2013 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

International talent shows the likes of American Idol and America's Got Talent had become worldwide phenomena, amassing insane numbers of viewers and online followers. This was shortly followed by many local adaptations of such aforementioned shows. In the region popular shows such as Arabs Got Talent and Arab Idol were born to crowds of screaming fans. But such reality talent shows came at a ghastly price tag for any form of brand sponsorship or even advertising space. So when our creative idea came to be, we realised that there was an obvious opportunity for a brand to come and disrupt this craze and spoof it!

Results

Nokia's new phones are usually launched in the Lebanese market through an international campaign. The brief was to launch an online activation that positions the Nokia N9 as a fashionable phone through humorous and entertaining content. The Idea was to create a fake reality show in search for the most fashionable hands that are worthy to hold the Nokia N9 in our next project – a parody on shows such as American Idol and similar reality talent shows! The casting call first launched on the Nokia Lebanon Facebook page, and through a Facebook campaign people were invited to what sounded like a real casting call. But what contestants did not know was that it was a real casting call for a fake reality show! Over 500 people answered the casting call and passed before a jury of 3 celebrity local judges for 2 consecutive days at Le Gray Hotel in downtown Beirut. To most of the participants' surprise, the entire 2 day casting call was filmed live. And they felt as if there were on a real reality show from the moment they walked in front of the judges and into the spot light. But there was no let down! Our fake reality talent show had real prizes, of course. Any participant who would make he Trailer Edit was rewarded financial and asked to sign a release form. Then the judges and the director selected 8 of the best casting calls, and each of those contestants was rewarded with a brand new Nokia N9 We then released on our Facebook Tab the teaser trailer for the brand new fake reality talent show Nokia’s Next Hand Model! The trailer leads the viewers to Nokia’s Next Hand Model’s branded youtube channel – where they can view the best casting videos!

A casting call was launched on Facebook and Google network only through a simple banner campaign. Then a video trailer of for our fake reality show was released on the Nokia Lebanon page.

49,400 people came to the audition page which lead to around 500 people attending the 2 days audition. The best casting call videos were posted on Youtube with zero media investment, leading to over 5,000 views to date.