2013 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

The Challenge: Get people in Saudi Arabia to believe in the power of classified ads. Objective: Engage people in a creative and relevant manner. Strategy: Drive engagement through direct engagement that leads to amplification. Execution: Direct 0ne-on-one interaction, that starts offline, moves online, and have enough cut through to be noticed by digital media and social media.

The Brief

The goal is to get people to depend on classified ads, provided by Alwaseela, versus using all sorts of ways to announce. We wanted to connect with the youth of KSA. We believe that the behavior of young people is easier to change. This justified the messages which were intended to shock people and entice them to participate.

Results

58,000 people scanned the QR code in only 5 hours. 70000 re-tweets. 188000 likes on Facebook. total of 77000 views on Youtube 500000 views on electronic media & social media more than 500000 people saw it on one of the leading youtube programs around 1M Sr worth of free PR. this campaign was able to increase the sales of classified ads by 20+% during the period of the campaign.

Execution

The campaign has been implemented as per the below steps: More than 1000 promoters invaded the streets of Saudi on a Thursday night. Each promoter held a message that attract people to scan a QR Code. The QR Code revealed a message answering the message on the sign. Exposed the messages to social media figures who picked it up and spoke about it. Spoofed radio and tv shows. Created viral ads that were scattered on the net. A couple of promoters posted the ad in competitor classified ads newspapers (Al Moubawaba, etc) – the QR Code led people to Alwaseela.

The Situation

People in Saudi Arabia are not accustomed with the use of classified ads. They rely heavily on street announcements in order to sell their products/services/almost everything. They believe that writing their number on a sign on a post lamp, or on a wall in their piece of land; on their car, or on a traffic light, is more effective than classified advertising. Alwaseela, which belongs to Alwaseet group, the leading classified ads news paper in the region, wanted to raise awareness about the efficacy of classified advertising in an effort to push Saudis to use this medium to sell and buy.

The Strategy

Come up with an act that have the potential to change the behavior of people. Depend on engagingness and cut through in order to generate participation. Capitalize on the cut through of the activation in attracting social media, digital media and blogs.