Al Jazeera wins prestigious Red Dot award for design

The “Hear the Human Story” marketing campaign for Al Jazeera English has been awarded with a Red Dot “Best of the Best” prize in communication design. A Red Dot is internationally recognized as a symbol for design excellence, and has been given out each year in Germany since 1955.

“Hear the Human Story” was Al Jazeera English’s first global brand campaign. Conceptualized by Memac Ogilvy, the campaign positioned the channel as one that listens and tells the stories of those who are often under-reported and neglected by media. The channel’s commitment and focus on humanity in their reporting has been extremely popular and well received, increasing viewership and campaign recall in key priority markets.

The main brand film for the campaign, which featured the Gulabi Gang fighting for women’s rights in India, also received a Red Dot from the jury.

The international Red Dot jury chose the 82 best entries of the year from a total of 7,451 submissions from over 53 countries. The winners were announced on the 6th of November at the Museum of Communications in Berlin. The campaign will now feature in a Red Dot exhibition which will tour the world.

Commenting on receiving the award, Al Jazeera’s Executive Director for Global Brand and Communications Abdulla AlNajjar said:

“At Al Jazeera we believe that everyone has a story worth hearing and so every day we produce compelling emotional stories of people no matter who or where they are. The campaign therefore had to be very special to represent these human stories and the strength of the human spirit and I’m really pleased that it rose to the challenge, shattered our expectations and delighted everyone with its imagery and message.”

Launched on 3rd November 2014, the campaign ran in 12 countries over six weeks. It encompassed a short film, TV ads, press, poster and digital legs, as well as interactive photographic exhibition in London. True to the theme, each piece of work in the campaign tells a different human story.

The Best of the Best Red Dot and the Red Dot are only the latest awards that the “Hear the Human Story” campaign has received. It also this year picked up one silver and two bronze awards at the Dubai Lynx, and a Bronze Pencil and two merits from the One Show.