2016 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

The tension between Kurds and Arabs has affected many parts of the country’s operations; even television stations, radio and other media channels are affected. Truth of the matter is, no Kurdish content is aired on Arab stations, nor Arab content on Kurdish stations. To break the media “borders” we insisted to have our material aired in spite of the fact that it had both Arabic and Kurdish content in one edit. We managed to have one song that both can enjoy and relate to. For the first time Arabic was sung on Kurdish stations and Kurdish on Arab stations.

Results and Effectiveness

Online, our campaign reached over 14 million Iraqis from both communities of which almost 500,000 positively reacted, commented and shared. What is even more remarkable for an Iraqi campaign is that we managed to equally reach both communities; 41% of Kurds (2,545,177 out of 6,500,00) as well as 31% of Arabs (11,152.800 out of 33,400,000). The emotional and entertainment value of our content also increased the performance of the Asiacell playlist on Anghami (regional leading music streaming platform) with almost 3 million stream, 44% more than competitors' playlists with an average time of 40 minutes spent on our playlist.

Creative Execution

Various media channels were exploited to ensure the message of unity reached every Arab and Kurd. It was important that both communities be equally communicated to to further push the key message that was being promoted by the campaign. Therefore we resorted to traditional, non traditional and online channels creating a full journey for people. Furthermore, media was used to get people involved in the development of the campaign whereby they contributed to the lyrics. Therefore it was a two way channel that people were part of ensuring they embraced the core message as their own.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The campaign targeted Kurds and Arabs in Iraq at large. It was aimed at Iraqis who identified themselves based on their ethnical identity instead of their national one as Iraqis. We wanted existing client to be proud to belong to an operator that embraced all Iraqis and for potential customers to want to be part of an operator that believed in a higher cause and unity; and acted upon it.