ARCHIVEOne Book For Peace Turns Scripture Into a Bridge Between Faiths
'The One' is a 2017 public service campaign published in Slovenia by ad agency New Moment, created for One Book For Peace and the Interreligious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, using a dual-scripture book that places selected verses from the Bible alongside corresponding verses from the Quran to demonstrate shared values between Christianity and Islam and spark genuine interreligious dialogue among ordinary people.
The campaign centres on a physical and digital publication titled One Book For Peace, prepared by experienced journalist Mirnes Kovač with theological guidance from Muhamed Fazlović, representing Islam, and Pavle Mijović, representing Christianity. Each theologian selected ten verses from their respective holy texts, organised around ten universal themes: One God, Peace, Justice, Love, Family and Neighbors, Sanctity of Life, Compassion, Forgiveness, Helping Others, and Hope. The result is a work of comparative scripture designed not as theology but as conversation — an accessible object that any reader, regardless of faith, can hold and interrogate.
In Slovenia and across the broader Balkan region, where the memory of interreligious conflict remains present in public consciousness, the campaign's premise carries particular weight. The project was launched in April 2017, coinciding with what was reported by media-marketing.com as the twentieth-anniversary year of the Interreligious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the client organisation whose mission frames the entire initiative. To maximise reach, the book was produced in print, online, and audio formats, ensuring access beyond those who could physically obtain a copy. Its premiere aired on Al Jazeera, and physical copies were directed toward some of the world's most prominent political and religious leaders, including His Holiness Pope Francis, as well as heads of state. The Clapboard Score for 'The One' is 74 out of 100, reflecting strong conceptual clarity and award-validated execution against the inherent complexity of its subject matter.
ARCHIVENew Moment identified a counterintuitive insight at the core of this public service campaign. Religion is conventionally framed as a source of division, particularly in post-conflict Balkan societies where faith and ethnicity have historically been entangled in political violence. The agency's strategic proposition reversed that assumption entirely: if the foundational texts of Christianity and Islam can be shown to share the same moral grammar, then the perceived incompatibility of the two traditions is not theological but cultural and political — and therefore addressable through communication.
The campaign was created as a joint project between New Moment and Y&R Dubai for the Interreligious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as reported by media-marketing.com, positioning it as a cross-agency collaboration with both regional and international reach. In Slovenia and across the wider region, public discourse on religious identity remained sensitive territory in 2017, making the decision to produce a comparative scripture document — rather than an abstract awareness advertisement — a deliberate act of credibility-building. The book form itself is the strategy: it demands sustained reading, invites personal reflection, and travels through social networks as a gift rather than a broadcast message.
Comparable public interest campaigns addressing religious tension, such as initiatives from interfaith organisations documented by uri.org, the United Religions Initiative, have typically relied on dialogue events or institutional statements. 'The One' distinguished itself from those approaches and from conventional print public service advertising by creating an artefact with independent cultural value. Campaigns by organisations such as the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change have pursued similar interreligious goals through policy and education, but rarely through a designed object with mass distribution ambitions. The decision to target world leaders directly — alongside a free digital version — reflects a dual-channel strategy aimed at both symbolic authority and democratic accessibility.
The creative execution of 'The One' operates as a social experiment as much as a designed publication. New Moment built the work around a simple but exacting editorial constraint: ten verses from the Bible, ten from the Quran, matched thematically and presented on the same page without interpretive commentary. That restraint is itself a creative decision, allowing the parallels to speak without the mediation of an authorial voice that readers might distrust.
Žarko Sakan, Managing Director of New Moment, stated that 'The One Book for Peace was our joint move towards unification,' as quoted by media-marketing.com — a framing that positions the campaign not as advertising in the conventional sense but as an act of institutional commitment. The involvement of journalist Mirnes Kovač as editorial lead, alongside theologians Muhamed Fazlović and Pavle Mijović, gave the project a layer of scholarly legitimacy that purely creative campaigns on religious subjects rarely achieve. Each theologian chose verses they specifically wanted people of the other faith to read, making the selection process itself an act of dialogue embedded in the production methodology.
