2018 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

The main idea behind the campaign came from the insight that each member of our society has a role to play to ensure children’s access to education. The TVC, Prints, Radio, PR, activation and online communication positioned the key stakeholders in Education as the main catalyst for the children's enrollment in schools, positioning the mother, father, student, bus driver etc. as the School Heroes. Our main element of the campaign was the School Heroes cape. An on-ground social experiment was also set up. The pop-up school was created in one of Beirut's busiest districts. Upon activating its seat sensors, the child’s journey to school was played on the screen. If anyone chooses to leave the class, the journey of the child will be paused waiting for the next sensor to be reactivated for the journey to continue and eventually for the child to reach the school.

Creative Execution

One month prior to launching the ATL campaign, a social experiment in the form of pop-up school was set up one of Beirut's busiest districts. Upon activating its sensors, the child’s journey to school was played on the screen. If anyone leaves the class, the journey of the child would be paused waiting for the next sensor to be activated so that the child's journey to school would be complete. This experiment went online, followed by the full-fledged campaign comprised of TVC, radio, print, OOH, PR, on-ground, BTL, etc. The period of the campaign was for 2 months, launched on the main media channels, online and offline.

A 14% increase in enrollment of non-Lebanese compared to last year. A 2.8% increase in enrollment of Lebanese children compared to last year. PR Value= $1,522,998. National Launch Press conference was attended by 24 editors representing the local media scene and including prime time news channels. It was even attended by Regional News stations such as BBC Arabic. Conference was covered on all national TV stations during 8 PM news bulletin on same night and news made the headlines the next day in all newspapers and news portals websites. The social experiment video went viral and became the talk of the town preparing the ground for an impressive campaign to be launched. The campaign achieved a total number of 98 placements dominating the entire media scene through news reports, TV shows and prime time talk shows, reaching out to more than 8,585,450 people.

The “School Heroes” campaign was a fully integrated campaign including advertising, public relations, social media, and activation. While it pays tribute to all the inspiring individuals who push through every challenge to prioritize education, its main objective was to spread awareness around the importance of education and reinforce the message that each member of society has a role to play to ensure children’s access to education.

After 2 years of successful back to school campaigns, came the 3rd year where we had to ensure a higher enrolment and retention at schools, so we created hype around the issue again and we wanted our messages to unfold amongst our key stakeholders i.e. Parents and caregivers/ officials/ schools/ donors and the media. So we divided our strategy into 3 folds: 1- The Hype 2- The Recruitment 3- The Retention During the first phase, we utilized the social platform through a social experiment where it was picked up by all social channels and PR. Once we established the hype through the social experiment, we launched our campaign via the main ATL and BTL channels, and then we maintained through a series of activities on-ground in schools. All the media mix was integrated through the same message, empowering everyday stakeholder to be members of the "School Heroes ".