2011 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

During the World Cup: - Postpaid mobile package subscribers increased 69%. - Number of broadband subscribers increased 16%. - Customer base of BlackBerry subscribers increased 16%.   Media followed the debate the game booth and splashed the campaign nationally, generating free media publicity worth over USD 125,000. Community tents across Bahrain invited us to host debates. Online, debate videos generated over 50,568 multi-layered interactions from 22 countries getting an average of 32,000 daily post views and over 900,000 wall impressions.  For Bahrain’s football fans, Batelco became the face of the World Cup.And there was no debating that.

Creative Execution

We created ‘Debate the Game’ - the platform for fans to discuss, analyse and argue about the game. With the Batelco backdrop, two mikes and two chairs, on matchdays our Debate the Game booth travelled to where fans were and we invited them to debate the game with us. Debates were streamed live on Batelco’s website before the game, at halftime and after the game while debate videos were uploaded daily on Batelco Facebook and Youtube, leading to thousands of more debates.   We distributed World Cup offers at debate venues, which enabled people to carry on the debate on other platforms. Fans followed our booth daily via a schedule on the Debate the Game microsite. At Bahrain’s cinemas where live matches were being screened, we streamed live debates before the game, at halftime and after the game. On Radio, we hosted live debates.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

During the Football World Cup, the advertising scene is cluttered with typical promotions by official sponsors and every other brand alike. Our challenge was to make Bahrain’s leading telecommunications company Batelco, the face of the World Cup in Bahrain and to be perceived as an official sponsor. Our insight was that in football, for every moment worth celebrating, come moments worth debating. So we did what a telecom company does best - getting people to talk.