2022 Winners & Shortlists

DRIVER

BrandMTV
Product/ServiceMTV VACCINATION CAMPAIGN
EntrantTBWA\RAAD Beirut, LEBANON
CategoryCasting
Idea Creation TBWA\RAAD Beirut, LEBANON
Production WONDERFUL PRODUCTIONS Beirut, LEBANON

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

Of the five million Lebanese people in the country, all of them consider themselves to be experts at something. Cooking, singing, running, photographing, writing, diving, climbing, nail-polishing, cleaning, piloting. Thousands of experts in hundreds of different subjects. When everyone was offering their own input on how to best protect yourself from Covid, instead of telling people to stop giving out medical advice or refuting their suggestions, MTV encouraged people to be the experts they were, in all fields. Instead of calling “bullsh@t” on every conversation – a strategy that sometimes backfires and puts people off – MTV agreed that all of them were experts. Yes. You and me, we can all be experts. But leave medicine and medical advice to the real doctors.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

People in Lebanon were not signing up for vaccinations despite a massive push from the government. They relied mostly on the genius creations of friends and family, such as garlic diets and sticking items up their nose to block the airflow of the coronavirus. A famous singer Ragheb Alama even went on TV claiming the vaccine is useless and people should rely on alternative methods to protect themselves. To understand matters, MTV went ahead and began studying statements and conversations from all types of people talking nonsense about so-called homemade Covid treatments. However, the conversations in themselves were not the problem. The real problem was that people are simply keen on trusting the ones who are closest to them, whether they’re family or friends.

Tell the jury about the casting process.

We didn’t actually go through a casting process, to highlight that this habit of giving out false prescriptions was a real problem in the country. The characters in our films were real people in Lebanon from all walks of life. We simply pinpointed them through word of mouth and asked them to “act out” the roles they played every day. The first character was a housewife who shares her homemade recipes online, some of which supposedly keep the coronavirus at bay. The other was a bus driver who found himself jobless during the pandemic and took up several jobs to make ends meet; emboldened by his street smarts, he was known in his neighborhood for claiming nicotine is a better cure for COVID than the vaccine. We simply worked closely with these people to help them deliver their lines and added our humouristic touch to dramatize the message.

Credits

Name Company Role
Walid Kanaan TBWA\RAAD Chief Creative Officer
Georges Kyrillos TBWA\RAAD Creative Director
Jad Chidiac TBWA\RAAD Senior Art Director
Nour Christidi TBWA\RAAD Copywriter
Pia Haddad TBWA\RAAD Copywriter
Ricardo Gasparian TBWA\RAAD Strategy
Emad Doughan TBWA\RAAD Head of Digital
Mira El Fil TBWA\RAAD Junior Designer
Romy Abdelnour TBWA\RAAD PR & Communications
Nelly Chahwan TBWA\RAAD Producer
Ezzat Habra TBWA\RAAD Traffic
Naveen Madurakariyan TBWA\RAAD Traffic
André Chammas - Film Director
Habib Ghobril MTV Lebanon Client
Jean Nakhoul MTV Lebanon Executive Producer
Links
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