2013 Winners & Shortlists

TOUCH RE-LAUNCH

Short List
BrandTOUCH
Product/ServiceTOUCH
EntrantJWT BEIRUT, LEBANON
CategoryBEST USE OR INTEGRATION OF USER-GENERATED CONTENT
Entrant Company JWT BEIRUT, LEBANON
Contributing Company JWT BEIRUT, LEBANON

The Campaign

Lebanon ranks 101 in the world according to the press freedom index and the 91st in terms of economic freedom and 134 in transparency. The country is divided amongst 18 sects, which resulted in 15 years of civil war. Currently the government runs a strict censorship on all media including literary publications. Moreover, there's a regulating body that governs the Local TV stations so much so that one of the stations was closed down for over a decade due to the opinions of its journalists. All creative industries are affected by the government’s censorship; over the years many Lebanese productions (film, theatre, musicals...etc) were banned from showing in Lebanon as well as foreign productions. Even musicians face censorship and some of the artists/albums/songs are banned in Lebanon. Brands avoid controversy and stick to the guidelines the government has in place since all material are subject to censorship AFTER production. i.e the work sent to censorship has to be 100% identical to the work being published or they won’t grant you the “censorship code of authorization”.

Results

The campaign launched right before the weekend, after months of preparing the interactive site and loading its capabilities of instantly recording the videos on site, people woke up to morning shows asking them to call in and share with their fellow citizens how they imagine their world to be. Outdoors with simple messages, to cheat the censorship, called on people to log on to inmynewworld.com. the campaign carried no logo, and people assumed it’s social movement given the situation in the region and the escalating tension in the country. On the weekend video recording booths in direct sync with our website were installed to maximize our reach and attract all the Lebanese. #inmynewworld was launched along with web banners, emails, sms and ambient branding directing everyone to the site. Upon landing on the site a one-minute manifesto automatically plays explaining the movement and inviting people to make their 15 minutes of fame. The first TV ad, radio and print were created after 48hrs of receiving the consumer generated content. Every two days we released new material showcasing different people and tagging with our own message of change and promise to the Lebanese people. Many challenges faced us in implementing this campaign, we were not allowed to use public spaces, Lebanon ranks 186th in Internet speed in the world, we had to overcome this barrier. The censorship refused many of our edits that contained controversial messages but somehow they found their way online. Nevertheless, we managed to create a campaign created by the people for the people about change and a better world that they aspire to live in. more importantly they helped us create a better brand with renewed vigour

The Lebanese pride themselves as the first and only democratic country in the region but also know that it’s an incomplete democracy. The government's censorship, and the political parties territorial hegemony, frustrated the people and pushed them out of the country. Approximately 100,000 Lebanese migrate every year. When the campaign gave them the opportunity to voice their opinion, they embraced it, They felt they had a voice; they called the radio programs, recorded video messages, and uploaded their info without any fear from the government. They created campaigns and shared them online. They even addressed the ministers via #inmynewworld.

The campaign made international and local news, inmynewworld.com had over 50000 visits in less than 2 weeks with an average spent of 12 minutes/visit. Thousands of videos were uploaded, hours long of content was generated through recordings on radio stations, #inmynewworld trended in Lebanon and even politicians contributed. By the end of the campaign, Facebook fans increased by over 50% and the twitter followers increased by 60%. Touch left the competition trailing behind with 120,000 more subscribers.

Credits

Name Company Role
Jwt-Beirut Jwt-Beirut