2015 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

“Markaz” Kuwait’s leading investment bank presents an authentic story about trust. An epic journey where Kuwait’s famous sailors (known as the Sindbads of the sea), were entrusted with all of the life savings of the merchants, to trade them in the far away land. A most amazing ritual by the wives of the seamen conducted on shore parallels the journey, with the belief that this ritual will tame the open sea. No contracts were signed. It was just the word the sailor gave to the merchant. Nothing came between the sailor and his word, absolutely nothing. What can an investment Bank own better than the value of trust. This campaign aired in the month of Ramadan in Kuwait resulting in an unprecedented increase in share for “MARKAZ”, compared to a slow growth for many of the international Banks.

Creative Execution

Story of Trust wasn't just a big tag line for our film, it truly represented the working relationship between the Creative Agency, The Director and the Production Team, whom all had a shared vision of creating an epic film with a limited budget. There were two main elements in the Storyboard that truly challenged us, the historical old ship (Dhow) from the 1800s and creating the storm & visual effects. We've searched all over the world for this old ship, . We caught a brief lucky streak after learning that our ship was found in Dubai, however it wasn't a functional ship, it couldn't sail anywhere, it couldn't move at all from it's current position. We had the option of building a mock-up, and film it in a water tank, which was quite expensive for our limited budget. We finally made our decision to shoot the real ship in Dubai and create the storm and visuals with a mix of special effects and CGI. Filming in Dubai also has it's benefits of providing us with a genuine cast from the Persian Gulf, which adds immensely to our film. the budget was 270,000$