On the 20th of January, Donald Trump was set to be sworn in as President of the United States. Our campaign was thought of, approved, executed and published in a span of 24 hours. We saw an opportunity for Al Rifai to say something no other brand could. We predicted the headline of the next morning's newspaper and booked a front page ad as close as possible to it, without ever mentioning anything about Donald Trump or the elections. Simply, The World has Gone Nuts, next to a picture of Donald Trump being sworn in as president. The next morning we uploaded a picture of the front page on social media.

24 hours before the inauguration, we got in touch with Lebanon's leading english speaking newspaper and discussed the idea with them. Our ad needed to run as close as possible to the headline and a picture of Donald Trump for it to be relevant and the newspaper wasn't able to guarantee this as the inauguration hadn't happened yet. Once the news was ready, We sent a team at midnight to sit with the newspaper editorial team to ensure the placement of the ad came close to the headline without infringing on their freedom. We managed to do this and we knew the next morning people would wake up to a powerful statement by our brand.

Our press ad became the most shared news stories in the Middle East instantly. It spread around the world and had gathered 100,000 shares and tweets by the end of the first day. By Sunday it became global news with mentions and articles by leading news sites around the world. Al Rifai went from being known in the Middle East to becoming familiar around the world. Our website saw a 300% increase in visits that week and the brand saw major increase in awareness with people from all over the world sending messages to our Facebook page asking where they can find our products. Most importantly, Al Rifai locally solidified it's position as the leading Nut Maker in the region with it's bold statement. All from one single Press Ad.

This work is relevant for Media Lynx because our idea is solely based on media placement. Our advertising relies on the newspaper headline and the proximity to it for it to work.

We wanted our message to spread around the world and reach as many people as possible, naturally social media would be first place to go for that. Instead we opted for a newspaper insert. We felt that we needed to make a big statement. With the controversy around fake news online, printed newspapers are still perceived as more credible and shows that Al Rifai is putting their money with their mouth is. A picture of a newspaper headline was shared more than any post could on that matter.

There was general confusion around the Middle East leading up to the inauguration of Donald Trump. Most people outside the US thought it was a scene from a movie and it wasn't going to happen. Reacting to this, We designed a press ad with a simple headline that read "The World has gone nuts" with a pack shot from AL Rifai Nuts under it. The idea was to place this ad as close as possible to the news of Donald Trump's inauguration headline.