2014 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

Awareness of Astigmatism from 7% to 33% in only 5 weeks. . This was a remarkable achievement given the tiny budget of $40K that we had. Moreover, people’s intention of visiting an eye optician improved from 25% to 39%.* Alcon’s association with the problem increased from 0% to 6%. Our print experience helped reach 123,000 people and our Cinema experience engaged a total of 105,000 people in just 2 weeks ** The conversations that were generated delivered earned media value of $223,000 through social media posts, on-air mentions, TV coverage & PR. This was almost 6 times the paid investment.***

Creative Execution

We created two blurry experiences that stimulated conversations about astigmatism First we created a blurred movie trailer that confused movie-goers. Imagine waiting for a 3D movie but instead of a perfect image you see a blurred movie trailer. You are puzzled and wonder if this was a 3D trailer. As you put on your glasses you see the on-screen message about astigmatism Next, we ‘blurred’ the front page of UAE’s top newspaper Sports 360 with a message ‘Are your Daily Scores out of Focus’. Naturally, readers were confused wondering if there was something wrong with their eyesight. When they turned the newspaper, they saw the real front page of the newspaper with a message about Astigmatism. The executions sparked conversations about Astigmatism on social media. Experts and influencers from multiple spheres fueled conversation to further spread the word via television, radio and social media

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Astigmatism is an eye condition characterized by blurry vision. Nearly a million adults in UAE suffer from it but only 7% are actually aware of it! The truth is that people rarely get their eyes checked. We needed to overcome this consumer apathy but this wasn’t easy given our shoe-string budget of $40,000. As a leader in vision care, Alcon needed to raise awareness of this lesser known ailment and encourage people to get their eyes checked as well as build its association with the problem. What if instead of telling people, we could let people see what Astigmatism was like for themselves? We identified media channels where vision is critical to the enjoyment of the experience. Watching movies and Reading newspapers were two occasions when seeing things clearly really mattered. What if we could interrupt these routines to educate people about Astigmatism?