By Jalaja Ramanunni
People tend to avoid poorly lit streets and refrain from waiting for their ride in dark areas.
To promote safer streets, ride-hailing app inDrive and Havas Middle East decided to address this issue by creating a campaign ‘Light the Night’ initiative in Cairo. They used billboards to light up different spots in the Egyptian city, prioritising safety over advertising.
inDrive transformed billboards into light boxes by maximising its brightness with special LED tubes that emit 50 per cent more light than conventional billboards.
“A city is inDrive’s natural habitat. Being an important part of the urban environment is valuable for us. We are seeking to make a positive impact on Cairo as this is the largest city in the region. We would like to incorporate our projects into real city life, to make them visible and useful for Cairo and other urban settlements,” says Vlad Revenko, Global Head of Special Projects at inDrive.
28 locations around Cairo were carefully selected, including some of the darkest streets in Cairo. Since April 13, inDrive has flooded these spots with bright lights emitted from billboards.
The billboards feature a URL directing people to other ‘night light’ locations, and a glow-in-the-dark map of the city as its base, ensuring the city’s residents easily find these well-lit spots. The design elements were kept minimal. Radio hosts raised awareness and informed listeners of the locations of the billboards. The project successfully transformed once-dark streets into warm, inviting spaces.
“Our strategy extended beyond media. We wanted to inspire a movement towards greater safety, so we handpicked outdoor locations in the darkest streets and built our own custom outdoor structures illuminating darker spots,” says Lama Al Khawaja, Business Unit Director, Havas Media Middle East.
The campaign was conceptualised and executed by Havas Middle East, with billboard production by The Film House.
Recently, Tide launched a similar initiative ‘Brightening Billboards‘ to brighten up the streets of Lebanon.
