Across the Middle East, 4.7 million women are hearing and speech impaired. Yet there are no breast cancer awareness campaigns targeting them. Emirates NBD, the largest banking institution in the UAE, is committed to building an inclusive society through its ‘Together Limitless’ program. During Pink October, the bank needed a campaign to reach this community. But across 300 universally used sign languages, covering 140,000 words each, signs for ‘cancerous’ and ‘lumps’ didn’t exist. So, Emirates NBD stepped in to create life-saving signs – educating and helping millions of women across the region on how to self-check.

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 are even harder to receive. Especially when signs for ‘cancerous’ and ‘lumps’ do not exist across 300 universally used sign languages, each covering 140,000 words.

As the largest banking insitution in the middle east and one that believes in building an inclusive society through its ‘TogetherLimitless’ program, Emirates NBD needed a campaign that spoke to this community. And that meant inventing new signs to save lives.

Situation: Pink October is usually marked by a flood of breast cancer awareness campaigns. Most of these go unnoticed and are not impactful, especially for the women who are hearing and speech impaired.

Brief: Emirates NBD, being the largest banking institution in the middle east, has always used its CSR initiatives to empower the community at a macro and micro level. So, when breast cancer awareness month was around the corner, the bank was clear in its stand of creating a campaign that spoke to everyone.

Objectives: The ‘TogetherLimitless’ program was at the forefront of the bank’s commitment to creating an inclusive campaign that broke the barriers of disability. We decided to make this the most exclusive campaign ever, speaking in a language that specifically reached 4.7 million women.

Spearheaded by its ideology of creating an inclusive society, Emirates NBD needed a breast cancer awareness campaign that could be the launch of an initiative. A movement that could make a breakthrough at different levels of the community.

Creating a mass campaign that targets all women across demographics would be the obvious thing to do. Creating new life-saving signs to better reach the hearing and speech impaired community, in line with the bank’s inclusivity policy, became a talking point across all sections of society in the UAE.

Released on social media at the beginning of breast cancer awareness month, the campaign went viral with women and people acknowledging that it was the first campaign they had seen which said so much without having to say anything at all. Media outlets on national television and social media picked up and spread the message that touched millions.

Across the Middle East, 4.7 million women are hearing and speech impaired. Yet there are no breast cancer awareness campaigns targeting them during Pink October. So, in line with our ‘TogetherLimitless’ program, we partnered with this community and Arabic sign language experts to create a campaign that spoke to an otherwise marginalized fraction of society.

After analyzing 300 universally used sign languages, each covering 140,000 words, we realized that signs for ‘cancerous’ and ‘lumps’ didn’t exist. For impaired women in the region, who already experience social stigma around the topic, breast cancer became a topic they were simply unable to discuss.

Our challenge gave us our breakthrough: we created life-saving signs that otherwise didn’t exist in sign language, allowing us to share messages for breast cancer awareness without even saying a word. A campaign designed for a small section of society, with universal appeal.

We created the world’s first signs for ‘cancerous’ and ‘lumps’, that didn’t otherwise exist across 300 universally used sign languages. We then launched ‘Life Saving Signs’, a breast cancer awareness campaign that shared life-saving reminders to hearing and speech impaired women, educating them on how to self-check in sign language. 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.

Our campaign succeeded in highlighting Emirates NBD’s commitment to building an inclusive community through its ‘TogetherLimitless’ program. The message was heard loud and clear across social media channels, resulting in over 7.3m women engaging with our social content and 100% increase in positive brand love. And most importantly, we saw a 47% increase in mammogram checks within the community, entailing that our campaign effectively reached every woman across the region despite cultural taboos surrounding the topic.

Emirates NBD, being the largest banking institution in the middle east, has always used its CSR initiatives to empower the community at a macro and micro level. The bank stays committed to building an inclusive society through its ‘TogtherLimitless’ program. So, when breast cancer awareness month was around the corner, the bank was clear in its stand of creating an inclusive campaign, made for those isolated by disability.