2014 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

We received over 55,000 applicants, 4500 submissions. In additions to the participation, we increased fans on the Facebook page by 30,181, beyond the KPI set of 20,000 fans. (Source: Emirates NBD Social Tracker) The campaign delivered earned media value worth millions of dollars as the winning logo not only featured on every piece of communication, it even became the official currency. Emirates NBD's image scores were at an all time high of 38 at the end of the campaign - ahead of all the banks (Source : Emirates NBD Brand Index Tool)

Creative Execution

Who said that design should be exclusive ? Our purpose was to democratize design and make it accessible to everyone. We created UAE’s first logo design app via Facebook which enabled anyone to sketch their own version of the Emirates NBD logo. We drove participation through all our social platforms. But we realized a design app alone wasn’t enough. The design community needed to be inspired at the grassroots. We struck a strategic partnership with Brownbook (UAE’s leading culture magazine and voice of the creative community). Brownbook helped us involve and empower our audience through editorial content and creative workshops. To maximize participation we reached out to the student community by partnering with the local universities. Once the submissions started to flow, we created a large billboard displaying all the submitted logos with a live ticker displaying the submission count.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

While the Arab Spring was transforming the political landscape in many parts of the region, another movement was quietly fermenting itself behind the scenes in UAE. It was the emergence of a young creative community who are passionate about new art forms. Empowered with social media they are expressing themselves in unique ways making UAE the cultural hub of the region. As the country’s leading bank Emirates NBD wanted to tap into this growing subculture to celebrate its 50th anniversary. But the youth perceived the bank as old-school, rigid and risk-averse. Emirates NBD needed to break this stereotype to improve its opinion amongst the youth. We went where no local bank had ever gone before. We gave our audience a unique opportunity to design the bank’s official logo which would feature on every piece of bank communication for one full year.