The Brief

The ‘direct’ element of COVER RACISM is clearly exhibited in the execution itself. By publishing a unique double-sided center-spread in the shape of a plate-covering depicting a beautiful Sinhala design on one side, and a Tamil design on the reverse inclusive of directions asking Sinhala and Tamil citizens to offer each other a plate of their own sweets unique to each culture covered with our ad, we made a part of our newspaper our creative execution, which made this piece relevant to this particular category. This helped us achieve our communication objective of uniting the Sinhala and Tamil ethnicities on a day that was meant to celebrate the harmony between the two races.

Creative Execution

The creative execution was relevant to the product because Mawbima not only transformed a part of their product into the execution itself but also through it, helped build harmony and unity between the Sinhalese and Tamils staying true to their corporate beliefs of not promoting racism. Accordingly, we informed the public of our unique double-sided center-spread food cover 4 days earlier, via a teaser campaign that covered TV, Press and Online mediums depicting unique Sinhala and Tamil sweets, suggestive of their similarity. The campaign ran according to the original plan until April 13th - the day of the launch when major morning talk shows picked up and broke the story to the entire nation, which earned us significant free PR.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Mawbima’s target audience consists of the majority Sinhalese population who respect the paper for practicing a courageous brand of journalism and not sensationalizing acts of racism as opposed to other newspapers in the country. So, the piece was relevant to the client because they not only transformed a part of their product into the execution itself but also through it, helped build harmony and unity between the Sinhalese and Tamils staying true to their corporate beliefs not promoting racism.

Results

On April 13th, the last publishing date before Avurudu on the 14th and 15th (considered non-publishing dates); when all other newspapers reduced their print run by 30-40 % due to low demand, we increased ours by 20%! As a result, approximately 140,000 copies printed on that day were all SOLD OUT with ZERO RETURNS. Moreover, the Sri Lankan population came forward in appreciating Mawbima for setting off a nationwide movement of social change and behavior that unified both ethnic groups through the simple and innocent act of sharing sweets. Significant PR was also generated on the day locally thanks to major morning TV Talk Shows telling the nation of our ad and online, due to shares and posts on social media.