2014 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

SABB wanted to launch its part of HSBC’s global campaign to reposition the bank as future ready, but how could we do that in a market where people tend to live for today and worry little about a future, that is usually left to fate? Our, biggest challenge was to make the future a salient topic for people in Saudi. Given the censorship in the kingdom, Saudi Arabia had become a hotbed of self-expression online, particularly on social media channels. We decided to leverage this need for self-expression, and open up the debate and conversation on what the future would be like starting online

Success of the Campaign

The topic didn’t catch the public’s attention only: major Saudi influencers across different sectors took the opportunity to post future related messages, as well as cartoonists and journalists, who picked up on the opportunity to post their views on how they saw the country shaping up – or simply made fun of the whole thing. For SABB, the result increased brand consideration by 62.5%, (Source: TNS, SABB Brand tracker 2013), strengthened our social media base and moved our brand health index ranking from 5th to 3rd in Saudi Arabia, ( Source: TNS, SABB Brand tracker 2013). More significantly perhaps, it also produced a free and massive database of market and consumer insights.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

The solution was simply a question. Not any question, but one designed to open the floodgates: we asked them to forecast their future. And we did it in the most contemporary way: with a hashtag. #inthefuture was our conversation opener. Through an above the line campaign using press and outdoor we suggested ways that the future would shape up, and then invited people to make their own predictions. We got people talking on social media, and then sponsored a famous radio show that opened one to one discussions with the people every morning. We released articles each day on Facebook and Twitter raising and discussing issues/topics for comment and triggering conversations. And the floodgates did open