2015 Winners & Shortlists

NOT A BUG SPLAT

Short List
BrandREPRIEVE / FOUNDATION FOR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
Product/ServiceDRONE STRIKES COLLATERAL DAMAGE AWARENESS
EntrantBBDO PAKISTAN Lahore, PAKISTAN
CategoryUse of Social or Community
Entrant Company BBDO PAKISTAN Lahore, PAKISTAN
Advertising Agency BBDO PAKISTAN Lahore, PAKISTAN
Production Company BRAVE NEW FILMS Culver City, USA

Creative Execution

Once the poster was installed, we photographed it using an actual drone and through a PR push, released the image through the local news media’s online pages along with a simple hashtag that delivered our message: #NotABugSplat. This was further complemented by an informational website and a video that was released on several influencers' Facebook, Twitter and blog pages. Social media was highly instrumental in making the campaign successful.

We went viral overnight. In under two months, 104 million impressions in global news coverage - with 11 million impressions on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - helped us gain $2,000,000+ in earned media. The campaign was tweeted about by Pakistan's National Assembly members, and dozens of influencers. Rights activists globally from peacemakers in Yemen all the way to the USA have now picked up the campaign. Most importantly, we reached our primary target: a recent official US Government Accountability report indicates that negative publicity is now affecting pilot morale.

Drone strikes in Pakistan have killed an estimated 3500+ people, a disturbing percentage of which have been innocent civilians, including more than 200 children. The Foundation for Fundamental Rights has been working to raise awareness of this crisis, but protests in Pakistan go unnoticed globally. Our task was twofold: to create something that would be noticed, especially by the drone operators themselves. And that it would be spread far and wide through an online platform, creating pressure on policy makers. Humans look like tiny bugs as captured by a distant drone camera, which is why operators call casualties "bug splats." We printed a large-scale portrait of an affected child and laid it out in heavily-bombed NW Pakistan - at a size that would be captured by drone cameras and transmitted directly to a remote pilot's screen, thereby engaging them in direct visual dialogue with a human being, and not a "bug".

Credits

Name Company Role
Assam Khalid BBDO Pakistan Planning Director
Ali Rez BBDO Pakistan Creative Director/Concept
Aamir Allibhoy BBDO Pakistan General Manager
Saks Afridi Artist
Akash Goel Coordinator
Insiya Syed Insiya Syed Photography Photographer
J R Photographer/Artist
Jamil Akhtar Photographer
Imran Arif Khan Photographer
Noor Behram Photographer
Sana Nasir Illustrator
Farooq Niaz Producer
Qasim Nagori 18% Grey Photography Retoucher
Ovais Suhail Producer
Zeeshan Parwez Zeepar Editor
Faisal Durrani BBDO Pakistan Deputy General Manager
Sohaib Zahid Umar BBDO Pakistan Planning Manager
Ali Rez BBDO Pakistan Art Director
Aurangzaib Zafar Beyond Border Editor
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