In Sri Lanka during the regime of the last President, there was a large number of anti media activities including the killing of some prominent journalists in the country. All news provided in any of the main media companies had to be cleared by the government and the license of any of the media houses which carried out news without government clearance risked having their license cancelled.

With this background, Daily Mirror, an independent news provider, wanted to communicate to the general public their stance on the situation and the need for media freedom to publicize the news as it is.

Daily Mirror wanted to pass an impactful message to its readers on World Press Freedom Day. With this brief the Agency recommended the newspaper to print the front page of the newspaper mirrored, stating "Only true freedom of the press can turn things the right way around”.

Hence the publication printed the front page of the newspaper mirrored, and managed to reach out to each and every newspaper reader as well as non readers through the free publicity received.

The above task of reaching our client's audience (its readers) with the real message was not a possible task to achieve through a communications campaign since the message could look like a direct hit on the government. Also the client was not in a position to do a continuous campaign since it could disturb the government. So our idea was a simple PR stunt.

Using the concept of the mirror itself, on World Press Freedom Day, the newspaper was printed with the cover page as a ‘mirrored page’ including the logo, the mastheads, advertisements and all news contents. The only line that was easily legible was “Only true freedom of the press can turn things the right way around” and if a reader wanted to read the content on the front cover they had to hold the page to a mirror and read the reflection.

From consumers who thought it was a printing mistake to parliamentarians applauding the good work and the good timing of the message, the campaign was a success from the moment the newspaper hit the stands.

Most of Sri Lanka’s morning programs on TV and Radio featured the front page and aired the content. The airtime generated on this day alone exceeded USD 68,000, with over 60 minutes of free airtime. The newspapers were sold out before 10 am. By evening the unique ‘Mirror page’ was gaining attention on the web with people sharing articles & pictures, and journalists blogging about the advertisements. Even one of India’s highest selling newspaper The Hindustan Times, acclaimed Daily Mirror on its courageous effort to stand up for press freedom.

Independent tracking studies gave the best scores for Daily Mirror in the immediate media tracks in June on the reliability of the medium.