2013 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

The birth of Branded content in our region is a direct result of the evolution of its audience. Audiences of the region, and its youth in particular can no longer be defined as ‘captured viewers’ passively consuming messages. Instead their consumption habits now spread across a myriad of touch-points. Therefore, our ‘audience’ is no longer a passive receptor of information particularly in the form of traditional advertising. Rather they are assuming the role of interactive participants. Brands now endure the responsibility of infiltrating the youth’s world, without constantly trying to sell it something. Today’s youthful skeptic will embrace relevant and honest brands, one that appears to understand them, and add value to their lives. That being said, branded content is still in its infancy in the Middle East. This is mainly due to the challenge presented when designing a piece of content that carries through two essential elements: great entrainment value, and the brand essence. For without the brand, no funding is available and without the entertainment aspect, no audience will invest in return. The challenge therefor becomes clear; to create and deliver content that has value. Content that will move and inspire people.

Results

Apart from speaking the same language, something else unites the Middle East men - their passion for football. So when none of the countries within the region qualified for the European Championship - BP Castrol, the regions No1 Motor oil - stepped in to help fill the void and give the men in the region something to cheer about by creating a football tournament of its own - 'Castrol Goal'. It was an exciting brief however reality quickly sunk in. How do we hold a semi-professional tournament when the temperature outside is 110 degrees? A solution was to ‘play indoors’. We found our magic by taking an existing space, flipping it on its head and turning it into one of the world's largest moving branded billboards where thousands of people could be amazed by the Castrol Goal experience in a place where they least expected it - 'Football On Ice' We took Castrol Goal to the largest and most populated mall in the region; Dubai Mall. We transformed the Ice Rink into a football pitch overnight, included a number of activities such as accuracy shots, skills tests, human foosballs and more. All of these were branded Castrol whereby exposing the brand to thousands of enthusiastic onlookers. A team from Lebanon won the tournament and the coveted trip to Kiev. Before departure, the winning team members went through Castrol’s “boot camp” and were given travel, style and language tips for their trip to the Ukraine with their adventures broadcast on Facebook and YouTube. We created a series of online shows and Team Castrol became the heroes of the Middle East, whereby representing the region at the Euro 2012.

Malls in Dubai are always bustling with people and on the special day of our event, they were in for a surprise. The ice rink is a highlight of Dubai Mall, but on this day it hosted our Castrol Goal Football competition. This naturally brought a lot of people together to witness this first time event. Simultaneously, our media teams were continuously updating the match results on the ground for the public to see as well as on social media for the respective fans to follow and cheer on. #footballonice was created for the first time.

Castrol Goal tournament was a big hit, giving Middle East consumers a connection to Euro 2012. More than 120,000 people saw the event and over 30,000 people participated in the activation, spending an average 90 minutes per visit (Ref: Dubai Mall Ice Rink - Emaar) The event drew massive attention on the social media sphere resulting in 65,000 Tweets mentioning #CastrolGoal or #FootballOnIce. Facebook Castrol Goal album was viewed by 20,491 people in one day, achieving a virality of 9.7% (vs a median of 1.92%) (Ref: Facebook & Twitter Reports ) The event also got significant coverage by the media resulting in additional PR value of $160,000 (Ref: Media Watch) In the period following the event, the brand's communication awareness increased from 45% to 57% and sales grew by 10% (Ref: Castrol Brand Health - YTD June 2012 vs. YTD June 2011)