The idea was actually inspired by a news story on a major news channel, where an English-speaking reporter was commentating on footage from a madrasa (traditional school of Islamic instruction). The video showed young kids trying to memorize the Quran. The commentator however, explained that the kids were being brainwashed and indoctrinated into jihadi ideology. There was nothing in the actual video to suggest his conclusions.

So we decided to get a middle-aged man, with the appearances of a jihadi cliché, talking to a bunch of kids in a language we don’t understand. We wanted to see how the educated middleclass respond to the video. As expected, most of them reacted to the visual stimulus, without bothering to question the content.

The film was executed in two stages. First the teacher and kids video was shot and edited. Then the video was shown in a controlled environment to randomly selected individuals. They were exposed to video without translation first and then with. Many of who watched the video, refused to comment. Some of the comments were too extreme to be used in the final film.

The video was placed on the Facebook page of THE NEWS MINUTE and then linked to their website. No money was spent promoting the video. The video automatically reached subscriber base of the online news channel.

The objective stated by the client was to achieve 300,000 views and a 1000 shares.

The video got more than 600,000 views within the first 3 days (when these results were compiled). It was not promoted through any paid media or channel.

It garnered user engagement of over 19,000 and was shared over 12,000 times.

The debate in comments below the video were dominated by extremes on the first day, but was balanced by more moderate points of view subsequently.

This video received the highest user engagement recorded for a single post on the client’s Facebook page.