1 stc
Agency: Wunderman Thompson
Saudi Arabia has vast deserts, and many parts of the country are uninhabited, un-survivable and un-reachable by most – except for the desert camel, the only being that can easily get there. Meet Sarha: the first content-creating camel, who helped Wunderman Thompson put STC (Saudi Telcom), the kingdom’s biggest network, to the ultimate test and demonstrate its widest coverage. With the help of Sarha, global professional photographers were able to connect remotely and join Sarha on a journey of discovery and be among the first group of people to ever witness and capture the land of Saudi Arabia that has opened its doors to tourism for the first time.
2 Adidas
Agency: Havas Middle East
On June 24, Adidas unveiled the world’s first liquid billboard in Dubai, in line with the brand’s recent debut of its Burkini Collection. The first-of-its-kind stunt celebrates Adidas’s drive to offer a wider choice of technical apparel for athletes everywhere, simultaneously inspiring confidence in women and building on its commitment to making
the future of sports as inclusive
as possible.
3 LEGO Saudi Stores
Saudi National Day Lego Al Madina Newspaper
Agency: Havas Middle East
Lego’s Saudi Stores recreated a leading Saudi newspaper on the morning of Saudi National Day to highlight the nation’s pride and progress. On the 90th Saudi National Day, Lego Saudi Stores collaborated with Havas Middle East to take create a newspaper front page in Lego.
4 UAE Government Media Office
Agency: Mullenlowe MENA
The Martian moons that suddenly appeared in the Al Qudra area of Dubai were a part of a campaign organised by the UAE Government Media Office to celebrate the Hope Probe reaching Mars. Phobos and Deimos, the moons orbiting Mars, were projected in the sky using technology that has never been seen in the UAE. Two giant 100-metre cranes and an advanced 40-metre screen were used to make the moons appear realistically in the sky and visible from long distances away.
5 MTV
Agency: TBWA\RAAD
On August 4, 2020, Lebanese citizen’s homes were broken, along with their lives, hearts, dreams, hopes and families. The entire country collapsed. But their resilience, their determination to unveil the truth and to see justice take its course remained unbroken. #WeAreUnbreakable is a joint initiative between creative agency TBWA\RAAD and Lebanese television channel MTV, in collaboration with Swiss artist Simon Berger who flew all the way from Geneva to support the cause.
6 PlayStation
Agency: Lightblue
In anticipation of the regional launch of the PlayStation 5, Lightblue conceptualised a series of world-class stunt executions with a diverse audience in mind to bring to life the limitless possibilities of the console. Lightblue created a campaign with a spectacle including two highly trained wingsuit athletes jumping from the top of Burj Khalifa and soaring down to the landing.
7 Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM)
David Guetta United at Home DXB
Agency: Create Production
This event was the fourth instalment of the world-renowned DJ’s ‘United at Home’ concept, breaking new ground as the first musician to perform live from the helipad of the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel, more than metres in the sky. The seamless, multi-angled musical and visual showcase was bought to life by the Create Production team and played out across various owned social media platforms of the contributors, free of charge, on February 6, 2021.
8 M.A.L.I. Movement
Agency: TBWA\RAAD
Mouvement Alternatif pour les Libertés Individuelles – Maroc (M.A.L.I. Movement) chose February the 14, Valentine’s Day,
a day that epitomises love and togetherness, to launch a campaign against women’s ‘virginity testing’, breaking the myth of the ‘unbreakable’ hymen and shedding light on a patriarchal concept that still exists around the
world, even in modern societies: ‘women’s virginity’, a symbol of women’s oppression.
9 Mobily
Agency: MullenLowe
MullenLowe MENA and Mobily created a headset that protects young gamers from predators by making them sound older. Using cutting-edge, voice-modifying technology, the product helps stave off child abusers acting in gaming platforms and raises awareness about the issue worldwide. A huge spike in children playing online games during the pandemic is seeing experts and charities warn that tighter restrictions need to be
put in place to protect kids online ahead of this year’s Safer Internet Day.
10 Adidas
Arwa Al-Banawi’s collaboration with Adidas
Agency: Sweetwater
Arwa Al-Banawi’s collaboration with Adidas was a big “first” for the Arab fashion world: an iconic Adidas shoe, reimagined by a Saudi designer for a global release. Sweetwater was tasked to launch the drop, celebrating the historic importance of Saudi talent having a global audience.
