Title	LETTERS TO GALLIPOLI
Brand	TURKCELL
Product/Service	LETTERS TO GALLIPOLI
Category	C01. Use of Digital Platforms
Entrant	TURKCELL Istanbul, TURKEY
Idea Creation	TURKCELL Istanbul, TURKEY

Name	Company	Position
Ebru Calis	Turkcell	Digital Communications Specialist
Batuhan Suzer	Pure New Media	Business Director

The Campaign

For getting our hands on data from a decade ago, we conducted an exploratory. We acquired the dog tags and the letters of soldiers and noticed the importance of letters for those soldiers to stay mentally and physically alive in the battle. These were used to create the landing page which consisted of Gallipoli map, built by the names of the soldiers in the records.   We aimed to create a communication between today and the past also between two nations. The communication problem caused by long distances in Anzac fronts and less than 5% literacy level in Turkish fronts was highlighted. Users today found themselves in a place that enables them to salute the sacrifices their ancestors made years ago through a digital platform. This platform not only enabled them to hear and answer their ancestors’ feelings but also gave them life again as a forest.

Creative Execution

We had the names of both Anzac and Turkish soldiers and yet we didn’t target the users based on that difference. We just let both nations know that our lands and hearts are always open to both Mehmet’s and Johnny’s who lay amongst each other and asked them to write out if they also feel the same way.

Results

We managed to collect more than 4.000 letters in a period where getting a tweet from the users is a challenge. During a politically and economically harsh time in our country, we created %99 positive dialog and reminded people to respect and love each other by offering a sentimental experience of giving life to the longing ancestors with a letter turning into a tree that will breathe in the lands they lost their lives in. With only 1 day of communication, we created traffic to our websites with more than 350K visitors. Users wrote more than 1.600 letters and our video have has been watched about 3,7 million times. Our hashtag became one of the most interacted trends of Turkey with 6 times more than average usage. Tweets with the hashtag provided us 99% positive and related content. Our social media channels reached highest numbers of the last 1 year.

The project, Çanakkale’ye Mektuplar places its roots to the idea of bringing life to the soldiers who have lost their lives a decade ago, in the First World War, by answering their never replied letters. Both of the nations, Turks and Anzacs, who fought in Gallipoli are still sensitive about the issue and wish to preserve the bond. We wanted to contribute to this goodwill using our expertise in the communication sector. Also in a world so digitally evolved, it is always a challenge to rely on user generated content for a project since even a tweet is a burden.

In order to get people to come to our website we created a video using quotations from the letters acquired by research. Knowing that we owe the peace we live in today to them, people affectionately started replying to the unanswered letters we made visible again. The users who participated in the project, who took time to read and write letters full heartedly kept on following the project from the website, to other social media platforms and finally by coming to the marathon we organized to plant trees in the name of the soldiers.