Horses Are the Future
The brief
UNDP’s peace building programme and the Dawaer Foundation needed to interrupt a reflex rather than correct a fact. The Count Till Ten campaign asked people to pause before forwarding an alarming claim, extending UNDP’s 2020 anti-disinformation platform. Lecturing people about verification does not work, because nobody thinks of themselves as the person who spreads rumours.
Production approach
Fine Line produced the spot in Lebanon and played financial misinformation for laughs. At a seaside cafe, Mounir hears that with fuel prices soaring the banks are now handing out loans tied to horse ownership, and that horses are the future. Swept up in the promise of financial security he sells the family car, over his wife’s furious objections, and takes to riding a horse through the streets. He ends up with the animal standing in his living room.
The comedy is doing structural work. Each step Mounir takes is reasonable given the step before it, so the film escalates without ever asking the audience to accept that he is stupid. That matters for a campaign about misinformation, because the moment the target of the joke becomes an idiot, the audience stops recognising themselves in him and the message bounces off.
Outcome
The film closes on the campaign line: count to ten before sharing unverified news. It was one of several spots we made for the campaign, alongside Back to Centrale, Family Gossip Night and Layal in the Hospital.
The campaign launched on 15 September 2022 with a five million reach target and closed on 4 November having reached more than eleven million people. Across the work it recorded 11.2 million in total reach and 896,000 engagements, more than doubling the goal it was set.
Client: UNDP × Dawaer Foundation · Production: Fine Line Production · Lebanon, 2022
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