2015 Winners & Shortlists

PROJECT AKSHAR (ALPHABETS)

Silver
BrandSMARTLIFE
Product/ServiceGET SMART PROGRAM
EntrantFP7/DXB Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
CategoryUse or integration of printed content
Entrant Company FP7/DXB Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Contributing Company FP7/DXB Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Media Agency UM MENA Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Production Company MINT MENA Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The Campaign

The Middle East has often been characterized by highly centralized power that favors the wealthy and powerful. With the region also characterized by the failure of governments, political instability and poor quality of life for a considerable majority, Community Social Responsibility becomes all the more important for the brands to build emotional affinity with people. Community Social Responsibility is today’s Corporate Social Responsibility. A brand doing something good for their community is one of the key drivers to win people’s share of hearts and minds, especially given the prevalent environment. As a result, a lot of brands in the region have become more conscious about how they are perceived as enablers of community and social goodness and how they make a real positive difference. And they have engaged more actively in CSR programs to improve their community goodwill. But unlike bigger brands and bigger NGOs, newer and relatively smaller NGOs do not have budgets to increase the awareness for the causes they support, nor to create a widespread difference for the causes they endorse. And they have no branded content to make their brand and their cause more talked about.

Results

In Dubai, learning English will help its many labourers get better jobs and salaries. But with average monthly salaries of $220, and a hard life of 12-hour work shifts, they neither have the money nor time to educate themselves. SmartLife, an NGO for Dubai's labourers, wanted to help them improve their status and quality of life. We created Project Akshar (Alphabets), where we set out to graduate Dubai's labourers from blue collar to white collar for $0. We first launched free English classes. And to encourage labourers to register and enroll, we first needed to show them how easy it is to learn English. So, using effective visual learning techniques, we took words that are useful to them, wrote their English phonetic pronounciations in the Hindi script, and combined them with their visual representation, to create words that teach them English through their own language. We then placed hundreds of words like these, designed to look like school notepads, across their daily journey, across Dubai. And we gave them a number at the back for registrations. We turned Dubai into a blackboard for them. Labour camps became Educational camps. Transport buses became School buses. Construction sites became Learning sites. Mundane routines became Inspiring journeys. We extended their learning across channels by creating: Learning flashcards, an Interactive karaoke song, Print ads in vernacular media, Bus shelter ads around labour camps. They picked up English words across all touch points. Each word brought them closer to learning the English language. In the spirit of free English classes, we shared a number they could give a missed call on and SmartLife called them back to enroll them. We created a special edition book to generate funds for the project. And a social media app triggered contributions of new words for the project.

Using effective visual learning techniques, we took words that are useful to labourers, wrote their English phonetic pronounciations in the Hindi script, and combined them with their visual representation, to create words that teach them English through their own language. We then placed hundreds of words like these, designed to look like school notepads, across their daily journey, across Dubai. And we gave them a number at the back for registrations. We turned Dubai into a blackboard for them. Labour camps became Educational camps. Transport buses became School buses. Construction sites became Learning sites. Mundane routines became Inspiring journeys.

Project Akshar (Alphabets) is transforming their lives of labour into lives of learning: (1) 4000+ students have graduated thus far in the 12 months of the project. (2) 28% have cleared job interviews for white-collar jobs. (3) 12% launched businesses back home. (4) 23% got promoted to white-collar jobs, from their existing blue-collar job in the same companies. (5) 37% got higher salaries; including certain workers graduating from 800 AED ($ ) per month to 8000 AED ($) per month in just 12 months. (6) Project Akshar (Alphabets) has also been invited to be a part of the Dubai Government’s ‘Happy Dubai’ initiative. (7) All costs were pro bono ($0) courtesy our partners. (8) SmartLife generated unprecedented earned media for its brand worth $230,000 across TV, Press, Radio and Social Media. Among many others, we were endorsed by Timeout, Dubai One, The National, Gulf News, XPRESS, Expatwoman.com, Dubai Municipality, Emirates 24/7, GEMS Winchester School, City 7, Dubai Media Inc, Manorama News, Manoramaonline.com, Khaleej Times, Gulf Madhyam daily.

Credits

Name Company Role
Tahaab Rais FP7/DXB Head Of Strategic Planning And Insights
Paul Banham FP7 DXB Executive Creative Director
Josephine Younes FP7/DXB Associate Creative Director
Nayaab Rais FP7/DXB Associate Creative Director
Josephine Younes FP7/DXB Art Director
Nayaab Rais FP7/DXB Copywriter
Tahaab Rais FP7/DXB Creative Strategy
Vicky Kriplani FP7/DXB Account Director And Channel Concepts
Lokesh Karekar Visual Artist
Sameer Ketkar FP7/DXB Senior Designer
Erol Salcinovic FP7/DXB Design Director
Khaled Hamza FP7/DXB Head Of Creative Services
Kashif Ahmed/Amit Borawake FP7/DXB Studio Artist/Retouch Artist
Pankaj Nainwal/Kim Anandani FP7/DXB Senior Technical Lead/Digital Designer
Dolly Saidy/Mario Atallah MINT MENA Production Consultant/Senior Agency Producer
Ashraf Mohammedunny Dop/Cameraman/Editor/Motion Artist
Jihad Sibai UM DUBAI Business Director
Mohammad Hajjar W/Studio Photographer
Rafeeq Kaniyankandi/Saleem Kuniyil W/Studio Assistants
Aurangzaib Zafar FP7/DXB Editor