Right to breathe - The interactive storytelling experience

Alwaleed Philantrophies

Designing a new and engaging digital platform for a cause we're all too familiar with.
Since the introduction of e-cigarettes and the variety of easily accessible vape devices, smoking has gone back to being “cool”. This has sounded the alarms at the Saudi Ministry of Health, and Alwaleed Philanthropies. As part of their on-going commitment to fight a bad habit in the public, they approached us to help them bring their anti-smoking campaign to life. “We took this as an opportunity to create a memorable digital experience out of a topic that has become redundant and outdated. We all know smoking kills, but how can we make it fun to hear about
The Background

Since the introduction of e-cigarettes and the variety of easily accessible vape devices, smoking has gone back to being “cool”.

This has sounded the alarms at the Saudi Ministry of Health, and Alwaleed Philanthropies. As part of their on-going commitment to fight a bad habit in the public, they approached us to help them bring their anti-smoking campaign to life.

The campaign focused on a main character: the bubble man. On a mission to rid himself of his bubble helmet and find some fresh smoke-free air, the bubble man’s story is about what it is like to be a second hand smoker, and the risks that come with. For that, we sketched out and 3D printed an attachment to hold an air-quality sensor and microprocessor, that measures the air quality in the room and displays it on an LED strip around the helmet.

Our bubbleman was featured wearing this helmet around in public, and in controlled environments, which became the backbone of the campaign’s TVC.

Our involvement in this campaign was two-fold. We first wanted to create an air of credibility to the overall project by inventing and building a fully functioning smoke-detector helmet for our protagonist.

For that, we sketched out and 3D printed an attachment to hold an air-quality sensor and microprocessor, that measures the air quality in the room and displays it on an LED strip around the helmet.

Our bubbleman was featured wearing this helmet around in public, and in controlled environments, which became the backbone of the campaign’s TVC.

In parallel, and to magnify the campaign reach, we were initially tasked with creating an informative landing page for the campaign.

Considering the target audience and how difficult it is to capture their attention, we took it upon ourselves to push the boundaries of a traditional website and craft an immersive story-telling site, which presented mundane information in a fun & interesting way.

We had it as a goal to create something that was not only engaging, but worth sharing.

The Digital Experience

We designed an audio-visual story-telling experience. The campaign's microsite storyline is all about how our hero, The Bubble Man, is looking to find fresh air without needing his bubble. In addition to the VO, we used curated background sounds to fully immerse the user, as well as masked gifs, Arabic typography and animated SVGs to keep them visually engaged in the storyline that all react in synchronization to the user scroll, keeping them engaged and in control of the experience pace.

Promoting The Experience

To further expand the campaign’s reach, we created an AR snapchat lens that transforms the user into the campaign mascot and drive them to share the video outcome or visit the website.

The Results
The campaign was a massive success, in terms of reach and shareability. The direct traffic on the campaign website has exceeded the paid one, testifying the effectiveness of our approach.
201K Userscompleted the digital experience
170K Direct Visitorsvia organic & sharing sources
10.9K Usersshared the experience