Home / Insights
iRead
Client: King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (ithra), ARAMCO
Sector:
Duration: 8 Months
Industry: Education
Overview
Challenge
Reviving the ebbing, mind-stimulating activity of reading to encourage the strengthening of education, creativity, and communication.
Outcome
A life-changing experience — initiated by one of the world's largest companies, Saudi Aramco — that has brought back an interest for reading and the literary arts in full force.
Impact
The iRead program piqued the interest of millions of people in the country with a whopping 18,000+ applying to take part in an event as simple as reading. The participants and winners were both inspired and inspiring — persuading much of Saudi Arabia to return to reading and literature as a whole, redeveloping comprehensive thinking and book-based learning among the public.
Context
Reading plays a heavily significant role in our daily lives — improving concentration, vocabulary, and communication while reducing stress and flourishing creativity. Yet a 2017 report titled "Do Arabs Really Read Less" found that Arabs' reliance on books in Saudi Arabia was less than that of Western and Asian expats. Saudi Arabia stood out as the only Arab country where book reading was correlated with formal education levels.
Research by Arab News in 2015 noted that the technological boom was having a negative impact on reading practices — with the average Arab reading time equating to just six minutes a year, compared to 12,000 minutes per year for Western children. Saudi Aramco set out to change this.
TAM's Approach
In 2016, Saudi Aramco and TAM collaborated to promote the iRead (إقرأ) contest — dedicated to bringing back the ebbing literary interest among Arab youth. TAM designed the program to blend a two-week bootcamp and a contest in one, celebrating and promoting a love for reading and knowledge seeking in Saudi Arabia.
Two Contest Categories
The contest was split into two segments: Reader of the Year — a reading, writing, speaking, and knowledge sharing segment; and Beauty Reader (قارئ الجمال) — depicting the passion for reading through photography. Final pieces had to be an Arabic book presented in Arabic.
Awareness Campaign
TAM used a combination of digital and traditional media — video promotions, illustrations, visits to educational institutions, on-ground marketing, SMS, phone calls, and emails. The campaign drove 1 million+ website visitors and 18,000+ applications — the highest number of single-year applicants to date.
Two-Part Filtration System
TAM deployed its own filtration system to manage 18,000+ applications — first categorizing submissions into three classes to select 140 shortlisted applicants, then a specialist literary judging panel selected the final 40 valid, well-crafted applications to advance to the bootcamp.
The Bootcamp
The 40 finalists participated in a bootcamp focusing on four fields: Art, Thought, Literature, and Sciences. Workshops, lectures, and activities were built around pre-proposed daily themes suggested by specialist judges and organized by TAM. In the final days, participants watched and discussed the documentary film The Compass before completing final rehearsals.
Final Judging & Awards
A new, unbiased judging committee was chosen for the final evaluations. Five Readers of the Year winners and three Beauty Readers were selected — awarded a grand prize and support in the form of partnerships within the Saudi culture sector.
"It gave me everything in my life. It gave me the best people I have ever met, it gave me the best feeling. […] This completely, completely changed my life and the best experience — not marketing for the contest or anything, but for real, everyone is optimistic in this experience and the bootcamp."
— Amjaad Al-Ghamdi, iRead winner, 2016
What We Delivered
- Full program design combining a reading contest and two-week bootcamp into one experience.
- A multi-channel awareness campaign driving 1M+ website visits and 18,000+ applications.
- A two-part filtration system managing 18,000 submissions down to 40 final bootcamp participants.
- A structured bootcamp across four fields — Art, Thought, Literature, and Sciences — with workshops, lectures, and themed activities.
- Coordination of two independent judging panels — one for selection, one unbiased final evaluation.
- 8 winners awarded grand prizes and cultural sector partnerships — 5 Readers of the Year and 3 Beauty Readers.
Impact at a Glance
1M+
website visitors during the campaign period
18,000+
applications — highest single-year count in the program's history
140
shortlisted applicants after first filtration stage
40
finalists selected for the two-week bootcamp
4
bootcamp fields: Art, Thought, Literature, Sciences
8
winners — 5 Readers of the Year and 3 Beauty Readers
6 min
average Arab reading time per year before the program — vs 12,000 min for Western children
2016
year TAM and Saudi Aramco launched the iRead contest together
Lasting Value Created
iRead proved that reading can be exciting, competitive, and life-changing. By turning a quiet personal habit into a national movement, TAM and Saudi Aramco reignited a cultural passion that had been fading. The 18,000+ applicants are not just a number — they represent a generation of Saudis who chose to invest in their minds and their futures. As Amjaad Al-Ghamdi said, it completely changed her life — and that is the lasting legacy of iRead: one book, one reader, one changed life at a time.