Brief: Saudi was in the midst of a social revolution. For the first time in history Saudi women were allowed to drive. How can Dodge drive this movement forward?

Insight: Saudi is a deeply conservative society where women were unsure of their place. They could legally drive but still had their doubts. Would they get in trouble? We wanted to change that. We wanted to empower women to get behind the wheel.

Idea: The only way to conquer fear is to do what you’re afraid of. We inspired thousands of Saudi women to get behind the wheel and drive.

Personal note: Social revolutions in the Middle East are rare. A region with deeply rooted biases that haven’t been destroyed even though the world has moved on. Women such as Loujain al-Hathloul are still in prison till this very day because of breaking the ban on driving. It was an absolute honor to be able to take a stand and support the women of Saudi in whatever little way I could.

Brief: Create a happier home by helping kids discover the joy of playtime away from screens.

Insight: More than ever, children are addicted to screens, spending over 5 hours a day behind them causing severe problems with their development.

Idea: So, how do you turn lazy content into active playtime? We created Play-vember. A whole month of challenges that gets kids thinking, moving and doing.

Campaign site: https://www.ikea.com/ae/en/campaigns/playvember-pub7e0c19b0

Brief: Promote IKEA’s festival sale.

Insight: IKEA’s end of the year festival sale has such incredible offers that customers could literally redo their entire home for very little money.

Idea: Customers could literally gift themselves a brand new home for Christmas. To dramatize this idea, we actually gift-wrapped an entire house, over a period of 24 hours, using hundreds of meters of gift wrapping paper. The success of the campaign was instantaneous garnering 48.1 M impressions, a 60% increase in online sales and a 38%. increase in website traffic.

Brief: Figure out a way to highlight the new features Renault Symbol has.

Insight: Humans don’t always know what they’re doing and could always use the help of trusty tech.

Idea: We created a series of oh so hilarious commercials that show how your life could be so much better with Renault’s features in it.

Credits:

CW: Gaurav Maitreya

AD: Joao Epifanio

CD: Mario Nascimento

Insight: With record number of people migrating to the Middle East, we wanted to shine a light on how awesome it is that newcomers are taking the time to dive into Arab culture and understand it.

Idea: A film revolving around someone who was just invited to their first Iftar and his journey learning its cultural ropes.

Brief: Recap the past 5 years of work we did on Mastercard.

Idea: We've come a long, long way together

Through the hard times and the good

I have to celebrate you, baby

I have to praise you like I should.

Brief: Create a memorable campaign for Eid.

Insight: Eidiya is an important social tradition in Muslim culture. It’s when a crisp envelope of money is given to a young relative by an adult family member during Eid. However, in 2021, it was very difficult for the tradition to continue as gatherings were banned.

Idea: Mashreq bank seized the opportunity to keep a long standing tradition alive by creating the Eidiya ATM. By building a specially designed ATM that allowed family members from around the world to use a custom microsite to record a message and send money to their loved ones from a safe distance.

Execution:

1. We started the campaign by sharing teaser videos starring influencers using the ATM.

2. Once this gained traction, we posted tutorial videos about how people could send money using our microsite.

3. Emailers were sent to those receiving money with instructions on where they need to go.

4. Kids received their Eidiya and a personalized greeting from family members.

Credits:

CD: Usman Saleemi

Senior Art Director: Mais Haddidi

Senior Copywriter and strategist: Gaurav Maitreya

Core contributor to Project Catalyst within the Cardano Blockchain. I co-wrote and led the community in building Catalyst documentation resources using Gitbook.

Screenshots don’t quite cut it so please visit https://docs.catalystcontributors.org/project-catalyst/

Site link: https://www.majidalfuttaim.com/en

Brief: Create a new website for Majid Al Futtaim.

Insight: MAF has great moments around the clock.

Idea: No matter what time a person visits the site they’ll see an experience that they could enjoy at that very moment with MAF.

Personal note: Please visit the website because screen shots don’t just cut it.

Credit:

CD: Alex Obradovic

Senior Art Director: Shwan Nazar

Copywriter: Gaurav Maitreya

Cannes Young Lion Gold Winner

Brief: Raise awareness for abandoned and stray dogs.

Insight: Most people in UAE aren’t aware about the extent of stray and abandoned dogs around. Therefore when they look to take a dog home around 80% of them search for pet stores on Google.

Idea: When a person types ‘pet store’ into Google maps they will see numerous pins pop up. These are pins of the abandoned dogs Sniff found around the city. Sniff hacks the term pet store by using Google maps as an awareness and adoption platform where the audience can not only finally see how many dogs have been abandoned on the street but also help solve the problem by adopting one with Sniff - helping Sniff it out.

Credits:

CW: Gaurav Maitreya

AD: Sumer Kotwal

All-time most watched Nescafe Arabia commercial .

Brief: Nescafe 3in1 relaunched with a new layer of foam and tasked us to sell it.

Insight: We used wordplay and connected the word update to both coffee and the scenario.

Idea: A conversation between friends where one is talking about an update to the coffee while the others are talking about an update to something else. The reveal is the new layer of foam.

Dubai Lynx Integrated Gold

Brief: An integrated campaign which inspires fun and responsible travel through voluntourism. 

Insight: Millennials are constantly on the hunt for unique and spontaneous experiences.

Idea: While booking we'll give millennials the chance to take the impactful detour and make a difference. 

Credits:

CW: Gaurav Maitreya

AD: Sumer Kotwal

Proactive

Brief: Empower the unbanked.

Insight: The donation ecosystem is broken due to lack of transparency and trust.

Idea: Overhaul the current system by creating a blockchain called heartcoin which is a transparent donation platform.