Unity Paper makes history
Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. (LBSI), the local agency of advertising
giant Leo Burnett Worldwide, made history in Sri Lanka's print
publishing industry by collaborating with a leading Sinhalese newspaper
to print, the country's first ever Sinhala and Tamil newspaper.
The 'Unity Paper' created by LBSI in partnership with Starcom, was
published to commemorate the National New Year, thus recognizing the
diversity of the country and whilst calling everyone to unite together
to celebrate the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.
Commenting on the initiative, Managing Director, LBSI, Ranil de Silva
stated, “The Sinhala and Tamil New Year is a national celebration; it is
a time for uniting and sharing.
As a multicultural nation, we feel it is the duty of each and every
one of us to work towards creating unity to reinforce the stability of
our country; therefore as a marketing communications company we have
stepped forward together with a newspaper to create an innovation with
the objective of creating unity amongst Sri Lankans.
We hope that this initiative will strengthen the ties between the
various ethnic groups in the country.” Sri Lanka's diversity enriches
the country and makes this island colourful and vibrant.
This initiative was created to remind every Sri Lankan of the
importance of national unity and integration in a country such as Sri
Lanka, which suffered many setbacks due to the 30 year civil war.
The first dual language newspaper brought together the most prominent
ethnic groups together by publishing the news in the languages that
represent the different ethnicities. It unites the country's
multicultural ethnic groups under the uniting banner of being Sri
Lankan.
Speaking on the concept, Subhash Pinnapola, Executive Creative
Director, LBSI stated: “We created this initiative to remind people that
despite our ethnic origins there is one singular factor that unites us,
which is that we are Sri Lankan. That is why this campaign was driven
with letters from the Sinhala and Tamil alphabet, each letter in Sinhala
was depicted in Tamil and vice versa. The response we have received for
this initiative has been overwhelming.”
This initiative has been further propelled by social media with Sri
Lankans across the world adopting to change their profile picture to the
first letter of their name in Tamil and mirrored in Sinhala and vice
versa as a symbol of unity, recognizing that despite the differences in
language, unity is at the core of being Sri Lankan. |