Reaping the rewards of its effective Public Relations strategies in Qatar, Grey Doha has grabbed three prestigious awards at the Lisbon International Advertising Festival, (LIAF) honouring its effective communication role behind the successful Ramadan fundraising campaign “A donation that keeps on giving” executed for Education Above All (EAA), the global foundation protecting the right of children and youth to quality education.
Grey’s educational integrated campaign shined under the MENA region category, as it received a Bronze award for PR creative effectiveness, a Silver for PR strategic Planning and a Gold recognition for social and environmental responsibility.
The country-wide Ramadan fundraising campaign that Education Above All called for this summer in Qatar, aimed to provide the world’s most impoverished and marginalized children, youth and women, a quality education.
Even though the Holy Month is recognized for its charitable spirit, people tend to only donate money to charities that are rooted in their own communities. EAA, being a global non-profit organization, enticing people to donate to a non-community-based charity for a non-traditional cause, had a big communication challenge to tackle. Grey rose to the challenge with its consolidated PR approach and generated an overwhelming response from donors. How to bring a global foundation into the limelight in a Muslim country during Ramadan? Grey put this key objective in mind and focused on informing local Qataris about EAA’s eligibility to receive Sadaqah and Zakat, while making sure to translate this cultural insight into donation. The campaign made people realise that their contribution isn’t a short-term donation but a long-term investment and pushed them to pass it on.
Krikor Khatchikian, Managing Director of Grey Doha, said: “We are both very delighted and proud to be recognized by our industry peers who understand the challenges we all face day by day in the course of our profession. The three awards are the biggest testimony of our team’s hard work, who is reaping the rewards of all the efforts it put in. This is as much a big win for us as it is for our client, EAA, who is being recognized today and celebrated for their global humanitarian role. Our win surpassed the monetary target; we went about raising funds that went on to make a difference, and helped educate out-of-school children, around the world”.
The campaign started with a telethon on Al Rayyan local TV; a non-digital tool that surprisingly showed great effectiveness in attracting the public’s attention to a worldwide educational mission. Following the big response from viewers, the campaign got escalated through timely social media posts, an emotional TVC giving a flavor of the mission in hand, cross-marketing activities with business partners and a full-fledged media campaign that was secured for free with leading local media agencies.
Denise Yamine, Director of Public Relations, Social Media & Events at Grey Doha said: “PR and marketing have existed as two separate entities for ages, but the quickly changing world of digital media has blurred the line more and more. At Grey Doha, we believe in the power of integration and the importance of blending PR, creative and social to deliver better outcomes. Our win at Lisbon is another testimony of the effectiveness of such approach and we aim to build on this mindset for better communication results”.
The campaign helped in securing the commitments to educate over 284,000 out of school children in Bangladesh, Somalia, Palestine, Syria and Turkey. The funds were directed to 3 of EAA’s programmes which include Reach Out To Asia (ROTA), Educate A Child (EAC) and Al Fakhoora.
