2019 Winners & Shortlists

Background.

Alfa, 1 of the 2 government-owned Telcos in Lebanon, has been pioneering digital transformation across the country, championing UN SDG 9 related to industry, innovation and infrastructure among others. Alfa have also been committed to bringing real and positive change to Lebanon through their CSR program Alfa 4-Life supporting Lebanese NGOs. However, even with all this tremendous progress in CSR, coverage, internet technology and innovative products, Alfa’s efforts remain unseen and unacknowledged by the people. Because Lebanese telco rates are some of the most expensive across the region/world, providing the government with the second highest source of revenue after taxation, people feel robbed and far from them. Our challenge was to reconnect Alfa with the people and substantiate Alfa’s credibility/ability in providing technology at the service of human health as opposed to being an opportunist corporation doing the Government’s dirty bidding.

Describe the creative idea.

In an effort to reconnect with the people and substantiate Alfa’s credibility and ability to provide technology at the service of human health, we set out to shed light on our technological efforts through an undeniable act. As a natural continuation of our CSR work with the visually impaired, we sought to restore a woman’s (Sariya) eye sight using E-Sight glasses, enabling her to see her husband (Kifah) for the first time in 5 years on the occasion of Valentine’s Day. In a country where people feel so disconnected from their government and telco provider, we worked to show them that, by reconnecting this couple, there is no connection that can’t be restored.

Describe the strategy.

Our target audience is the Lebanese public who’s frustrated and feel disconnected from the government due to the absence of basic technology, infrastructure and health care catering to people’s needs/disabilities. This unfortunate reality where we are continuously exposed to problems caused by the system, paired with people’s negative perception of government affiliated corporations like alfa, creates a wide disconnect between all of them and the people. If we can open their eyes though heart/warming yet powerful content, enabling them to see behind the general corruption and acknowledge Alfa’s position as a leader in providing technology and innovation at the service of human health, then we can untimely reconnect with them.

Describe the execution.

To shoot our film, we secretly reached out to Kifah who brought his wife Saria onset, under the impression that we were just going to interview her. We then documented Sariya and Kifah’s raw and unscripted reactions in a powerful piece of content captivating the whole nation across Social Media. A key factor to our campaign was the style of filming/ editing since our aim was to shift the conversation and perception on social media which meant we needed to create positive sentiment around our campaign on social in particular. In order to maximize our film’s efficiency on social, we adopted a form of content that is trending and frequently consumed online” The News Style Video”. The headline:” Woman sees husband for the first time in 5 years” created a shock factor driving people to watch it and participate in this special act maximizing the film’s reach and impressions.

List the results.

The campaign was a great success and we were able to reconnect with the people shifting the conversation from negative to positive on all our social media channels in just 4 days. People were proud and relating to the brand’s initiative. • Sentiment: 96% Positive Sentiment • Engagement: 1.5+ Million Content Engagement • Reach: 2+ Million People Reached • Impressions: 5.5+ Million Impressions • Views: 3.6+ Million Views (In a country with 6 Million Inhabitants) But our campaign did not stop there, thanks to the overwhelming reach/results, we achieved: • Number of Inquiries: - 124 Inquiries, 240 Patients Screened (43 found eligible) - 11 people’s vision was restored Sales/Revenues: 36.85% increased Alfa Line Sales