2012 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

To help Gulf News, the UAE’s leading newspaper, reach even more readers and convert them into subscribers. People often receive breaking news from various news organisations on their phone. Our strategy was to be the first one that our audience interact with, so they would have Gulf News on their mind for the rest of the day.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

Fresh news goes well with fresh coffee. So we adapted the coffee cup sleeve of Tim Hortons, a global coffee chain, into an advertising medium and we created THE ‘HEADLINE NEWS’ CUP SLEEVE. Every cup. Every hour. Every day. When Tim Hortons customers received a cup of coffee, they also received the headline of the hour, printed using a special printer that pulled out tweets from the Twitter account of Gulf News. It allowed us to be the first throughout the day to deliver breaking news to potential subscribers and make a meaningful connection with them.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

• More than 2,400 new Gulf News Twitter followers within the first two weeks of the campaign launch. • The traffic on the Gulf News website grew by 37%. • Subscription’s up by 1.5% so far. • We’re rolling out this project in Tim Hortons outlets across the UAE and in 14 new outlets soon to be opened.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

We reminded existing and potential subscribers about Gulf News when they are most likely to read it — with their morning coffee.