2016 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

To tackle prejudice we proposed something very simple: get six strangers to sit around a table during Ramadan, and talk. The only difference being that it would be done in the dark. From the moment conversation started, each person immediately painted a picture in their mind of what the other might look like. Later, we turned on the lights and to each person’s amazement they realised that the people around the table didn’t look how they’d expected. They’d discovered just how much prejudice can affect perception and that in order to see people in a new light sometimes the best solution, was to turn it off.

Creative Execution

Imagine you had to find 6 non-actors for a film project. All of them need to visually appear the opposite of what their passions suggest they look like (think accountant type person who plays in a heavy metal band or a paraplegic who skydives or a TED talk speaker who is covered in tattoos). These people can’t know each other and some should already have a big social following online because the client wants the film to spread easily. Imagine telling them to be available on the equivalent of Christmas Day, for a film you can’t disclose and a client you can’t reveal. Imagine lighting a room with infrared light because it needs to be 100% dark, and filming the live action from various angles in one take because the story is unscripted. Then make sure that these 6 strangers open up to each other within minutes of meeting (in complete darkness of course). Then edit the film in one day to be live the next so that a week later 18 million people will have seen it and the world will have talked about it.