Home Centre's 'The Homecoming' turns adoption into a brand purpose — WARC Grand Prix

Home Centre's platform is 'every home has its own story to tell', but in the Middle East adoption and fostering are actively denounced and legally difficult, leaving many orphans without families. The brand decided to be the first in the region to open the topic and make 'home' mean family, not just furniture.

Frame a couple's nine-month wait as an adoption journey, not a pregnancy, so 'bringing a child home' becomes the furniture brand's own purpose.

Around World Adoption Day (8 November 2022), Leo Burnett launched the film 'Falling in Love': an Arab couple's nine-month wait that ends not in birth but in adopting a child, set to a licensed cover of Elvis Presley's 'Can't Help Falling in Love'. A digital platform shared guidance from a psychologist and a legal advisory firm plus links to adoption organisations; influencers, TV shows and an art exhibition extended the conversation.

The campaign reached 65% of the region with 1.2 billion impressions and 467,000 site visits; sentiment swung from 50% negative to 82% positive, brand liking rose 37%, and more than 7,300 orphaned children were adopted. It was documented as a WARC Awards for Effectiveness Grand Prix case study, ranked #9 in the 2024 WARC Effective 100, and won Loeries 2024 Gold for Social Impact.

Home Centre's brand platform is 'every home has its own story to tell', yet in the Middle East adoption and fostering are actively denounced and legally difficult, leaving many orphans without families. The furniture retailer decided to be the first brand in the region to open the topic, making 'home' mean family rather than furniture.

Launched around World Adoption Day in November 2022, the initiative's centrepiece was 'Falling in Love', a film in which a couple waits through a nine-month 'pregnancy' — the twist being that they are adopting, not giving birth. Written from interviews with adoptive parents and set to a licensed cover of Elvis Presley's 'Can't Help Falling in Love', the film followed the real six-to-nine-month adoption journey.

Around the film, Leo Burnett Middle East built a support system: a digital platform with guidance from a psychologist and a legal advisory firm, links to adoption organisations, amplification from influencers and TV shows, and an art exhibition telling the stories of children without families.

The campaign reached 65% of the region with 1.2 billion impressions and 467,000 website visits; sentiment swung from 50% negative to 82% positive, brand liking rose 37%, and more than 7,300 orphaned children were adopted. It was documented as a WARC Awards for Effectiveness Grand Prix case study and won Gold for Social Impact at Loeries 2024.

It connected the brand's core word — 'home' — to a real social need, so furniture retail and adoption occupied the same emotional territory.

The pregnancy-framing twist let the film hold a taboo subject in a comfortable, universal narrative before revealing its point.

It gave practical help, not just awareness: expert legal and psychological guidance plus links to organisations that actually arrange adoptions.

By partnering influencers, TV shows and an art exhibition, it kept the subject alive in culture after the film ended.

The results were documented in effectiveness terms — 1.2bn impressions, +37% brand liking, 7,300+ adoptions — showing purpose work can move brand metrics too.

A brand can own the deepest meaning of its category: treating adoption as 'bringing a child home' turned a taboo into purpose — and effectiveness followed.

The Homecoming became one of the most decorated purpose campaigns in the region: published as a WARC Awards for Effectiveness Grand Prix case study in June 2023, ranked #9 in the 2024 WARC Effective 100 — the first regional campaign ever in the global top 10 — and winner of the Social Impact Gold Loerie in 2024. Leo Burnett UAE credited it as its best-performing campaign when the agency became the world's #1 creative agency for effectiveness. Home Centre continued the platform, extending a purpose line that had already addressed Arab single mothers.