2012 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

The high season to promote and use credit cards in Saudi is summer; this summer was exceptional due to the occurrence of the holy month of Ramadan along with many other activities which was expected to lead to high spending and usage of cards. Our objective was to drive acquisition and increase usage with a challenge to break through the immense clutter created by offers from banks and retail that all looked and sounded the same. Differentiating SABB cards was imperative; we needed a promotion that was relevant to the season and one that customers would aspire to. We also needed to approach our creative execution differently to be able to break through the clutter.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

Given that consumers were expected to spend large sums on their credit cards in the summer, winning a dream holiday would certainly make it easier on consumers’ pockets. While all other offers used cliché imagery of happy families and objects to buy, we went back to our strongest equity for inspiration, our red line, to avoid falling into the same trap. We created icons out of our red line, to illustrate the different travel destinations that consumers could win as a result of using their SABB credit card. In this way, our icons could easily be identified and understood through the clutter, and instantly recognized as an offer from SABB.

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

By going against the tide through our simple creative and disruptive executions, our campaign broke through the clutter and was easily understood Resulting in an 86% Return on Investment and 60,000 persons liked the Facebook page during the period of the campaign.

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

We capitalized on the entire journey of consumers, from home to branch, to shopping malls. To be equally affective in our choice of media we disrupted regular newspaper pages with island ads of a plane leading to strips that featured travel destinations on the next page. The promotion was also brought to life across, radio, TV, outdoor, online banners, and other collaterals. Social media also played a role, with our activity continuing on Facebook, giving customers another chance to engage and win. Our choice of promotion, creative and media choices broke through the cluttered market to differentiate SABB and make SABB the choice for credit cards.