IMPACT BBDO

Client: Yokohama/Roads For Life
Product: Shrine Saviors
Title: Shrine Saviors
Media: OOH, Film, Social, Print, Website, PR
Country: Lebanon
Date Of Campaign: Launched on Feb 1st 2023

Background: Across Lebanon, governmental incompetence has resulted in a total lack of infrastructure, supplying the country with only 2 hours of electricity a day, leaving many roads unlit. This is an especially dangerous result for mountainous roads that have taken the lives of many drivers that overlooked fatal turns in the dark. In fact, accordingto the Traffic Management Center, Lebanon has the highest rate of accidents per capita in the world. The ISF officer who claimed this was arrested by his own team.Roads for Life, an NGO concerned with the road safety and post accident Care had to act and find a solution to these dangerous consequences of the government’s negligence and prevent more lives from being lost.

Idea: Roads for Life partnered with Yokohama and launched “Shrine Saviors”, an initiative that equips solar panels to the roofing of memorial shrines, which in turn supplied light emanating from the shrines illuminating the darkened streets. It was an effort to collectively achieve a successful awareness campaign for road safety, a practical method to solve the pressing problem of unlit roads, and finally to alsoempower the families of those who passed in helping others avoid that pain. We want to reach all the Lebanese commuting on roads, especially given the lack of public transport in the country.After installing solar panels on dozens of shrines around the most dangerous points on mountain roads, our campaign involved a film capturing powerful testimonials from family members of those who were killed due to the darkness on the dangerous roads of the “valley of the skulls”.The film was featured on primetime television channels across Lebanon and spread across social media in tandem with a Yokohama social campaign that also promoted the cause. The shrines themselves served as an expressive vehicle for the initiative in an effort to solve the lack of road safety. The Roads for Life website was rebranded in a manner that spreads awareness about this campaign, and to direct donations that light one shrine at a time.

Results: Not only did we increase Roads for Life’s website traffic by welcoming an influx of donations after the campaign, which increased by 37% compared to before we launched the initiative, we also saw a governmental effort to take new steps to encourage road safety by increasing of electricity rationing to 4 hours daily. In just two weeks, the number of car accidents were reduced by 21% in the area lit up by the shrines.Client representatives were featured on several top Lebanese broadcasting stations, raising awareness about an issue the government wanted so badly to bury.In just two weeks:- Number of accidents reduced by 21%- 37% increase in donations on the website- 6 million dollars in earned media