2013 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

With no detailed data or monitoring of Branded Entertainment within the Middle-East, forecasting or providing an accurate summary of the market is somewhat difficult. However, from our own research (both brand & audiences) and of course BE campaigns, we’ve seen that there is a real appetite for creating and consuming content in the region. In terms of the restrictions, the rules around what can and can’t be done by brands vary significantly around the region such as KSA, but in many markets there is a lack of regulation (or governing body) that means a brands presence can be easily placed, associated or integrated within a piece of content. However, topics, themes and even situations must be taken into consideration when planning and producing any piece of Branded Content. These includes • The clothing and appearance of females • The proximity between female & male presenters • The treatment of culturally sensitive topics such as marriage and national dress • The use and discussion of Religion • The exclusion of any subject matter relating to sex & alcohol in KSA

Results

With 250,000 SME’s contributing over a third of total telecom spend in the UAE, the small business market represents a great growth opportunity to du. In fact, a massive 60% of the UAE’s GDP is generated by SME’s. However, as a young company that is synonymous with offering consumer products/services, awareness and associations of the brands small business solutions is not as strong. The challenge then was to establish du as a ‘one-stop-shop’ and position the brand as business partner of choice for SME’s in the UAE. Many people have ideas but many never see the light of day because of a lack of business know-how, funding or even motivation to make it happen. We needed to reverse this trend by demonstrating how easy it is to kick-start a business ambition. Therefore, our idea was to inspire and motivate people to release their business ideas by creating ‘The Entrepreneur’. As a primetime business-reality show, The Entrepreneur followed the country’s brightest entrepreneurial minds battle it out on national TV for a 2mAED investment to kick-start their business ambitions - the largest prize fund in the Middle-East! 100 initial entrepreneurs were put through their paces by four of the UAE’s most influential business brains - Abdul Baset Al-Janahi, Muna Al-Gurg, Nisreen Shocair and Yogesh Mehta. This renowned panel of experts challenged their pitching skills, business acumen, handling of pressure and ability to think big before whittling them down to three finalists. In the final episodes, our finalists competed in three grueling tasks designed to test their financial, marketing and management skills until Loulou Khazen’s life changed forever when her business idea ‘Nabbesh’ was selected as the winner. The series was supported & extended using numerous touch-points including; PR, digital, mobile, brand partnerships, email, print, editorial, outdoor, social media, events and radio.

Through The Entrepreneur, we provided our target audience with compelling content that was both entertaining and inspiring. This was achieved by a thorough understanding of our target audience and unearthing key insights that were used to form the basis of our strategy and subsequent idea. Full details of these insights, along with the challenge and creative execution can all be found in the next section.

By inviting the public and SME’s to release their business ideas, we’ve positively connected budding entrepreneurs with du and demonstrated how to kick-start business ambitions. The Entrepreneur garnered nearly 1,500 new ideas across 13 industries from over 20 nationalities. Through an 8 part TV series, we provided viewers with business entertainment that was compelling, original and inspiring. 88% of SME’s who watched the show stated that they ‘liked’ the programming. This in turn has led to positive shifts in brand metrics - providing clear evidence we’ve established du as a one-stop shop and positioned the brand as the business partner of choice. In fact, when comparing viewers with non-viewers, we increased key brand metrics by an average of 7% amongst SME’s (source: Millward Brown). In addition, TOMA of du has risen by 10% amongst SME viewers. Finally, from a business perspective, The Entrepreneur generated over AED7m in media & PR exposure and contributed to a 3% uplift in new SME customers.