2010 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

• In terms of the news coverage of Dubai, our objective was achieved, the Meet Dubai campaign shifted the news coverage from purely negative to a much more positive and balanced outlook on Dubai. • 127% lift in very favorable opinion of Dubai • 225% lift in likelihood to visit • Despite only 3 seconds logo attribution out of a 2 minute clip, 86% recalled Emirates • Increased visitor levels - traffic thru Dubai Airport was up 9.2% vs. 2008 while Heathrow (-2.8%) and JFK (-9.2%) declined. • Seeded content delivered free broadcast exposure worth $23.5mil USD – 8x our original investment (Sources: CNN/Continental Research Study; Airports Council International; CAA; US Bureau of Transportation Statistics)

Creative Execution

“Hi my name is Paul Hamilton, I am the Dubai Mall Aquariam Curator. I can often be seen swimming around in the world’s largest indoor aquarium. I definitely have the best job in Dubai!” “Hi my name is Greg Simkins…. We created unscripted mini travel documentaries based around 20 real people. The mini documentaries were then broadcasted to a global audience using key international TV stations. Post documentary production, we were left with over 80 hrs of unused compelling footage. Here we saw an opportunity to seed this content over to our International TV partners to see if they could integrate it into their programming. As a result, the stations shot and produced their own content to complement our footage at no additional cost to Emirates.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Towards the last quarter of 2009 the world press turned on Dubai with unprecedented venom. Journalists were falling over each other to publically humiliate the Emirate. Every media channel was announced proudly that the Dubai bubble had burst. Thousands of cars had been abandoned at the airport. Once proud skyscrapers were now empty and deserted. This compounded the perception outside the United Arab Emirates that Dubai was superficial, lacking in personality and character. The good times were over and now the rats were deserting the sinking ship. Obviously this negative spin had the potential to severely affect Emirates airline. So, we decided to target the very channels doing the most damage – the global news networks. To do this, we decided to give the people of Dubai a platform to share their positive stories, experiences and passion to the world. Let’s Meet Dubai through its people.