2022 Winners & Shortlists

Cultural / Context information for the jury

The United Arab Emirates (and Middle Eastern region) has a fossil-fuel-based economy and ranks amongst the top 20 countries in terms of fuel usage and consumption. And since climate change is destroying our planet and leading to a massive increase in occurrence and intensity of wildfires, we decided to use a classic Christmas symbol to drive a powerful message and spur a reaction from people. As a leader in sustainability, Mall of the Emirates is continuously looking for ways to reduce its impact on the environment. It’s reduced water usage, energy consumption and increased recycling rates over the years so creating an activation like this one was a given for the brand.

Please outline the innovative elements of the work.

If we look at the Mall of the Emirates brand purpose/position, we can see that they state the following: “as a vision-driven brand, what we do matters, but it is who we do it for that matters most.” For the Mall, being a thoughtful brand is a must and looking after its clients, collaborators is just part of the job. And that’s why they are leaders in sustainability and have invested so much time/energy/effort in being a greener organization across the board. Using Christmas to approach sustainability was the perfect fit for a brand whose purpose is to make people’s lives better whether it’s inside or outside of the mall.