Title	VALLEY OF CHANGE
Brand	JNF UK
Product/Service	SOCIAL CHANGE CAMPAIGN, ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO RELOCATE TO MITZPE RAMON
Category	A12. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) / Corporate Image
Entrant	JNF UK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	McCANN VALLEY Mitzpe Ramon, ISRAEL

Name	Company	Position
Hana Rado	Mccann Valley	Founder and chairman of McCANN Valley
Michal Romi	Mccann Valley	co-CEO
Hadar Gur Arie	Mccann Valley	co-CEO
Amit Fass	Mccann Valley	VP Strategy
Maayan Darvish Yechezkel	Mccann Valley	Strategic Planner
Matan Abramovich	Mccann Valley	VP Clients
Nir Ambar	Mccann Valley	VP Creative

Why is this work relevant for Media?

Advertising can promote social change. But there are times when social problems are too complicated to be solved by traditional media advertising. This was the case in the described work. The challenge was to cause young millennials move to a town in the middle of the desert. can advertising do that? The conventional answer - probably not. The unconventional answer – define advertising. In order to attract millennials to the middle of the desert we've opened an advertising agency right there… in the middle of the desert. Thus, we transformed ourselves into the medium and the message and redefined advertising.

Background

Meet Mitzpe Ramon the smallest most isolated town in Israel, located in the middle of the desert. A beautiful place which struggles against a very challenging social climate. Due to its isolation, the town has suffered from high unemployment rates (double than the national average, 14% vs 7%), and low average income. This long-lasting situation caused the town's millennial population to leave town in search of a better life. The negative migration poses a threat not only to the future of Mitzpe Ramon, but to the future of every struggling town in Israel's periphery as well. JNF UK (Jewish National Fund, United Kingdom), an NGO, and our client and partner decided to take action, and asked us to create a campaign encouraging people to relocate to Mitzpe Ramon and populate the isolated shrinking town. But how can we make educated young people move to the middle of the desert?

Describe the creative idea/insights

The key insight behind the initiative: the first and most important factor which effects our target audience's choice of a place to live is employment and career opportunities. The problem: Mitzpe Ramon had no attractive employment positions to offer millennials nor career opportunities. This problem can't be solved by a mere communicational campaign. Never the less, the fact that we live in a digital age which flattens the world and eliminates the significance of geographical distances, caused us to come up with a crazy idea. What if… instead of creating a campaign which promotes change– we became the change ourselves? why not attract millennials to the desert by doing what we do best and open an advertising agency which offers career opportunities right there in the desert? Introducing: McCann Valley. The world's first advertising agency established to bring about social change, with brand new offices offering brand new job opportunities.

Describe the strategy

Our theory of change: making an impact on Mitzpe Ramon requires us to create jobs for 120 employees. These employees will migrate with their families and constitute a community of approximately 500 affluent people. 500 affluent people will account for 5%-10% of Mitzpe Ramon's population. 5%-10% of the population is a critical mass for creating a flywheel for socio-economic change. With the theory of change in mind we formulated 2 core guiding principles Double bottom line - All businesses operate against a single profit bottom line. We operate against 2 bottom lines. The first is the familiar profit line. The second measures the number of employees. Contrary to "regular" businesses, we consider high profits without a high number of employees as a failure. Active contribution to the Community - We teach an advertising course in the town's high school. We provide pro bono services to local businesses (e.g. branding).

Describe the execution

"Rome wasn't built in a day" and opening an agency in the heart of the desert also takes time. It was clear to us that our innovative concept will need its time to develop and grow roots before it becomes a sustainable business. Accordingly, we set on a 3-step action plan: 2013-2014: Pilot – low scale activity to create proof of concept. Included formulating a leading team, finding a temporary structure for use, regulation of the formal proceedings, connecting servers to Tel Aviv and recruiting a small number of clients. 2015-2016: Establishing the business - In the next two years we formulated the value proposition as an agency, worked harder on recruitment of clients and employees, and stabilized the P&L 2017–2018: Official Launch - finally we formally opened our gates and launched a top of the line business center - 1200 meters of offices that can accommodate hundreds of employees.

List the results

•April 2018 Launching a 1200 meters of a new and innovative business center, capable of hundreds more workers. •More than 70 companies transferred advertising budgets over to us. •We keep on growing- as of now we offer 50 new jobs and brought new families to town. •We become Mitzpe Ramon's second largest private employer. •The Average Salary in Mitzpe Ramon has Increased by 186% •Our annual turnover has soared from 8 to 13 million dollars over the past three years •We inspired "Midbar 19" to branch in Mitzpe Ramon. A company for customer service and PA, and they are hiring 40 women. •The unemployment rate of Mitzpe Ramon dropped from 14% to 8.5% •We won awards that valued the change we created in town:Gold "Effie Award" for the establishment of McCann Valley; "The meaningful award" of McCANN world group; "Dun & Bradstreet" award for business excellence activity for social change.