2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Branded entertainment is allowed in Lebanon, and several TV shows such as The Voice foster people participation. While there are some restrictions on user content for TV, i.e. religious censorship, there are no legal restrictions to content communicated online.

Results

We’ve been working on Picon’s CSR campaign for a few years now; and it has evolved dramatically from where we started. We never wanted something traditional, and since our primary target were kids, we started by taking over numerous schools’ civic education course and integrating our own program. As the project evolved, the kids’ role in the program increased so we were able to engage them fully. This year, seeing that the country has been incredibly mismanaged by adults, we decided to give kids the chance to take matters into their own hands to make the country a better place. We launched the initiative through workshops that teach kids about Sustainable Development in general. We then encouraged the kids to come up with ideas to improve their regions; the ideas had to meet certain criteria, but most importantly, had to be sustainable. The kids submitted their ideas and a jury shortlisted the best ones, which were put online for a vote. Each region submitted a few ideas, and the winning idea per region was implemented. Our primary goal was to engage the kids, making them understand that they can they can truly make a difference, renewing their belief in a positive future for the country.

The audience was drawn to the content through the schools, where we created workshops to teach kids about sustainable development and how they can make a positive impact on their country. In these workshops, we allowed the kids to brainstorm on how they can solve the country’s problems. The best ideas that resulted from these workshops were put online for the public to vote for their favorite.

We chose the winning project per region to implement: • Beirut: the kids created the first and only bicycle lane in Lebanon • North: the kids built a park as they were lacking green spaces in that area • South: the kids inaugurated a bus line serving 15 previously isolated rural villages • Bekaa: the kids prepared and painted 140 recycling cans for schools and set up a recycling process in their area through the cans Once the projects were completed, we invited the kids to present their projects to the media, therefore gaining even more traction and exposure: The results were great: • 1,000 kids became brand ambassadors for the project • 50 schools participated • 3,000 people voted online • 4 big projects were done