2013 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

The response was overwhelmingly positive. Within a few hours people where gathering themselves around our wall. Filling up the wall with messages of peace, understanding and tolerance, the media closely covered the entire event and spread a much needed positive message in a clutter of doom and gloom headlines. A total of 1,322 messages where written down with the best ones being shared on Instagram and Facebook, with our top posts getting 2,806; 1640 and 2187 “likes” as well as hundreds of shares and comments. Furthermore, we brought Muslims and non-Muslims together in one physical space, which generated real human interaction and helped bring down walls of misconception.

Creative Execution

With such a sensitive topic we didn’t want to add more fuel to the fire. As a result we kept our creative solution simple, straightforward and honest. We took over a wall (36 x 4 meters) at one of Doha’s busiest malls and asked people to write down their thoughts on the whole situation. We initially drove people to the activation by starting the conversation with our print and social media communication. By driving people to one location we generated real face time that forced people to interact with one another and initiate conversation that would help people better understand each other and go beyond what was being portrayed by the media.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Post the outrage that stemmed from the “Innocence of Muslims” trailer, the media seemed to focus solely on the violence which ensued. The small majority of Muslims, which were causing the havoc across the world, were once again ill representing the majority of Muslims. With an undefined brand communication objective, our intention was to generate a peaceful dialogue, which could bridge the gap and misconceptions between Muslims and non-Muslims, as well as let the tolerant Muslims own the dialogue and not the enraged few. Needless to say, we were talking to both Muslims and non-Muslims living in Qatar with the intention of bringing them together in one location, as only real face time can break down the walls of prejudice. In other words, we knew an online conversation wouldn’t be enough. As a telecom operator we had the responsibility to do so; as our main objective is to strengthen the ties between people for more cohesive society.