Title | TXTBKS |
Brand | SMART COMMUNICATIONS |
Product / Service | TURNING HEAVY SCHOOL BOOKS INTO SIM-ENCODED TXTBKS |
Category | A01. Innovation |
Entrant | DDB/DM9JAYMESYFU/DIGIT Makati City, THE PHILIPPINES |
Entrant Company | DDB/DM9JAYMESYFU/DIGIT Makati City, THE PHILIPPINES |
Advertising Agency | DDB/DM9JAYMESYFU/DIGIT Makati City, THE PHILIPPINES |
Production Company | TOWER OF DOOM Quezon City, THE PHILIPPINES |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Merlee Jayme | DDB Dm9jaymesyfu/Digit | Chief Creative Officer |
Eugene Demata | DDB Dm9jaymesyfu/Digit | Executive Creative Director |
Aste Gutierrez | DDB Dm9jaymesyfu/Digit | Associate Creative Director/Copywriter |
Biboy Royong | DDB Dm9jaymesyfu/Digit | Art Director |
Buboy Paguio | DDB Dm9jaymesyfu/Digit | Associate Creative Director For Digital/Art Director |
Dee Taar | DDB Dm9jaymesyfu/Digit | Illustrator |
Alex Syfu | DDB Dm9jaymesyfu/Digit | Chief Relations Officer/Account Supervisor |
Caloy Sambrano | DDB Dm9jaymesyfu/Digit | Client Service Director |
Ina Vargas/Sambrano | DDB Dm9jaymesyfu/Digit | Account Manager |
Sheila Villanueva | DDB Dm9jaymesyfu/Digit | Producer |
Carlo Perlas | Tower Of Doom | Producer |
Melo Samson | Tower Of Doom | Editor |
Smart Communications is the Philippines largest mobile company. Through their Smart Public Affairs group, they are actively engaged in several CSR programs which include disaster preparedness, community building, livelihood and of course education. TXTBKS targets public school kids, many of whom belong to families who cannot afford e-readers. These kids usually walk miles to go to school carrying in some cases as many as 22 books to school, leaving them tired and unable to focus on their studies.
With the current shift toward smartphones, Smart Communications had an abundance of inactive, older sim cards which would simply go to waste. In these sim cards we saw the opportunity to resurrect older technology and make them beneficial to the less fortunate. So with the help of textbook publishers, the current editions were condensed so they could be encoded into the inboxes of sim cards using a simple STK, Sim Toolkit application. When loaded into any analog phone, which have become increasingly affordable, kids could now access their books in a format that was lightweight and easy to use.
These sim cards were initially distributed to 4 partner public schools. Immediately, school bags became 50% lighter. Within months, attendance had increased by 90% and the average performance of students increased by a surprising 95%. These results encouraged Smart to pursue its TXTBKS project, by including more subjects and more grade levels, for nationwide release to public schools.