2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

General advertising regulations and laws define the way in which products can be advertised in the region. There are no specific restrictions that apply solely to branded entertainment.

Results

In our region, as is the rest of the world, football is the most rallied and most viewed sport. Football is not in every conversation. It is the conversation. Consumer's passion for the sport is not limited to TV viewing but to practice, as parking lots and empty sand lots are turned into active neighborhood tournaments and where in hidden talent emerges. Yet the major obstacle that poses itself, is the lack of strong structured equities that provide talents with the opportunity to showcase skills and be spotted to start their journey towards a professional career. We wanted our youth to LIVE THE NOW and achieve their dreams through an immersive and life changing football experience. To achieve this ambition, and alongside our partners, we created “The Victorious”, a reality program conceived with the purpose of elevating football standards among young Arab amateurs. The legendary Maradona was appointed as the chief Judge, alongside Rabah Madjer and Hany Ramzy, while other football stars visited as mentors. The judges handpicked 44 of the best and most ambitious young Arab athletes. Those heroes joined the Victorious boot camp while Pepsi put them through a series of challenges such as the desert run and others that were set to test the athletes’ skills and help them improve certain aspects of their game. Meanwhile Football fans across the region were able to follow the young athletes’ trainings and competitions. Exclusive daily episodes followed the players’ lives while Video on Demand enabled our audience to watch all “The Victorious” episodes on a digital platform. After 12 weeks of intense training one athlete was crowned the Victorious. He received a cash prize of $100,000 and a professional contract with Juventus. The other top 4 players won professional contracts in Germany & Spain.

The Victorious was promoted across one of the leading media networks in the region. The campaign utilized their existing ecosystem both online & offline, & at the same time enhanced the fan's engagement by creating content tied into the concept of the show. Audiences were directed towards those experiences by leveraging DMI's own assets as well as Pepsi's social media platforms and an outdoor campaign.

Our partnership with The Victorious transformed the lives of young aspiring athletes in the region. The brand’s vision was materialized from an essence perspective, and strongly delivered in its constant efforts to empower its core audience and fans. The show engaged our target audience with entertaining premium football content. The show finale reached 18.15% of our target audience across all of KSA. In total, 1,706,108 people over the age of 15 watched the finale in Saudi. During the final stages of the competition, an average of 20.63% of our UAE audience were tuned in to the program. Furthermore, our Pepsi owned sections across the digital platforms delivered over 3 million impressions and achieved above CTR benchmarks. (Source: Optivi – KSA CTV 2014, UAE CTV 2014, DMI) Our various brand integrations within the show, yielded a significant 9,868sec (165min) of free added value air time. We also managed to immensely surpass all of the KPI objectives that were set: • Increased “association with football” by 5 points vs. objective of +2 • Increase “offer something different to other brands” by 11 points vs. objective of +3 • Increase “Brand I Love” by 8 points vs objective of +3