2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

In Qatar, despite all efforts to control the use and abuse of spaces allocated for disabled people, violations were still largely observed. The ACCESSIBLE QATAR initiative from Sasol, aim is to raise awareness and promote social acceptance and inclusion for the disabled, wanted to address this issue, and asked us to come up with a sustainable solution to prevent this disrespectful behavior. Our objective was to come up with an empowering solution that would change people’s behavior without using a punitive or reproaching perspective.

Creative Execution

In Qatar, despite governmental efforts and punitive approaches to controlling the use and abuse of handicapped spaces, violations were still observed and frequently committed by Qataris and Arab expats. We used Arabic calligraphy, highly relevant to our predominately Arabic audience, to redesign the disabled sign using impactful words as a call-to-action that reminded our target audience of the value of respect, creating a direct influence on people's attitude and inviting them to promptly change their behavior and make Qatar accessible for all.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

The new signs were implemented in the parking spaces and bathrooms of malls and business towers, in various public spaces across Qatar. The implementation started on the second week of January 2017, and the campaign grew bigger as new places were progressively added. Following on from the success of this campaign we’re currently lobbying key stakeholders within the government to implement this campaign throughout the whole country.

To change people's behavior, we had to come up with a solution that would shake people’s conscience, one that would make a sign that has become wallpaper for many stand out and become more meaningful again to our audience. We developed the ‘rewriting respect’ idea/campaign, where we’ve asked a renowned Qatari calligrapher to incorporate a message in the disabled sign, using impactful Arabic words that reminded people of the basics of respect. The disabled sign was reborn to address a powerful message to the abled bodied.