2014 Winners & Shortlists

SAPNA

BrandSMARTLIFE FOUNDATION
Product/ServiceSMARTLIFE FOUNDATION'S SAPNA FUND
EntrantFP7/DXB Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Entrant Company FP7/DXB Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Advertising Agency FP7/DXB Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The Campaign

There are over a million blue-collar workers in UAE, building its dreams and those of its people, brick by brick, nail by nail, while silently holding their own dreams of giving their children a quality education and hence, a better life. But we discovered that even though some workers hammer in over 200,000 nails/month, their monthly salaries (as low as 200-300 USD) might never be enough. SmartLife Foundation (an NGO for UAE’s blue-collar workers) wanted to help. So, we created SAPNA (Dream) - a canvas on a wooden wall that was placed on a prominent street, during the Dubai Shopping Festival. We invited people to buy a nail for a minimum of 10 AED (~$2.7) and hammer it onto designated markers on the wall, enabling them to feel a fraction of the workers’ efforts and give back. Each nail brought their dreams closer to life.

Success of the Campaign

For an absolute $0 cost (production, location, media, volunteers - pro bono), the SAPNA wall became the first crowd-sourced nail art piece for charity, attracting over 55 different nationalities, popular Arab celebrities, popular local influencers from UAE and Dubai Shopping Festival entertainers. Everyone participated in doing a little labour themselves. #sapnadubai became a popular trending topic across social platforms and people's shared photographs which gave us over a 100,000 free social ads combined with the unexpected coverage across TV, Print and Radio, have generated an earned (free) media value of over $400,000 and rising. And in just 9 days, all 17,793 nails were bought, giving 20 blue-collar workers’ children a quality education all the way up to graduation; something their parents had only dreamt about. Because of this success, the SAPNA wall will travel across the region building more dreams, one nail at a time.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

During the week prior to launch, we created a Facebook event to invite people. We also shared the blue-collar workers' emotional stories as digital films to SmartLife's B2B partners. On launch day, we set up the SAPNA wall on a prominent street in Dubai, during the Dubai Shopping Festival - a festive time that attracts huge crowds. We created #sapnadubai to increase WOM And shared the hashtag with people at the wall to tag along with the photographs they had taken that they would share on their social media profiles. The SAPNA wall continued to become more famous as it was unexpectedly featured on leading Radio (Virgin Radio, Radio Mirchi), Print (Khaleej Times' City Times) and TV (Dubai One) channels. As the wall filled up the dream came to life, with all the nails forming the image of a child being gifted a graduation hat.

Credits

Name Company Role
Tahaab Rais FP7/DXB Head Of Insights And Strategy
Paul Banham FP7/DXB Executive Creative Director
Josephine Younes FP7/DXB Associate Creative Director
Nayaab Rais FP7/DXB Associate Creative Director
Paul Banham/Josephine Younes/Nayaab Rais FP7/DXB Art Director
Paul Banham/Nayaab Rais/Tahaab Rais/Josephine Younes FP7/DXB Copywriter
Vicky Kriplani FP7/DXB Account Director
Sameer Islam FP7/DXB Strategic Planner
Asitha Hb FP7/DXB Pointillist Artist/Illustrator
Khaled Hamza FP7/DXB Creative Services Manager
Sreenivasan Kuniyil FP7/DXB Assistant Production Manager
Ashraf Muhammadunny/Aurangzaib Zafar FP7/DXB Motion Artist And Editor
Dolly Saidy/Mario Atallah/Karol Akl MINT MENA Agency Producer
Arun Kumar Krishnan MCN Regional It Director
Yasmin Ahmed General Manager Smartlife Foundation
Rex Prakash Secretary Smartlife Foundation
Spiro Malak FP7/DXB Business Unit Director
Sherif Ghanem UM Associate Director Of Strategy
Navid Hussain UM Media Operations Supervisor