2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

To remind people of the sanctity of the Holy Month of Ramadan, we created Digital Fasting, incorporating technology into the list of behaviours that Muslims are asked to abstain from during sunlight hours in this month.

Creative Execution

We found a volunteer – not an influencer but a busy social media character – to attempt Digital Fasting for the month. We policed and documented online this attempt, careful to record the struggle, the acceptance and the ultimate enlightenment that the process initiated. Our volunteer was able to go online after sunset to share his thoughts and receive the thoughts of those who were following him, which ranged from those inspired enough to follow his example, those who tried it out for an hour or so every day and those who were spiritually humbled by the idea, but felt unable to do without technology.

A documentary of the entire experiment has been created for broadcast television, so that that the new lessons learnt in self-restraint, and their rewards, will not be lost in the years to come. Many influencers came onboard to support the initiative. -Overall Media Impressions: 40.400.000 -Social Impressions: 23.329.665 -Social Engagement (actions): 2.930.992 -Total Social Media Reach: 17.636.551 -Total Social Media Views: 5.015.294 -Earned media worth more than $500 k -4 broadcast interviews – 24 Articles -887,026 OTS (OTS: Print Circulation figures X 4 = Media Reach. Please note online, social, and broadcast impression is not included into this)

The campaign created a communication ecosystem for the public by allowing them to not just follow this experiment through webisodes, but to understand its importance through PR and to participate through social media. It needed to feed on the communities hunger for online consumption.

As If data consumption wasn’t already the third highest in the world for the rest of the year, it spikes during Ramadan. Yet the community, young and old, are devout in their faith and practice fasting with great discipline. To remove the use of communication technology, particularly the social media Channel, represents a whole new test of faith, yet is true to the tradion of Ramadan. There may be physical resistance to the idea, but the devout heart cannot help but embrace it.