Title | UNITY PAPER |
Brand | WIJEYA NEWSPAPERS |
Product / Service | ADA NEWSPAPER |
Category | A07. Best Use or Integration of Offline Media such as Print, Outdoor, etc. |
Entrant | LEO BURNETT SOLUTIONS Colombo, SRI LANKA |
Entrant Company | LEO BURNETT SOLUTIONS Colombo, SRI LANKA |
Contributing Company | LEO BURNETT SOLUTIONS Colombo, SRI LANKA |
Production Company | 24 FRAMES Colombo, SRI LANKA |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Jayantha Liyanage | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Digitial Artist |
Nilusha Wanasinghe | Starcom Colombo | Senior Media Manager |
Anuradha Cooray | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Senior Executive Production |
Ranjith Perera | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Senior Manager -Digital Art Production |
Mehnaz Ilhamdeen | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Production Manager |
Manoj Dharmawardhane | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Copy Writer |
Somasegeram Nadarajah | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Copy Writer |
Malaka Samit | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Copy Writer |
Ranjana Amaradeva | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Group Head/Copy Writer |
Farzad Mohideen | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Copy Writer |
Eraj Wirasinha | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Associate Creative Director/Copy Writer |
Michael Holsinger | Starcom Colombo | Chief Executive Officer |
Chaturangi De Silva | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Art Director |
Sithum Walter | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Art Director |
Subhash Pinnapola | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc | Executive Creative Director |
Prasad Chaturanga | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc, | Illustrator |
Kishani Gunasekera | Arc Worldwide Sri Lanka, | Director Public Relations |
Tasneem Siddeeque | Arc Worldwide Sri Lanka, | Public Relations Executive |
Jehan Adahan | Leo Burnett Solutions Inc, | Photographer |
Seninda Bandara | Starcom Colombo | Media Manager |
Though there are many newspapers in Sri Lanka, the medium is in a slow decline due to the high cost of newsprint as well as people moving to TV and the internet for their news. In addition to this, despite the country being very ethnically diverse and having three official languages, the country had never had a newspaper that was in more than one language. Part of the reason for this was that the country had been caught up in a brutal 30 year civil war so there was a great distance between the communities involved.
The campaign started with the idea of turning Ada into Sri Lanka's first bilingual newspaper. The first step we took was to work with the editors and journalists of the paper to create content, which included articles that allowed each community to learn the other's perspective on different subjects like the upcoming traditional New Year as well as what peace means. We also helped design a masthead and had input on the front page. The next step we took was to design a promotional campaign for the bilingual newspaper. This was created by joining letters from the alphabets of the two languages based sound. The campaign was run on Facebook (where people could use the symbols we created as profile pictures as well as comment) and on print and outdoor. The final step was to get publicity for the 'Unity Paper' through other mainstream media like TV news programmes and other newspapers.
To promote Sri Lanka's first bilingual newspaper, we wanted convey the idea of two communities coming together while at the same time educating each community on the other's language. To fulfill these criteria, we came up with a simple idea where we united the letters of each language based on sound. This way a member of one community would know the sound of a letter from the other community's alphabet. These 'united letters' were shared on social media and also turned into print and outdoor ads.
On Facebook , the two letter symbols were used by people as profile pictures and the campaign got over 220,000 likes, shares and views, which adds up to 15% of all Sri Lankan Facebook users. The Ada Unity Paper, on the day of publication, saw a 20% increase in sales which resulted in the paper being sold out and led to the paper being the second most consistently read newspaper in the country.