SUB CATEGORY :

LIVE BROADCAST

COMPANY ENTERING :

IMPACT BBDO, DUBAI

TITLE :

SCHOOLGIRL NEWSCASTERS

BRAND :

EBM

ADVERTISER :

EBM

AGENCY :

IMPACT BBDO, DUBAI

CHAIRMAN :

DANI RICHA

CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER :

ALI REZ

EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR :

ATIYA ZAIDI

CAMPAIGN SUMMARY :

Women in Pakistan are overwhelmingly deprived of their basic right to education. The GlobalGender Gap Report placed the country at 145th rank out of 156. UN Women has stated that53.6% of women had limited access to education, training, and employment in Pakistan. There’sa widely held believe that education is useless for women. Due to social economic and culturalreasons parents keep girls out of school, preferring to have them do housework, or worse – getthem married off early.
However, NGOs and companies like EMB have been working tirelessly to promote women’seducation. Their efforts resulted in more girls going to school and raised the literacy rate up 4points.
We wanted to celebrate this achievement and demonstrate how empowering girls with educationcan brighten their future and uplift the nation. We also hoped to inspire more parents to sendtheir girls to school.

CREATIVITY/IDEA/INSIGHT :

We turned our news into breaking news, with a special new broadcast. Two school-going girls,who could not even read three years back, took over as newscasters for the evening, reading thenews to millions of people on Pakistan’s three leading news channels.
The girls, wearing their school uniforms, confi dently shared their literacy journeys and how it hadenabled them to read the news to millions of people in impeccable Urdu and English. They alsohighlighted the role of education in making them better caretakers of future generations.
This special broadcast was aired during Human Rights Month, to emphasize Pakistani girls’ rightto education.

STRATEGY :

Our strategy was to demonstrate the future possibilities that education opens for girls, by puttingthem on national TV, showcasing future career potential, and proving the power of education byhaving them read on national TV.
Television is the dominant medium in Pakistan with nearly ¾ of the country tuning in to the newsevery day. Everyone dreams of being on TV. Seeing the school girls broadcasters made thenews of the literacy rate more impactful.

EXECUTION :

Pakistan switched on their TV sets and tuned in to the news only tobe greeted by an unusual sight – two tiny school girls, wearing their public school blue and whiteuniform, sitting in the broadcasters chair and announcing the news.
The news segment ran on the top three news channels, as the girls announced the rise inPakistan’s literacy rate, then shared their literacy journeys and how it had enabled them to gofrom not being able to read three years ago, to reading the news to hundreds of millions ofpeople today. The girls read the news in both English and Urdu.
This special new edition was broadcasted on various news channels in Pakistan throughoutHuman Rights Month- December and reached millions of viewers across the country.

RESULT :

The School girls newscasters is a very special news segment that was broadcasted on the top 3news channels in Pakistan. The campaign had an impression count of more than 150 million.
EBM itself has now introduced a policy of only working with schools that have an equalrepresentation of male and female students. Their efforts have led to numbers in 160+ schools inPakistan that have now seen girls' enrollment lift to 57%.
The activation trended over social media, with people across the country praising the school girlsand celebrating the literacy news. This was an idea that had hijacked its PR medium itself.
Seeing the girls so confi dently take over the newsroom made for a powerful image thatresonated with parents all over Pakistan, stirring hope from more girls like them to make theirway toward a brighter future.