Abraham Hostel, the Tel Aviv Municipality, and HIPSTORY created a billboard to welcome diverse tourists in an inclusive campaign titled “Come As You Are”.

After our first successful partnership, Abraham Hostel partnered with HIPSTORY again for a new, exciting initiative: a 2019 tourist campaign in tandem with the Tel Aviv Municipality. The city was expecting tens of thousands of tourists for the annual Gay Pride parade and Eurovision contest, and they wanted to accept these guests with open arms. Together, we named the campaign “Come As You Are”, welcoming guests to our city exactly as they came.

We created a welcoming billboard on the side of Abraham Hostel - the same main entrance to the city where our original billboard hung. This time, we created imagery that was diverse, colorful, and inclusive, celebrating the kind of pluralism and personal freedom that these events and the city embody.

The final image was a mural composed of different HIPSTORY icons - from Obama to Ben Gurion to Mahatma Gandhi. The icons came in different shapes, sizes and colors, from diverse cultures and nations, and surrounded our original Abraham portrait. This allowed people from all over the world - and from Israel, too - to see themselves in HIPSTORY icons and feel welcome to the city.

The billboard was a massive success, becoming a symbol of the hostel and city itself. Running for half a year, it gave passerbys something to enjoy and to promote on social media. It even became a frequent tour-guide stop. This was a win-win for all sides involved: it welcomed those visiting the city, those arriving at the hostel, and those newly acquainted with the HIPSTORY brand. 

For us at HIPSTORY, this collaboration revealed the immense power of how a billboard has the potential to create positive social impact. It also again showed how well our brand collaborates with, and represents, other brands, too. And the opportunity to work with a formal municipality was both exciting and meaningful - we’re looking forward to the next opportunity to do so!