2010 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

Sales for the brand in the recession-hit region overshot the initial sales target by 7% in the 2 months of the activation!!! Generated media exposure worth over USD 1.6 million!!!!

Creative Execution

Instead of doing the normal,boring,traditional sponsorship, Xperia was creatively integrated for 5-7 minutes into the programming of main evening business news of CNBC Arabia. Stock-market news segment (covering 9 regional markets) was created & aired LIVE on Xperia itself with the 9 panels being demonstrated. Here each panel of the Xperia ‘became’ a market & when touched by the presenter, it ‘behaved’ exactly like how the panel would behave on the phone. A programming team created the back end software to actually replicate the look & feel, the buttons & panels of Xperia. This software was crucial to demonstrating the panels when the presenter “touched” the phone LIVE on TV. It was a never done before execution by any brand in the region & it brought the central idea of “Information at your fingertips” to life, ultimately wrapping the viewer in the Xperia experience. Supported with 30”spots during prime time.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Our challenge was to push the Xperia in the MENA region to high end decision makers. Decision makers were aware of the Xperia, but sales of the brand had been dipping. Hence we needed to achieve sales targets in a recession-hit region, where mobile phones were not replaced as frequently as they used to be. We also wanted to highlight the unique Xperia features: 9 touch screen panels & the new Arabic keyboard. The touch screen panels were key to selling & differentiating the Xperia from all the other phones out there. Our insight showed that uncertainty in the region had led to decision-makers wanting up-to-date information, especially in the local stock & real estate markets. For them, knowledge was power. That led us to our contextual framework & central idea of providing the decision makers with ‘information at their fingertips’. IDEA: “Information At Your Fingertips”