Ceylon Today: Afterlife - Ad 4

Credits & Description:

Company Entering: Tbwa\Sri Lanka, Colombo
Brand: Ceylon Today
Advertiser: Ceylon Today
Agency: Tbwa\Sri Lanka, Colombo
Chief Creative Officer: Subhash Pinnapola
Copywriter: Sohan Ratnaike/Kasun Wanigasekara
Art Director: Mithila De Silva
Designer: Mayura Sesath
Account Executive: Shermeel Gunaratne
Other Creative Credits: Olga Skorokhod/Paper Artist
Print Production Company: Pumpkin Productions, Mumbai
The Brief:
Sri Lankans Only Recycle In Large Quantities. Hence, It Has Become Human Nature To Forget About The Small Pieces Of Paper, Which Are Thrown Away, Without Being Recycled. So, Our Objective Was To Highlight This Issue By Showing Even The Tiniest Of Pieces Matter. To Do This, We Demonstrated A Simple Truth Creatively Via A Strong Cultural Reference, To Say “Even A Tiny Piece Has An Afterlife”. Our Target Audience Was The Entire Country As ‘Ceylon Today’ Is A National Newspaper.
The Strategy:
Our Media Strategy Entailed Producing The Ad On Our Newspaper, The Pages Of Which Were Also Punched. The Punched Paper Cache Was Then Recycled Garnering Pr Towards Us And Our Cause. As We Are Sri Lankas National English Daily, Ours Was The Best Channel For Our Message To Reach The Widest Audience Across Sri Lanka. Our Insight Entailed Depicting Sri Lankan Devil Masks - Constructed Solely Of Chads Or The Worlds Tiniest Pieces Of Paper - Symbolizing The Afterlife In Local Mythology To Communicate The Message That “Even The Tiniest Piece Has An Afterlife.”
The Execution:
We Ran A Series Of 3 Press Ads Each With A Different Sri Lankan Devil Mask Constructed Solely Out Of Chads. The Ads Carried The Message That “Even The Tiniest Piece Has An Afterlife”. The Media Execution Also Included Us Punching All The Newspaper Pages The Ad Appeared On, And Recycling The Entire Cache Of Recycled Newspaper Pages.
The Result:
We Were Able To Achieve Our Desired Behavioral Change Amongst Sri Lankans. Social Media Was Abuzz With The Story And So Were Local And International Media Outlets Who Appreciated Our Efforts. The Ads Were Such A Hit That Even Major Local Talk Shows Picked Up On The Story On The Publication Days Of Our Ads And Turned The Entire Nations Attention Towards Our Efforts. Major Pr Gains Aside, Ceylon Today Achieved Its Core Objective Of Demonstrating How Big An Impact We Can Make On The World, With The Tiniest Of Things.
Synopsis:
In Sri Lanka, recycling happens at a healthy rate, but only in large quantities. Hence, it has become human nature to throw away the little pieces, without recycling them. Hence, our mission was to highlight this issue and communicate that recycling even the tiniest of pieces of paper goes a long way in helping the environment, in an exemplary manner which also gave new life to the medium of print which was otherwise considered dying in the country.