France 24 Birds

French international news channel France 24 highlighted the power of internet freedom in “Birds”, an advertising campaign inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds. A commercial and print/outdoor advertising campaign featured a Gaddafi-like dictator and other powerful figures threatened by the Twitter-like birds of revolution. Three posters, emulating the style of the original 1963 Birds movie posters, feature Gaddafi, Mubarak and Ben Ali.

Online social networks played a significant role in spreading revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya earlier in 2011. France 24′s Arabic language version broke all audience records during this period. But the channel as a whole has benefited from an increase in audience. In March 2011 france24.com experienced a peak in traffic with nearly 14 million visits and about 59 million page views. The channel’s Twitter following grew quickly due to a large amount of tweets dedicated to the Arab Spring topic.

Credits

The Birds ad was developed at Marcel Worldwide, Paris, by executive creative directors Anne De Maupeou, Veronique Sels and Sebastien Vacherot, art director Souen Le Van, copywriter Martin Rocaboy, agency producers Cleo Ferenczi and Fleur Laruent-Bruzy, art buyers Jean-Luc Chirio and Aurélie Lubot, account manager Cécile Henderycks, account manager Michel Kowalski, working with France 24 communications director Nathalie Lenfant.
Filming was shot by director Philippe Grammaticopoulos via Mister Hyde, Paris, with producer Hervé Lopez.
Music is by Christophe Julien.
Illustrators were Marie Morency (Gaddafi), Souen Le Van (Mubarak), and K.I.M. Florence Lucas (Ben Ali).