The Real Unreal” From Icelandair Wins Platinum At EMEA Sabres

(MENAFN- PRovoke) LONDON-"The Real Unreal,” a campaign that challenged to the growing influence of AI-generated images in the travel and tourism sector, took home the Platinum SABRE Award for Best in Show at our EMEA region SABRE Awards dinner, which took place at The Brewery in London last night.

“The Real Unreal,” created by Icelandair in partnership with FleishmanHillard, was a response to growing social media speculation that Iceland“wasn't real.” As people became increasingly aware of AI-generated images of travel destinations around the world, many assumed that the striking photographs of Iceland's unique landscape must be fake.

The nation's flagship airline, assisted by Omnicom-owned agency FleishmanHillard, was built around a promise of authenticity, a manifesto and an open letter to AI developers, activities spanning earned, social, and paid media, positioning Icelandair as a champion of unfiltered, undoctored visual imagery.

The campaign drove both increased web traffic and a significant increase in brand consideration across markets where the campaign was implemented,“The Real Unreal” beat out four other finalists for the Platinum SABRE Award. They were:

#2: GonoRebrand, a campaign to educate young people in Norway about the dangers of sexually transmitted disease-SIO with TRY
#3: The Light Holds On, a crisis campaign for a Ukrainian energy company responding to the destruction of infrastructure-DTEK
#4: Share The First, a purpose-driven campaign encouraging young people not to obsess over“perfect” social media images-Dove/Unilever with Edelman
#5: 12/15, a campaign drawing attention to the prevalence of suicide among young men in Poland-Era of New Women Foundation with SEC Newgate CEE

A complete list of all the winners can be found here, but several agencies stood out for the overall quality of their creative work. There were five EMEA SABREs for UK creative shop The Romans, and four each for global independent Edelman, Norwegian firm TRY, and the UK's Hope&Glory. South Africa's Clockwork, Omnicom-owned Golin, Grey Denmark, WPP's Ogilvy, and Team Lansons all took home three SABRE Awards.

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