@loginasalah##ymcaselfcheck♬ original sound – Logina Salah
11 Friends of Cancer Patients
Agency: Havas Middle East
The Havas team discovered the moves of catchy 1970s anthem YMCA could be adapted to create #YMCASelfCheck, an easy and fun self-check dance – supervised by a medical expert from FoCP – showing people how to perform self-examination through the four letters of the song title.
12 Le CRAN (Black Associations Representative Council)
Agency: Publicis Dubai
“Some salary gaps seem to be more visible than others; there is literally an elephant in the closet that we need to make visible.”
That’s how Louis-Georges Tin, the Prime Minister of the State of African Diaspora and Honorary President of Le Cran (Black Associations Representative Council) briefed Publicis Dubai with the mission to raise awareness on the Ethnic Pay Gap. The project created a Twitter account, @lonelypaygap, to raise awareness on the issue.
13 Laisha
Domestic violence helpline for Israeli women – *6724
Agency: Havas Tel Aviv
Since the domestic violence helpline for Israeli women – *6724 – never received a respectable place in the media, most women don’t know it exists. To change this, Havas Tel Aviv partnered with Israel’s most popular women’s magazine, Laisha (‘For the Woman’ in Hebrew).
In order to help save women’s lives, Laisha changed its traditional cover for the first time in 75 years and used the magazine’s cover as a media channel for the helpline’s distribution.
14 Burberry
Agency: Lightblue
Lightblue collaborated with Burberry, revealing the next chapter of its TB Summer Monogram campaign, captured through three breathtaking vistas featuring the Thomas Burberry Monogram. In the Dubai desert, multidisciplinary artist Nathaniel A. Alapide created unique sand inscriptions, celebrating the larger-scale Thomas Burberry Monogram introduced in the new collection.
15 IKEA
Agency: Memac Ogilvy
Memac Ogilvy created a post as a reactive piece of social content in response to Messi leaving FC Barcelona. Memac Ogilvy knew die-hard Messi fans would be heartbroken – so the team wanted to help fans always keep a piece of Messi’s legacy. Instead of tucked away in their wardrobes, as a reminder that they could never wear it during another game, the team decided to help fans frame the t-shirt in their homes.
16 The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi
Agency: Create Media
Create Media, with the purpose of creating content that takes the Department of Culture and Tourism’ (DCT’s) cultural venues and programmes online, built a virtual space for audiences to engage with cultural sites and programmes within Abu Dhabi’s cultural sector.
17 Sports for All Federation
Agency: FP7/KSA
Sports for All Federation (SFA) sits under the Ministry of Sports, and its main role is to advocate healthy living and physical activity by organising neighborhood and outdoor sports events.
In 2021, and after the great success achieved from launching the ‘Baytak Nadeek’ – ‘Your Home – Your Gym’ campaign in 2020, and since all sporting activities were still on hold due to the Covid-19 situation, SFA launched its campaign to highlight the importance of exercising and practising physical activity.
18 UAE Government Media Office
Agency: TBWA\RAAD
Rocks were collected during a special mission to the UAE’s eastern Al Hajar Mountains and Sharjah’s Mleiha Desert by experts and gemologists. They were then crushed into a fine paste, dried in the sun and mixed with adhesives to create three separate colours that represent the Red Planet – ready for stamping into the passports of thousands of visitors.
The activation was done in honour of the Emirates Mars Mission’s Hope Probe.
19 Pizza2Go, Red Crescent
Agency: Mullen Lowe MENA
The ¾ Pizza Box, launched in a collaborative effort between Red Crescent, Pizza2Go (a local pizza restaurant in Dubai) and advertising agency MullenLowe MENA, removed a quarter of the pizza and its box to effectively eliminate the 25 per cent that would otherwise land in the bin.
However, that’s not the only thing the ¾ Pizza Box does. Customers paid a special price of AED 44 for their orders, with 25 per cent of it being donated to Red Crescent to help those in need. This made it the UAE’s only pizza during Ramadan that doesn’t just taste good, but does good too.
20 Reckitt
Agency: Impact BBDO and BBDO Pakistan
To help keep Muslims praying in mosques safe from the spread of coronavirus, Impact BBDO and BBDO Pakistan collaborated to introduce an innovative modification in the ubiquitous personal prayer mat to encourage social distancing. To build social distancing, this newly designed prayer mat is a 180cm wide with a message imprinted amidst its motif that reminds worshippers to maintain a safe distance.
