An-Nahar is one of Lebanon’s leading newspapers, and the only female-owned paper in the country. The brand strongly stands for truth and equality, and for this reason, has also launched a female-focused media platform called Naya.

But for this Women’s Day, An-Nahar wanted to do more than just celebrate women. They wanted to have a two-way conversation with their audience, and discuss how inequality from the perspective of Arab culture.

On Women’s Day, An-Nahar decided to take a stand for Arab women by flipping the so-called compliment to make a point. A new phrase, ‘Brother of Woman’ was created, accrediting men’s success to women to see how they’d feel.

The PR strategy followed a two-phased approach, whereby the first phase was a stunt on Live TV and the second phase was leveraging on the reactions from key influencers, celebrities, public and human rights activists.

The key PR message was to empower women by shedding light on an age-old compliment given to successful women.

The campaign targeted the entire country of Lebanon which is populated by 18 religious groups and sub-sects, with varied cultural backgrounds and beliefs about women’s rights. However, this phrase is one that is used by all to define strong women.

Top Tier 1 Media channels in the country were used - An Nahar newspaper and MTV being Class A in Lebanon.

Starting with a stunt on one of the region’s most popular shows, TV host Pierre Rabat used the phrase ‘Brother of Woman’ to compliment his guest – which triggered the conversation.

Men on the show and across the region immediately took offense. And as the chatter flowed in, An-Nahar was ready with a 360 plan across Social, Outdoor, Print and On-ground to reveal its campaign and drive the conversation further.

The campaign fueled conversation, garnering over 1.1 million media impressions. But more importantly, women took to the streets to demand action for even greater inequality issues, holding up the An-Nahar Newspaper’s special front covers as posters of protest. Finally resulting in a pledge from members of the parliament to take action, and even forcing a popular TV show (originally named ‘Sister of Man’) to change its name, making the phrase history.