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Leo Burnett’s “Khede Kasra” women’s empowerment campaign for the Hariri Foundation had already grabbed attention in Lebanon using innovative Arabic word play. Now the agency is collecting plaudits of its own: “Khede Kasra” just won an Integrated Grand Cristal and a Festival Grand Cristal at this year’s MENA Cristal Awards. Add to that a Film Grand Cristal for the “Stop the Suffering” TV spot for Procter & Gamble’s Pert Plus, and it seems executive creative director Bechara Mouzannar and his Beirut team have started the year well.

ACCENT-UATE THE POSITIVE. When the Hariri Foundation approached Leo Burnett in early 2008, the organization asked the agency to devise a national campaign that addressed, in a simple way, the fact that women’s rights are often trampled upon in Lebanese daily life. This had to be done while steering away from sectarian or religious issues, of course. And without costing much money.

    “We had to go for minimalism, something that everybody, including the less educated segment of the population, which is our core target, would understand,” says Mouzannar.

    What vehicle could be more appropriate than language itself? In Arabic, accents define the gender of a word, but the masculine prevails. The “Khede Kasra” teaser campaign asked readers to simultaneously “take a feminine accent” and “break the habit.” Strong words such as “responsibility,” “right” and “will” appeared on several billboards throughout the country, without any accent. During vox pops, nearly all respondents read them as addressed to men. “What’s worst is that even women read them so,” says Mouzannar.

    A week later, the revealer introduced the khasra accent, making the words feminine and inviting people to “break the habit” in a simple, accessible way. “We generated awareness as, although this language’s subtlety is understandable by everyone, nobody had ever thought to use the Arabic language in such a manner, and people were very receptive,” says Mouzannar. “It was mostly pro bono work. We did it as CSR, to shake Lebanese society’s clichés.”

    That wasn’t all. The agency then launched an interactive-ambient phase of the campaign by asking people to place the crucial kasra accent on the billboards themselves. “Even men did it,” says Mouzannar. “Wherever there were no more stickers, people used pens, lipstick, etc. And what we hadn’t planned for is anonymous people spontaneously placing accents on billboards that weren’t ours, in some kind of guerrilla operation. ”

    Leo Burnett has more in store, but hasn’t pushed anything digital yet, since most of its core target remain unconnected. It is the first campaign of this type in the region, and the agency hopes “Khede Kasra” will have legs. “If we are approached by other associations in the region later, it will be a good start,” says Mouzannar.

    It helps that even foreigners understand the concept, as shown by the fact that the campaign won the Festival Grand Prix, which is awarded by each category jury’s president. “I gathered that the jury was unanimous,” he says. “They awarded a social idea, which already is important. It encourages us to go further down this road.”

GOOSE BUMPS. If you’ve never seen hair actually cry out for mercy, crawl and beg and eventually die a tragic death, now you have your chance with Leo Burnett’s TVC for P&G’s Pert Plus Hair Fall Control shampoo, the Film Grand Cristal winner.

    Mouzannar starts by describing the typical shampoo commercial. “Hair TVCs are very specific,” says Mouzannar. “There’s always a format. You always show hair moving in slow motion, brushed by a wind that’s not there in order to give the consumer some kind of orgasm, and a scientific explanation. And it’s boring.”

    So Leo Burnett’s Yasmina Baz, Areej Mahmoud and Ghida Younes decided to go for something different: Show hair in an emotional way that would engage consumers on a human level. It starts traditionally, with viewers expecting another classic shampoo ad, but it quickly turns into a mock tragedy, up to and including a hair pieta wailing over its fallen comrade.

    The delicate balance between humor and emotion did the trick. The spot got rave reviews and rapidly went viral. “Nobody thought a hair film could be that moving, and it led people who wouldn’t usually care to worry about hair loss,” says Mouzanna, who adds he was confident of success from the beginning.

     “In the industry, everybody knows how difficult it is to make a hair film different,” he says, adding, “P&G took a risk by changing the way communication is done in this field, and we must salute that. They immediately loved it and imagined what effect it would have on consumers.”

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