Across the Middle East, 4.7 million women experience hearing or speech impairment. Yet during Pink October, a month dedicated to breast cancer awareness, there are no campaigns designed for this community. Emirates NBD, the largest banking institution in the UAE, is committed to building an inclusive society through its ‘TogetherLimitless’ program. But across 300 universally used sign languages, signs for ‘cancerous’ and ‘lumps’ don’t exist – leading to millions of women missing out on a life-saving message. So, during this month, Emirates NBD needed to design and create new life-saving signs to empower and educate this community.

Despite most organizations launching numerous campaigns highlighting the importance of breast cancer awareness during Pink October, the topic remains a largely taboo subject across the Middle East. As a result of this, many women fail to be open about their symptoms or get routine check-ups, thereby delaying life-saving early diagnosis and treatments.

In this context, it is crucial for breast cancer awareness campaigns to reach more women and help disrupt this social stigma. But for 4.7 million women across the region who are hearing and speech impaired, these messages rarely ever directly target them. Especially when signs for ‘cancerous’ and ‘lumps’ do not exist across 300 universally used sign languages. Making it even harder to raise breast cancer awareness amongst this community.

As the region's largest bank and one that believes in building an inclusive society through its ‘TogetherLimitless’ program, Emirates NBD needed a campaign that directly spoke to these women. And that meant designing new life-saving signs that otherwise didn’t exist in sign language.

Situation: There are no breast cancer awareness campaigns designed to target 4.7 million hearing and speech impaired women in the region.

Brief: Emirates NBD, the region's largest banking institution, is committed to empowering the community at a macro and micro level. During Pink October, the bank needed to design a campaign that targeted every woman.

Objectives: The ‘TogetherLimitless’ program was at the forefront of the bank’s commitment to creating an inclusive campaign. We designed and created new life-saving signs in a language specifically used by this community.

Budget: With a budget of only US$ 45,000, the campaign gained over 7.3 million social media impressions, a 100% increase in the brand love and most importantly saw a 47% jump in mammogram check.

Project scale: The campaign went viral overnight, with popular influencers reposting it across channels, and national media outlets covering the campaign within 24 hours.

We designed the world’s first signs for ‘cancerous’ and ‘lumps’, that didn’t otherwise exist in sign language. We then launched ‘Life Saving Signs’, a breast cancer awareness campaign that shared life-saving reminders to hearing and speech impaired women and helped them self-check. Completely executed in sign language, it was the first-ever silent campaign released on sound-first apps like TikTok and Instagram. Our campaign was heard loud and clear across media outlets and social media as key influencers with significant female followings took to their channels to praise and further spread the campaign’s reach.

Working with Arabic sign language experts, we designed the world’s first breast cancer self-check in sign language. We developed two unique signs for ‘cancerous’ and ‘lumps’, which otherwise didn’t exist. These signs were used to create a new design language of inclusivity. Transformed into bold, illustrated iconography, we then launched ‘Life Saving Signs’, a breast cancer awareness campaign that shared life-saving reminders and helped women to self-check. Completely executed in sign language, it was the first-ever silent campaign released on sound-first apps like TikTok and Instagram. Easily adaptable across multiple mediums and clearly understood, the signs taught everyone how to speak the language of an otherwise marginalized section of society. A list of significant special needs institutes included these life-saving signs in their curriculum.The campaign went viral overnight, with popular influencers reposting it across channels, and national media outlets covering the campaign within 24 hours.

Our campaign succeeded in highlighting Emirates NBD’s commitment to building an inclusive community through its ‘TogetherLimitless’ program.

Impressions: +7.3m

Positive brand sentiment: +100%

Increase in mammogram check-ups within the community: +47%