2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Background

The month of Ramadan in Egypt is filled with commercials of charitable entities, since this is the time of the year when Egyptian Muslims pay their “Zakat” - a yearly donation to help those in need. Abulrish hospital is Egypt’s main children’s hospital since 1928. It is the children’s hospital of “Kasr Aleini “, the medical school of Cairo University. It relies entirely on donations to keep its doors open for underprivileged children. Can we create a video that raises awareness about Egypt's forgotten children's hospital "Abulrish" (Guardian of Feathers), to be shared extensively on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and IGTV with the aim of raising a huge amount of donations without any media spend?

Describe the strategy

While the norm in Egypt is to play on guilt and rely heavily on emotional blackmail during the month of Ramadan on TV to raise funds for various charities and hospitals, we bet on the magic and power of beautiful storytelling, music and entertainment to create shareability and virality on digital platforms. Abulrish “Guardian of Feathers” is one of those names in life that are phonetically familiar without ever questioning the meaning or origin of the name. It became a mere sound without essence. The magical story behind the name had to be told to give the hospital the iconic stature it deserves, to make it top of mind and keep the donations flowing. We wrote a song and created an animated music video with the legendary band Cairokee to tell this mythical story.

Describe the execution

In this heartfelt animated music video, Cairokee's band members morph into their childhood selves, joining a forgotten ritual that took place in the late 1800s Egypt. The music video starts with Cairokee’s lead singer Amir telling the story of the magical journey where parents took their children from every corner in Egypt to the shrine of a mystic named “Sidi Abulrish” or “Guardian of Feathers”, to perform a ritual like no other where the child wears a feather crown and sits backwards on a donkey circling the shrine of “Guardian of Feathers” to commemorate the child’s survival past the age of five. The music video was posted on Cairokee's social media channels as well as the hospital's becoming an instant hit with unprecedented positive sentiment in the category of charity and fundraising.

List the results

The music video brought back the good old days of organic reach. It was an instant hit in Ramadan 2020 sparking tens of thousands of positive organic conversations on all social media platforms as well as on the assets of the hospital and Cairokee's. Between Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and IGTV, the music video was viewed more than 6 million times and shared more than 12 thousand times. Due to the music video's high entertainment value it was even picked up by some TV channels for free airing. And most importantly, the donations collected by the hospital during Ramadan 2020 increased by more than 300% versus the year before.