2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Samsung's note series is equipped with an Arabic hand recognition feature, making it easier for Arabs to use technology using their mother language. Although the Arabic language is one of the most expressive languages in the world and its rich vocabulary had a major role in propelling civilization to what it is now, it has not been used the way it should in technology. Fortunately due to our ongoing appreciation and love for calligraphy, the Arabic language has been preserved till this day and his been acknowledged by a day from the UNESCO- "The International Arabic Language Day". However this day has not be recognized, and the Arabic language use online and throughout social media platforms is very limited. Unfortunately, this gave birth to what’s called now “Arabeezi” or Franco-Arabic, a mixture of English/French and Arabic. What’s alarming is that if this trend continues the Arabic language might cease to exist one day.

Results

We had several challenges to encounter: - Minimize the gap between technology and the Arabic language by encouraging people to use the Arabic letters primarily on social media platforms (hence promote the hand recognition feature by the note series subliminally). - Encourage Arabeezi users to start using Arabic letters on social media platforms and hence increase Arabic online content. Our main goal was to reinstall Arabic language pride and enrich Arabic online content by: - Capitalizing on the Arabic Language Day (18th November) and making it a recognized day by Arabs in the region - Encouraging people to use Arabic letters on Social Media platforms, inorder to increase online Arabic content The campaign aimed at engaging as many people as possible, while making sure that people used Arabic letters to write in Arabic and not Arabeezi. we measured the activation interms of: - reach - number of posts - engagements on posts We decided to launch our event بكتب_بالعربي# 10 days prior to the Arabic language day (December 18th) capitalizing on this in order to create viral effect among the Arabic speaking world. We started with a radio ads, featuring key media influencers inviting people to revive the Arabic language online and to join us under # بكتب_بالعربي. We supported our radio spots through viral interviews with influential people , who adopted the cause. On ground, Samsung promoters roamed through malls equipped with an application allowing people to write in Arabic and share whatever they’ve written online. We placed digital outdoor screens in the busiest part of Amman, where people started reading the online posts and where invited to contribute to the hashtag in Arabic. Numerous social media influencers received a unique invitation to participate in our initiative, the Ctrl-Alt keyboard buttons (universal language switch keys)

We created: - a facebook event inviting people to join and celebrate the Arabic language on the 18th of Dec using the #بكتب_بالعربي - trendy designs of the 28 alphabets of the Arabic language - a series of videos of media influencers inviting and encouraging people to the event - a series of radio spots - a collection of pins, frames, coasters and bracelets - invitation cards with a "ctl alt" keys on ((particularly for bloggers)

On the 18th of December, the # was used in Arabic sentences more than 25,000 times. Our messaged reached 177 million out of 422 million Arabic speakers. The average use of our hashtag was 25 tweets per hour in Arabic. The hashtag scored 821’104’000 impressions (that is close to 1 Billion). The effect was so massive that we were featured in the news. Almost every local radio station, newspaper and online news portal mentioned our hashtag, also inviting people to write in Arabic. We were mentioned in some international TV stations. Our hashtag was one of the most trending in the Arab world. The initiative and the hashtag where adopted by brands, posting and retweeting it on their social media pages, (McDonalds, Nescafe, Red Bull, Orange telecom, Zain telecom, Umniyah telecom, Wataniyah telecom, Dubai airport, Fine tissues, Le Meridian hotel, Invest bank, Royal Jordanian, Al-Maktoum, eKitab, Ipsos stats, Rotana, etc). The cherry on top; the Jordanian royal family, acknowledged the initiative and hashtag and went out of their way to support on their personal social media pages. Our movement gave birth to 122,000 online posts written in Arabic, and reminded 177 million people of the beauty of our language