Every year, just around the time of the Back-to-School shopping season, all major school supply and bookstores in Saudi Arabia launch a series of festive ads that almost make you believe in a utopian world, where kids actually look forward to going back to school after a long and happy summer.

So when we were tasked with creating a Back-to-School-themed TV commercial for Jarir Bookstores, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to participate in this charade. We had to be honest. We had to tell it like it is.

But luckily, we were able to show kids some light at the end of this very dark tunnel: the fancy new supplies and school bags they get to buy shortly before the apocalypse began, thus giving them something to look forward to.

So to announce Jarir’s back-to-school bag collection, we took an – for the region – unconventional approach and created a sarcastic and witty commercial that makes fun of the fact that really no one likes to go back to school after summer.

The resulting film got over 1.8 million views on YouTube and started a region-wide debate on social media about the reality of school in the country.

Phase 2 of the same campaign then showed how school – despite its ups and downs – appears to be not so bad after all, as it provided us with valuable life lessons. That commercial was viewed more than 2.5 million times.

I was involved in the ideation, conceptualization and management of this project. It was eventually written in Arabic in order to appeal to the Saudi target audience.

This campaign was awarded Gold in the Retail (Non-Food) category and Silver in the Youth Marketing (Teens & Adults) category at the 2018 MENA Effie Awards. In addition, it received a Bronze and Brand Rebel Award at the 2019 WARC Prize for MENA Strategy awards.