Beirut, Lebanon – May 4th, 2016 – Mindshare MENA, part of WPP, is a global media agency network helping clients to make collaborative and adaptive decisions across their paid, owned, and earned marketing in real-time.

The team is pleased to announce that Mindshare Lebanon won the Mindshare EMEA “Campaign of the Year” (COTY) for their work on the groundbreaking Touch “Al Tawasol” campaign. COTY is Mindshare’s internal global competition for finding and sharing the best creative work.

The same campaign was awarded silver in the “Utility and Public Service” category at the Festival of Media/ FOM MENA

Mindshare Lebanon was recognized for Touch’s highly-successful “Tawasol” campaign, which the mobile telecommunications and data operator created to help Syrian refugees living in Lebanon connect to their loved ones in Syria. Touch created an affordable mobile package that targeted refugees living in settlements along Lebanon’s borders. Despite the limited media available to directly target the Syrian refugees; Touch and Mindshare overcame this challenge by strategically partnering with refugee-facing NGOs and created adaptive and highly-targeted activations around the border camps. Using only 50% of the projected budget, this strategy helped Touch connect with 500% more Syrian refugees than projected, subsequently helping five times more displaced people reconnect with their friends and family in Syria.

 “Connecting with this audience was a strategic challenge, as there is a lack of direct communications channels to Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Cracking this challenge was more rewarding knowing that you are helping people in need” says Mindshare Lebanon Managing Director Hana Khatib.

“Thanks to Mindshare’s customized media campaign, touch was able to achieve its objective by connecting more refugees with their loved ones via the affordable ‘Tawasol’ bundle. We are proud that our campaign and partners are recognized at this level during prestigious industry festivals and events”. Touch Chief Commercial Officer Nadim Khater