Project Background

Lebanon’s political system promotes identity-based discourses and fearmongering and has often revived the unhealed wounds of past conflicts. Xenophobic positions permeate public policies and the narrative against refugees. As the country goes through an unprecedented economic and social crisis, exacerbated by COVID-19 and the tragic blast at the Beirut Port, which left tens of thousands of people in a precarious situation, extreme poverty is on the rise. The climate produced by the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated discriminatory narratives and violent outbursts along community lines and against refugees. The negative rhetoric is spread through an “occupied” media landscape and politically driven social media (SM) campaigns, amid a global rise of illiberal democracy and extremist leaders, who galvanize their base and consolidate their power through the “us v. them” logic.

The Samir Kassir Foundation (SKF) believes that promoting free speech and combating hate speech (HS) complement the effort to strengthen the media sector’s contribution to building a pluralistic, inclusive, and cohesive society. Establishing codes of conduct and ethical charters, rolling out classical training programs, and advocating legislative reform have not alone been able to create the desired impact. SKF is proposing a bold new approach that combines traditional evidence-based interventions with modern and innovative public engagement and public opinion building tactics. The subject of this RFP is to promote one of these innovative engagement methods, namely the hate-combatting card game that SKF has designed and produced with the Game developers Everythink, entitled “Say it”. The game exposes an almost exhaustive range of stereotypes, allowing players to fill in the blanks in a series of incomplete scenarios, aiming to achieve the least offensive outcome in order to win.

For this purpose, SKF intends to roll out a marketing campaign to promote the new card game and create public demand for and awareness about it. This includes the development of the following outputs:

• A marketing strategy
• Digital marketing content
• Content placement strategy

Eligibility criteria

The request is open to marketing, communication, and advertising firms with experience working with non-profits on strategic communication and advertising development.

Proposal elements

Please take the following aspects into consideration when drafting your proposals.

• Overall objective
• Innovative approach (style and/or content)
• Risks
• Experience and examples of previous projects/portfolio
• Key staff
• Budget
• Timeline

Instructions

Please complete all above sections. Your proposal narrative should be no longer than three (3) pages (not including appendices) and be accompanied by a brief project budget.

Please send the completed proposal and supporting materials to info@samirkassirfoundation.org, with the following subject line: “IMeCS Marketing Proposal - attention Samer Abdallah.”

Proposals without this subject line may not be considered.

The submission deadline is March 15, 2024.

Selected applicants will be notified by March 20 and invited for a first meeting with SKF.

Timeline

Deadline for implementation: May 20, 2024