The book's premiere on Al Jazeera extended the documentary dimension of the campaign, treating the publication as a news event rather than a marketing release. The audio version introduced an additional sensory register, allowing the words to be heard rather than read — a choice with particular resonance given the oral traditions within both Christianity and Islam. The design work across print and digital formats was recognised with a Gold Lion in Design at Cannes Lions 2017, as reported by selfstorming.com and confirmed by media-marketing.com, signalling that the jury regarded the visual and structural organisation of the comparative texts as a genuine creative achievement. Production credits for the full design and production team beyond those named above are not comprehensively documented in publicly available sources.
No verified independent audience performance data for 'The One' — such as readership figures, download counts, or measurable shifts in public attitudes toward interreligious dialogue — is publicly available at the time of writing. What the public record does establish is a significant level of industry recognition that validates the campaign's structural effectiveness.
'The One' received five Lions at Cannes Lions 2017, as reported by selfstorming.com and media-marketing.com: a Gold Lion in Design, a Silver Lion in Promo and Activation, and Bronze Lions in Print and Publishing, Radio, and PR. These awards were drawn from a field of approximately 46,000 entries, as noted by available Cannes Lions records. The Gold in Design is particularly significant, as it affirms the editorial architecture of the book — the pairing of verses, the thematic organisation, and the physical object itself — as creative work of the highest category standard. As reported by adbooka.com, the campaign was also recognised at Golden Drum, a festival with particular relevance to Central and Eastern European markets including Slovenia.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness argument rests on three pillars. First, the dual-distribution model — physical copies to world leaders, free digital and audio versions for general audiences — maximises both symbolic reach and democratic access simultaneously. Second, the Al Jazeera premiere converts a print object into a broadcast media event, extending earned media value without paid placement. Third, the theologian-verified content creates a credibility barrier that protects the campaign from accusations of oversimplification, the most predictable line of attack against any public interest work that attempts to reconcile religious traditions. Together, these structural choices suggest a campaign designed to endure beyond its launch cycle.
'The One' is a 2017 public service campaign published in Slovenia by New Moment and Y&R Dubai for the Interreligious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It centres on a book placing ten Bible verses alongside ten Quran verses around shared themes, designed to encourage interreligious dialogue between Christianity and Islam among ordinary readers and world leaders alike.
One Book For Peace was created by New Moment and Y&R Dubai. The book was prepared by journalist Mirnes Kovač with theologians Muhamed Fazlović, representing Islam, and Pavle Mijović, representing Christianity. Žarko Sakan served as Managing Director of New Moment, as reported by media-marketing.com. The client was the Interreligious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
'The One' won five Lions at Cannes Lions 2017, as reported by selfstorming.com and media-marketing.com. These comprised a Gold Lion in Design, a Silver Lion in Promo and Activation, and Bronze Lions in Print and Publishing, Radio, and PR — selected from a field of approximately 46,000 entries across all categories that year.
One Book For Peace organises its scripture pairings around ten universal themes. These are One God, Peace, Justice, Love, Family and Neighbors, Sanctity of Life, Compassion, Forgiveness, Helping Others, and Hope. Each theme presents one verse from the Bible and one from the Quran, selected by theologians who wanted people of the other faith to encounter that specific text.
'The One' was published in Slovenia in April 2017. The book premiered on Al Jazeera and physical copies were directed to influential world leaders including His Holiness Pope Francis and various heads of state. To maximise access, the campaign also produced free online and audio versions, allowing the comparative scripture content to reach audiences regardless of geography or resources.
The Clapboard Score for 'The One' is 74 out of 100. This score reflects the campaign's strong conceptual clarity, its multi-format distribution strategy, and its Cannes Lions recognition across five categories, balanced against the inherent difficulty of measuring long-term attitudinal impact for a public interest campaign addressing interreligious dialogue in a sensitive regional context.
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