The best book campaign in the UAE this year started with a basketball. The Sharjah Book Authority film If You're Into Something moves from one passion to the next and lands on one plain idea: no matter what you are into, you are into books. It works because it starts with what people already love and lets the books follow.
At iklipse, a creative and AI production agency working across the GCC and Egypt, we were proud to have a hand in it. Here is why the idea lands, and why Sharjah was the right city to say it.
Sharjah has earned the right to talk about books.
Some cities borrow culture for a campaign. Sharjah has been building it for decades. UNESCO named Sharjah the World Book Capital for 2019, the first city in the GCC to hold the title, with a programme built around the slogan "Read, you are in Sharjah".
The Sharjah International Book Fair is the other proof point. Its 44th edition closed in November 2025 with more than 1.4 million visitors from 206 countries, according to Gulf News. That is a crowd most music festivals would envy, and it shows the audience is already there.
So the film could skip the speech about Sharjah and its love of books. Its job was to make one reader at a time feel that the books were for them.
The film starts with what people already love.
Most reading campaigns open with the book. A cosy chair, a warm lamp, a quiet afternoon. Nice, and easy to scroll past if you are sixteen and your real love is basketball.
If You're Into Something flips the order. It goes from one passion to the next, and one of the first things you see is a basketball with PASSIN' chalked across it. The campaign puts the logic plainly: nobody is born with a book in their hands, but find one that means something to you and you are hooked.
That line does a lot of quiet work. It admits that reading is learned. It takes the guilt out of not being "a reader". And it gives every viewer a way in through the thing they already care about.
Specific images beat general messages.
A chalked word on a basketball is a small detail, and small details are what people remember. They turn a public-interest message into something that feels made by people who play the game, cook the food or fix the bike. A good book campaign, like any good campaign, earns attention with specifics.
The credits show how big ideas get made in the region.
This was a team effort, and the credits are worth reading. Ghazy, our co-founder and creative director, wrote the treatment and the script through &That French Guy, the creative arm of iklipse. Good People shot this international version in nine locations, with Maged Nassar directing for the creative agency Elephant. National Network Communications was the advertising agency.
Nine locations matter here. The idea depends on variety: many passions, many places, many kinds of people. A film that said "whatever you are into" from one room would have argued against itself.
It is also a good picture of how the regional industry works at its best. A script can come from one studio, the shoot from another, and the agency relationship from a third, and the result still feels like one voice. Our part was the words and the structure, the bit that decides what the viewer feels in the first five seconds.
What other cultural campaigns can take from it.
Museums, libraries, festivals and publishers all face the same problem. They are selling something that people agree is good for them, and that is a hard sell. Here is what the Sharjah film gets right, in a form you can use.
- Start with the audience's passion. Football, cooking, cars, fashion. Lead with the thing they love and let your subject arrive as the reward.
- Write one line people can repeat. "If you're into something, you're into books" works in Arabic and English, on a billboard and in a caption.
- Use detail as proof. A chalked basketball says more than a paragraph about inclusion.
- Cut for every screen. A structure built from short passion moments breaks easily into reels and stories. Our post-production team thinks about cutdowns from the script stage.
A book campaign in the UAE has a ready audience.
With a fair that pulls over a million visitors and a city that has held a UNESCO title, the UAE is a generous place to sell reading. The risk is to preach to the people already at the fair. The Sharjah Book Authority film looks past them, to the kid with the basketball and the teenager with the sketchbook, and tells them the shelf already has their name on it.
You can watch the film and read the credits on our Sharjah Book Authority case page. If you have a cultural brief that needs a way in, talk to us.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Sharjah Book Authority campaign about?
The film If You're Into Something shows that whatever people love, there is a book for it, so anyone can become a reader through their own passions.
Who made the Sharjah Book Authority film?
Ghazy of &That French Guy, the creative arm of iklipse, wrote the treatment and script. Good People shot it in nine locations, Maged Nassar directed for Elephant, and National Network Communications was the advertising agency.
Why is Sharjah known as a book city?
UNESCO named Sharjah World Book Capital for 2019, and the Sharjah International Book Fair drew more than 1.4 million visitors in 2025.
How do you make a book campaign feel relevant to young people?
Lead with what they already love, keep the line simple, and use specific images that feel true to their world.
Sources: Gulf News, IPS News, IFLA, Sharjah Update, iklipse case study (Sharjah Book Authority).
