of the mirrors and taping them to the cover. - We then worked on the plan to engage people in social networks: This was done by our team sending copies to various people, and contacting them to see how they like to be photographed. - After that our team was prepared to cater any request from people to get a photograph of his/her reflection in the mirror in different cities. - Team ready to follow the campaign on Facebook. - Wait for the campaign to end to prepare a video to thank everyone who participated in the campaign.