National day is the single most important celebration on the Saudi calendar, people from all walks of life flock to the street in what essentially is a nationwide festival. A major part of this celebration is the national anthem and as the national day approached, we recognized that a significant percentage of the population seem to have been left on the sidelines of this day.

King Salman Center for Disability Research (KSCDR), an NGO that works to enhance the lives of individuals with disabilities in the Kingdom through research and innovation, wanted to make sure that no citizen would feel left out of this or any celebration because of a physical disability. Our objective was to find a creative solution to solve this problem.

720,000 people equalling 2 percent of the total population in Saudi Arabia belong to the deaf community, hindering their ability to fully experience National Day and the joy of it.

To make sure they are included in this year's celebration, we developed an idea to create the world's first flag with built-in technology that would allow the deaf to experience their national anthem for the first time ever. The flag was designed with innovative technology that captures sound in real-time and translates it into haptic sensations that are then conveyed through the use of advanced actuators embedded inside fabric. These actuators are precisely calibrated to produce vibrations of different intensities and patterns, and when the flag is wrapped around the shoulders of an individual it would recreate the sensation of sound, specifically the National Anthem, within the body.

We wanted to acknowledge the deaf community's invaluable contributions to the nation, which sparked important conversations and changed perceptions around the challenges they face in everyday celebrations. With a strong PR focus, we shed light on this often-overlooked group and made a lasting impact.

We reached out to different organizations and members of the deaf community inviting them to join us in multiple locations for a special national day celebration. We faced challenges at first as the community is generally conservative but once we explained that we will be providing a new technology that would allow for a more inclusive National Day celebration, we received a lot more interest.

Once the campaign was launched, we focused our efforts on leveraging our PR networks to attain the greatest possible visibility for the initiative.

We chose to showcase our technology to a group of individuals from the deaf community in order to inspire the wider community across the country. We invited them to participate in a unique National Day celebration at various locations and recorded their testimonials about their past experiences on this special day.

We unveiled the flag and invited them to wrap it around their shoulders, then we played the KSA's National Anthem and recorded their reactions while experiencing it for the first time ever.

This direct interaction was transformed into a 4-minute emotional film that was shared on social media platforms, giving deaf people all over the country a sense of inclusion and a new opportunity to feel the joy of the National Day.

In a matter of hours, the campaign hashtag became the main trending topic on social media, taking over the official hashtag of the day. The film was shared widely on WhatsApp and Twitter with overwhelmingly positive responses and sentiment.

The initiative was not only a technological achievement but also a social one, the conversation of the day turned from usual celebration towards the need to further the drive for inclusivity in the region, where traditionally individuals with disabilities are considered second-class citizens.

A key measure of success was how far the campaign spread amongst the disabled community, praising the initiative as one of the first times they feel positively singled out as well as receiving hundreds of requests to try on the flag themselves.

The campaign achieved 64 Million in organic reach and 98.13% positive sentiment, a breakthrough on a day marked by brands looking for attention.