United Nations Lebanon
What? Only $4?

The UN Lebanon has launched a 4-year integrated call-to-action communication campaign, “Take A Step”, to promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of the campaign’s top priority and pressing goal aims to end poverty. Poverty is rising at an alarming rate in Lebanon with the deterioration of economic conditions, political instability, growing unemployment rates, a weak welfare system, and a wider gap between the rich and poor because the middle class is slowly disappearing. It is estimated that a very high percentage of the population are living in poverty, one of the country’s many decades-old unsolvable problems. We needed to raise awareness and voice a call to action for people to take a step and help those under the poverty line.

  • United Nations Lebanon
  • Non-Governmental Organization
  • Lebanon
Capabilities:
Experience, Marketing Stunt

Not many are aware of the level of poverty in Lebanon. To raise awareness on poverty, we used creativity to disrupt a well-established and trusted sector in Lebanon: The Banking sector. Building from the insight that greater empathy leads to more helping behavior, the creative idea aimed to increase this empathy by designing an experience that can have a profound effect on us as humans and lead to concrete actions. Not many are aware of the level of poverty in Lebanon. Presenting facts and figures to our audience did not cut it. It did not create the impact we aspired for. We needed them to question how would it feel if they had only 4 USD/ 6,000 LBP a day to spend on their livelihood? How would they react? We approached many banks to bring the idea to life: Bank of Beirut welcomed the daring idea and pushed boundaries to make the stunt happen. The stunt simulated the terrifying feeling experienced when one doesn’t have enough money for daily survival. The feeling was magnified because 1. People could not withdraw the desired amount, 2. They were using an ATM which meant human error was out of the picture and there was no opportunity to negotiate or argue and 3. two actors played the role of catalysts, one being a bank employee, to provoke the audience further. These combined factors intensified the situation so when the idea behind the stunt was revealed, the customers were speechless.