2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Branded entertainment is still a new concept in Kuwait. With a population of a little over a million, Kuwaitis tend to watch bigger regional networks that they prefer to local stations. It's extremely difficult to reach them on those stations, as the spillover is huge. The best opportunity to reach a wide audience is through social media platforms, which enjoy incredibly popularity throughout the country. But that’s only if the content is good enough to get people’s attention. And nothing does that better in Kuwait than music.

Results

This project had one main challenge from its inception: How do we create a piece of entertainment for Kuwaiti National Day without using cliché elements like landmarks, national dress, and nationalistic music and still remain authentic? This project had to move people, uplift them, and show them the bigger picture. Kuwaitis have been brainwashed with so much bad news on social media that they struggle to see the good things that are right in front of them. Zain, as Kuwait’s original telecom operator, has a close connection to the country and a vested interest in improving people’s attitudes about it during a time when Kuwaitis are definitely paying attention: National Day. So we got the one group that appreciates Kuwait the most, young people who are living abroad and miss it, to share their messages. We took the Kuwaiti expats’ messages and collaborated with one of Kuwait's best lyricists and composers to put together a song that expresses why people in Kuwait should be thankful that they are living in such a nice place. We then found 29 Kuwaiti's that are really living abroad (on four continents) and had them star in the film we shot using their real foreign locations.

Kuwait always celebrates National Day the same way: Dress up in national clothes, wave the flag, play national songs. It’s authentic, but boring. Especially to Kuwait's youth which represent more than 70% of the population. The film wasn’t shot in Kuwait, the song was not purely Kuwaiti, and the cast didn’t dress in national clothes. Instead, it was shot abroad on 4 continents, the song was a fusion, and the cast dressed in their normal attire. All these factors contributed to the film being shared across Twitter and WhatApp to people’s closest contacts.

Twitter and WhatsApp were on fire. In less than 24 hours the video had more than 100,000 views and its hashtag was one of the 10 most trending on Twitter. Which is impressive for a film made for a population of a little over a million. The film even had a reach of more than a million and close to 2 million impressions. Best of all, however, people were not only sharing the film, but also talking about the small things the love in Kuwait that they overlooked.