2018 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

This is the story about an unconventional strategy that helped Emirates NBD, one of the leading banking brands in the UAE, grow its business banking segment in a time when the category wasn’t growing. The Challenge: Emirates NBD, one of the leading banks in the UAE, needed to acquire SME business banking customers from UAE’s growing construction sector, and this meant solving a problem vs. simply selling products, because only communicating products or brand promises like Emirates NBD and other banks had done unsuccessfully, hadn’t been effective in building brand equity or attracting new-to-bank acquisitions. we didn’t repeat unsuccessful product-focused conventional advertising. The Idea: We developed “The A/C Vests” - an innovative product idea, targeting construction SMEs, that solves the untapped problem of hot and humid working conditions faced by the labourer workforce of construction firms, and changes how those labourers could take hot and humid weather conditions on; becoming a disruptive B2B channel for Emirates NBD to reach SMEs in the construction sector. Bringing the Idea to Life: With cooling mechanisms and refrigeration facilities being non-existent on construction sites and the relentless hot weather not allowing for cooling material or jackets to remain cool, these vests were designed to work with something that is easily available at every site - Water - and the vests and the content around them were targeted through B2B channels, to reach and engage SMEs. The Results: 50% of UAEs population watched the film content, it became the most liked and shared content from Emirates NBD on social media, it was featured on leading news channels, it was recognized as a trendsetting innovation, it earned the bank a 1400% return on media investment, and as it got embraced by leading organizations, Emirates NBD earned +8% improvement in brand equity, +9% improvement in brand recommendation and +21.16% growth in acquisitions, while the business banking category, overall, wasn’t growing.