2014 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

Ramadan is a month that used to bring families/people closer together. But with the rise of technology, people have actually gotten further apart. The spirit of Ramadan that brought everyone closer was lost; here our brand embraced a challenge… We wanted to make today's generation feel the true essence of Ramadan, in hope to unite them under one motive: BRINGING BACK TODAY THE RAMADAN SPIRIT OF YESTERDAY. We decided to use the same thing that took people apart to get them back together…. Technology! Using the latest CGI face replacement technique, we recreated legendary Ramadan entertainers to revisit Ramadan in 2013! We brought back the two original Boogie and TamTam puppets, Nelly the Queen of all Riddles, Fatoota, and the biggest surprise of all was Uncle Fouad the Godfather of all Arab comedians deceased 2006. To complement our film, we covered the country with imagery of these Ramadan stars. Our followers further engaged with the celebrities online (www.yallaramdanmasr.com), on-ground and through TV daily-riddles for a charitable cause of bringing joy to orphaned children. Our message reached everyone, everywhere. This marks our most successful Ramadan campaign.

Creative Execution

Hassan El Shafei composed an original score for the Pepsi Ramadan ad seamlessly blending classical orchestra with oriental music. The orchestra reflects the nostalgic emotional journey that our main character goes through in this morality tale. The idea was to trigger desired nostalgic emotions from our audience. The blended in oriental music captures the essence of Ramadan. A combination of vocals and string instruments, like the piano, were used to compose this score. However, the key instrument is the “Nay”, also known as an oriental flute. El Shafei used his own voice for the vocals and later used digital programs to adjust the tone of the vocals. The use of technology plays a major role in the making of this ad, as is evident in the use of CGI to bring our celebrities to life, and the programing of notes in the musical score. In fact, the entire orchestra, with the exception of the piano, was created digitally using nothing but prearranged notes. We intentionally briefed our composer six weeks before filming began, so that the music would stay true to the message of our ad. This proved to be a good choice, as the musical score was ready a mere days before our airdate. The biggest challenge was to integrate the “Nay” (oriental flute) into classical music without sounding out of place. The end result translated all the themes and emotional responses needed for our ad. After the release of the ad, the musical score proved to be a huge hit receiving over 44,000 plays on SoundCloud.