The gender pay gap has been steadily narrowing globally. But in Lebanon, not as fast as it should. To date, a 21% average gender pay gap remains to be closed; contributing to Lebanon’s poor ranking at 145 out of 152 countries (Global gender Gap Report 2020).

As part of its initiatives to build a gender balanced Lebanon, Fiftyfifty wanted to raise awareness about the 21% gender pay gap; and inspire a behavioral change in women, and towards women in the workplace.

The idea was to show people what it means to close the gap, literally.

In Arabic, a gap between two words or two letters impacts the way they are read and understood. And in some cases, by closing the gap between the letters, we reveal a new word with an entirely different meaning.

So we chose words that with the gap, reflected women’s reality at the workplace today: Unequally paid, stagnating in lower positions, with unequal opportunity to grow.

We asked people to close the gap, to reveal new words with empowering, positive and hopeful meanings. By inviting people to close the gap between letters, we showed them what it means to close the pay gap between genders.

We created a typeface of the Ruk’a family inspired by typography typically found on Lebanese currency. We drew our letters with lines that created a sense of continuity with the background, and highlighted the gap with a vertical strip that interrupted the layout and slashed the edges of the letters to dramatize its impact. We got inspired by the iconic graphics color and texture of the Lebanese currency notes to design our ads.

The campaign was released on February 10th and ran for two weeks. Our ads were seen in major publications in the country. Posters and billboards were placed in popular business areas to inspire change. In banks, we handed out flyers, designed to match the real size of Lebanese money notes, and attached them smartly to money bundles that women came to draw. DM’s were sent to influential women to start the conversation.

The campaign had a noticeable impact on the culture. With more than 2 Million impressions, and a trending campaign, our simple words made thousands of Lebanese women aware of the law that is behind them when it comes to demanding equal pay. All they had to do was close the gap.

Website visits for the organization rose by a whopping +40%, while awareness of the Labor Law increased by an incredible +80%.