2015 Winners & Shortlists

Creative Execution

We dug deeper into people’s everyday behaviors to identify the different excuses that stopped them from running. We created character illustrations that embodied our future runners and their excuses. The offline campaign was supported by online posts and 'excuse generator banners' that revealed the different excuse characters whom people could relate to with a closing message to ‘Stop looking for excuses and run the Ooredoo Marathon’. All channels lead people to the Marathon microsite, which became people’s home to get acquainted with the character stories, learn different tips to prepare themselves physically and psychologically to win over their excuses, and eventually register for the marathon.

• Local TV channels, publications and social media bloggers adopted our cause/campaign. • People used our characters on their social media profiles. • Over 125,000 people visited the microsite (20% of the population), with average time spent 3m20s. • Registrations increased by 255% compared to previous year. • Over 24 million social media impressions. • $650,000 in earned media. • Over $200,000 in registration fees went to charity (one of the top fund raising events in Qatar). • At the event, people shared thousands of messages on social media expressing how they overcame their excuses.

Ooredoo (the leading telecom operator in Qatar) is organizing the Ooredoo Marathon for the third year. But latest official studies show that around 80% of people in Qatar don't involve in any sort of physical activity. This has resulted in bad implication on the overall health of the majority of people. When we asked them "why aren't you having an active lifestyle?", everyone gave different excuses. In fact, they were just justifying to themselves the non-active lifestyle. If people don’t do simple workouts, how can we make them run a MARATHON! We tapped into a simple human insight that when it comes to running a marathon, the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, it’s the opponent who constantly finds the right excuses for you to stay comfy in your unhealthy routine lifestyle. It was time to "Challenge yourself" and “Win over you”.