Wijeya Newspapers: UNITY PAPER

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: WIJEYA NEWSPAPERS LIMITED
Agency: LEO BURNETT SOLUTIONS
Category: Advertising Typography
Advertising campaign: UNITY PAPER
Senior Executive Production: Anuradha Cooray (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Associate Creative Director: Eraj Wirasinha (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Digitial Artist: Jayantha Liyanage (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Photographer: Jehan Adahan (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Copy Writer: Malaka Samith (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Director Public Relations: Kishani Gunasekera (Arc Worldwide Sri Lanka)
Senior Media Manager: Nilusha Wanasinghe (Starcom Worldwide Sri Lanka)
Illustrator: Prasad Chaturanga (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Production Manager: Mehnaz Ilhamdeen (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Group Head/Copy Writer: Ranjana Amaradeva (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Copy Writer: Somasegeram Nadarajah (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Media Manager: Seninda Bandara (Starcom Worldwide Sri Lanka)
Art Director: Chaturangi De Silva (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Copy Writer: Manoj Dharmawardhane (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Public Relations Executive: Tasneem Siddeeque (Arc Worldwide Sri Lanka)
Copy Writer: Farzad Mohideen (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Chief Executive Officer: Michael Holsinger (Starcom Worldwide Sri Lanka)
Senior Manager -Digital Art Production: Ranjith Perera (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Art Director: Sithum Walter (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)
Executive Creative Director: Subhash Pinnapola (Leo Burnett Solutions Inc)

Outcome
On Facebook , the two letter symbols were used by people as profile pictures and the campaign got over 220,000 likes, shares and views, which adds up to 15% of all Sri Lankan Facebook users. The Ada Unity Paper, on the day of publication, saw a 20% increase in sales which resulted in the paper being sold out.

Implementation
For our promotional campaign, we wanted convey the idea of two communities coming together while at the same time educating each community on the other's language. To fulfill these criteria, we came up with a simple idea where we united the letters of each language based on sound. This way a member of one community would know the sound of a letter from the other community's alphabet.

Client Brief Or Objective
In 2009, Sri Lanka’s brutal 30-year civil war finally came to an end. Four years on, and though progress had been made, the process of reconciliation was still not complete. With the traditional New Year coming up, the one event celebrated by both the communities involved, Ada, a mass-market daily newspaper, wanted us to find a way for it to contribute to the reconciliation process and promote it.

Brief Explanation
The key challenge was that both communities involved spoke completely different languages with different scripts. This meant promoting a bilingual newspaper required us to create a bilingual campaign but one that captured the spirit of bringing two communities together.