2013 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

6 weeks into the campaign footfall to Ski Dubai increased by 11%, driven mostly by large families. Overall sales for Ski Dubai increased by 20%. * Intention of visiting Penguins improved by 11% points to 40% post-campaign. Awareness of Penguins increased by 17% points to 46% post-campaign ** On Social Media, Spot the Penguins series got 130,000 views in just 6 weeks. The average engagement rate on the Facebook page increased from 2% to 11 % during the campaign. 12,000 new fans (an increase of 17%) joined Ski Dubai page in just 4 weeks.***

Creative Execution

Meet Abe & Sara; A penguin couple who come to Dubai to meet their cousins in Ski Dubai but get distracted by the beauty of the city and spend their time being tourists! A&S broke all the rules in the Penguin book as they travelled in the metro, shopped in the Gold Souk and even suntanned on the beach. To top it all, they became the first ever penguins to fly! Their story was told through a YouTube Series 'Spot the Penguins', which chronicled their amusing experiences from landing in Dubai all the way to the big family reunion. 10 webisodes were serialized on Ski Dubai’s Facebook page where fans could not only follow A&S’s story, but could also add them as friends. When fans demanded more, A&S started writing a travel blog where fans could get exclusive insider stories on their adventures.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Penguins in the Desert? Only in Dubai! Snow Penguins flew all the way from Sea World in the US to make Ski Dubai their new home. Ski Dubai had spent a fortune to get them here to make this the biggest news of 2012. But UAE residents remained largely unaware and unexcited about them. It’s no secret that UAE residents are used to attractions being built around them. Be it aquariums, ice skating rinks, water zoos, dolphin bays – the choices are endless. The challenge was to make Ski Dubai stand out and get families to visit the Snow Penguins. But we needed to achieve this on a shoe-string budget. If people were not coming to see the penguins our idea was to take the penguins to see the people through the help of social media