Project Description
Carassi Caspian are proud of one of the most iconic campaigns for the government of Dubai, Dubai Media City part of TECOM Media Student Awards 2007. In its sixth edition more than 2200 entries were received by Dubai Media City and 41 innovative entries were shortlisted for the final round of 10 categories of the Award. To expand the scope of the awards, Dubai media city organized Career Day to create links between media institutions and students to tap vast pool of young talent in the Middle East and North Africa region. The agency was briefed without a competitive pitch to create and develop a creative concept, storyboard, script, and to direct and produce a TV commercial to run throughout TV stations and online across the Middle East and North Africa for IBDAA’ campaign to attract and promote top talent in various artistic and cultural fields to participate in one of the most prestigious talent competition forums in the region. The competition covered a broad category of arts, sciences, communication and production as in Journalism, Radio Feature, Animation, Graphic Design, Analogue Photography, Digital Photography, Print Advertising and TV Advertising.
The launch and the presentation of the main event was attended by His Highness, Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Media Incorporated. Sheikh Maktoum’s elder brother Hamdan is crown prince of Dubai. It was indeed proud moments for Carassi Caspian to be involved in such a significant creative and full-production work. The TV commercial was shot in Toronto by Mark Carassi Inc. and conceptualized, scripted, directed and produced by Mark Carassi the founder and the creative director of the agency. Mark Carassi was one of the 22 judges and assigned to head creative judges for the Ibda’a Awards 2007, by Mohamed AlMulla, then Director of Dubai Media City and presently CEO, DXB Entertainments.
To create the match strike in the main shot of the commercial, a team of craftsmen with expertise in controlled explosion were brought to the shoot set in Toronto from Montreal. The government of Canada Army and police provided direct supervision and presence at the studio for the shoot with a stand-up guard during and throughout the shoot for the safety of the crew and ensuring national security and the proper and well-managed use of explosives at the studio. Key sponsors and participants of the events were, OMD , Emirates Bank, CARASSI, Nissan AW Rostamani, and other sponsors included Leo Burnett, Y&R, Saatchi & Saatchi, CNN, CNBC, MBC, Motivate Publishing in collaboration with International Advertising Association.
Problem: To attract the top creative talent for the most prestigious creative competition in one of the most competitive and significant competition events that required the development of a highly unique and telling creative concept to represent the nucleus of a broad creativity in a verbal and visual narrative as it relates to various fields of arts and sciences.
Solution: In close collaboration with the client it was agreed to use a striking match as the key concept. An 80 cm match was made as a prop and the striking of the match was meant to represent the focus on creativity. The regional creative campaign was instrumental in making the creative competition one of the most successful prize-winning events for creativity in multi-disciplinary fields ever.
