Mysterious, ambiguous and vague billboards have been popping up around Cairo with the words “Cairo Reimagined” and nothing else. If those billboards weren’t enough to get you interested, now a Facebook page has popped up with the same title.
This Cairo Reimagined initiative seems to simply want to raise the imaginative spirits of Egyptians, and somehow use that to inject a fresh & new perspective on the city to its audience.
According to the Facebook page, “[Cairo Reimagined] decided to start re-imagining Cairo from a different perspective…we want to create new ideas with different definitions of beauty and creativity, because this is no less than what a city of Cairo’s significance deserves. It deserves re-visiting how we think of it, how we see it, and how we can reimagine it in a modern way.”
So far, there isn’t much known about the project itself or what it encompasses, only what we’ve seen in the page so far from creative posts that use graphic design and illustrations to help us re-imagine our capital city.
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Creating initiative, creating interest
Is Cairo getting a do-over? Or is it simply a project aimed at reminding us that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself – even if you’re more than 1,000 years old? Cairo Reimagined is definitely gaining some traction – whether through its billboards, or its growing Facebook page – and interest in the project remains ever increasing.
The page has slowly started posting, and it seems to be all user-generated with the posts being attributed to individual Egyptian artists.
User-generated content is always a great way to get people talking and interacting with a brand or initiative UGC (user-generated content) has shown to produce a higher rate of interaction and engagement from fans online. People generally do prefer user-generated content, as crowdsourcing guarantees that the communication is ultimately directed by the people it’s targeting.
UGC also provides marketers with some free time, as planning and designing content doesn’t need to be on top of the priority list.
In this case, UGC is being used to promote whatever this initiative is without the people behind it showing what is really up their sleeves. This makes it a great way to gain interest in the topic, without a lot of effort and high sponsoring budgets.
So, what could it be?
Could it be some sort of initiative to rebuild Cairo’s not-so-scenic landscape? Perhaps!
Cairo Reimagined could mean the re-imagination of the city with a new paint job, maybe by adding rooftop gardens across its otherwise brown buildings for a touch of lively green!
It could also be an initiative to renovate more of Cairo’s older buildings, to keep them from collapsing and looking neglected, or perhaps even bring their design aesthetic back from the past.
One of the UGC creators, Monica Gayed, seems to think this could be it, although she brings the idea to light in a much more colorful way than what would probably happen.
The abstract design of the billboards is definitely becoming a favorite in the real estate market. So, could Cairo Reimagined be hinting at a real estate project where aesthetics are a priority?
At this point in time, the billboards are tantalizingly ambiguous; an interesting premise that seems destined for an equally interesting payoff.