In 2014 Pope Francis rode through Bethlehem in a popemobile, built to protect one man. Before he died, he gave Caritas his blessing to turn it into a paediatric clinic for Gaza’s children. The most protected car in the world, sent to the children no one is protecting.

For the first time, Activation Ideas is a Knowledge Partner of an award show.

The show is Dragons of MENA, the new Middle East and North Africa edition of the Dragons of Asia. I’ve been asked plenty of times and have always said no. This site is here to share work, not to sell shows. This time I said yes.

Why? “Below the Line” disciplines and techniques deserve the kind of recognition mainstream advertising doesn’t give them. In an agency, these are the ideas often relegated to a few slides at the end of a presentation, cooked at the last minute. Or the flashy ones for award shows that get one-off attention rather making business impact.

I’ve felt that strongly from the start, when I moved from traditional advertising to the rising world of brand activation. Even now, with most shows running activation and experiential categories, the discipline still isn’t properly understood.

That’s why this site exists. And it’s why I’ll back a show that takes activation seriously.

I’ve entered and judged the original Dragons of Asia for about a decade. The reason I paid attention back then is the same reason I’m getting involved now. Since 2000, this has been the show talking about promotional marketing, activation and experiential as primary disciplines. The mainstream shows took years to catch up. Most of them still treat activation as a sidekick to advertising. The Dragons treat it as the main act. There is no global award show built around the full activation and promotional marketing discipline. This is the closest thing.

The MENA edition extends that thinking into a region with the same problem: strong work that doesn’t get seen on the world stage. Two of the ten categories are built specifically for the region: Nation, City & Place Impact, and Faith, Arabic Culture & Seasonal Communications. The show was built for MENA, not pasted on top of it. Judged equally on strategy, concept, execution and results by an international Jury. Entry is affordable and one submission covers both MENA and the Dragons of Asia.

This isn’t Cannes and isn’t trying to be. The work is judged on whether an idea worked in the real world, not on how it looks on a case film. That’s a different scale, and it’s the right one for this kind of campaign.

If you’re working in MENA, or you have activation ideas that deserve to be seen, worth a look. Deadline is 15 June 2026. Awards in Dubai in September.

I’ve been waiting for this my whole life. Genius.

Tiffany Blue® is a registered trademark. Nobody else can use it, in any industry. Except the oceans off Africa, Australia and the Caribbean already do. With that fact, the brand’s unnoticed conservation efforts took over the normally self-serving luxury ads sites.

Outdoor brands claim they have the gear to take you to the furthest places on Earth. But no one has gone as far as picking a social media fight with Flat Earthers, daring them to find the edge in exchange for the entire company.

Nothing kills a betting addiction. So Brazil’s stock exchange stopped trying to fight it and built a better bet instead. Same dopamine rush, real stocks, no financial loss.

The street furniture was always there. A pet insurer just labelled it. Cheaper than the vet bills it would otherwise be paying.

Once you hear it, you can’t unhear it.

The Brazilian Stock Exchange sponsors museums most of its future customers won’t enter. Telling them to come doesn’t work. Letting the funk and rap artists they actually listen to pick the paintings that match their tracks does.

Willpower lost to the dopamine machine years ago. The iconic wrapper has been reimagined as a Faraday cage. Slip your phone inside and calls, internet and GPS die. “Have a break” now has no choice.

An upcoming copywriter bets his future on a 115‑mile race against Liquid Death’s VP of Creative. Strictly speaking, it’s not a brand case study but more a raw experiment in self‑promotion, personal branding, and how to make people pay attention when you’re starting. 10 for boldness and get-go attitude.

Most festival sponsors buy visibility. This Brazilian telco sponsored the security instead, handing out a Bluetooth pin that automatically locks your phone if it moves 10 metres away from you.

Hated by football fans, now loved by beer drinkers. Clever promo that converts an average negative into a solid positive.

After 28 title-less years, the country’s beer icon walked away from the Argentine national team. A smaller brand took its place and Argentina immediately won the Copa América, the Finalissima and the World Cup. In a country where fans credit lucky shirts and lucky bars, the new sponsor claimed the one position the old one never could.

A follower on Instagram dared Poland’s biggest pasta brand to make pasta shaped like tennis rackets. Hours later, production was on. Fans were dared back to name it while their national star played her way to the Wimbledon final. Basically, the comments section wrote the brand plan.

When restaurant sales dipped, this iconic Thai brand gave their beloved fish ball mascot a frown and served it without explanation. Customers came back not for a discount but to cheer her up.

Nobody logs into a government portal to vote on local budgets. But everyone already decides what to do with their money at an ATM. The global payment network added public funds polling to the menu. Priceless.

Colombians care more about telenovela characters than about their own insurance. Plot twist: the national insurance brand let them buy real policies on the characters, with real payouts when the story turned on them.

Most aid sends money. This one helped displaced Lebanese women by turning their family recipes into intellectual property they could sell to restaurants around the world. The women keep earning royalties even when the campaign ends.

On your phone at 2am? Perfect moment to offer a new mattress. While a late-night promotional message would normally feel out of place, the two-word text that usually means something else entirely won people over on Valentine’s Day.