2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Saudi’s desperately wanted domestically produced content, but there wasn’t any. The TV scene in Saudi is dominated by Pan-Arab output which generically reflects the region, not Saudi culture. Domestic TV is censored and contains large volumes of religious programming- hardly the kind of environments to associate a youthful brand like Lux with! Women in the region are fashion mad, but owing to the broadcast restrictions on TV, there are few platforms that service this interest. Partly in response to this issue, two years ago Lux created ‘House of Lux’ a platform that empowers aspiring fashion designers in the Middle East region. House of Lux is used to recruit, mentor and showcase the best up and coming fashion designers from the region. Given the fact that there are few forms of entertainment in Saudi Arabia, cinema is banned and Social Media is monitored, this is valuable. There was a problem however. Whilst fans followed the recruitment and shortlisting phases of ‘House of Lux’ online, the Grand Final (where a winner was selected) was a ticket only event. Tickets to attend were restricted to bloggers; PR’s and ‘trade’ professionals. This was frustrating as we knew Lux consumers desperately wanted access to this content…

Results

Challenge: When you’re the owner of a major high street beauty brand, but you’re only famous for being soap, how do you change perceptions and fulfill the huge beauty opportunity on your doorstep? In 2014, this was problem faced by Unilever brand Lux. Objective: Build credibility within the Beauty category by expand the reach of the ‘House of Lux Fashion Show’. Maximize earned media in the process. Insight: Unilever had invested heavily to change perceptions that Lux only makes soap. New product launches such as Lux Soft Touch (with its elegant and sophisticated fragrance and striking pack design) were part of this transition. In the Middle East fragrance is an accessory to every outfit- it is culturally very significant. There was a therefore a natural connection between Lux Soft Touch and Fashion we wanted to exploit. Strategy: Research informed us that, in a society where women mixed largely with other women, fashion was unusually competitive. It was important to stay ‘on trend’ and Saudi women were always on the lookout for an edge. Our approach was therefore to amplify our audiences’ ‘fear of missing out’ and make the live House of Lux fashion show feel like the ‘must see’ event of the year. Execution: If we couldn't take people to the event we had to take the event to them. So that’s what we did…. by turning digital banners into TV screens. We undertook a ‘Google Blast’ and turned banners into TV Screens across the network. In a regional Media First, we used the Cross Screen YouTube masthead to broadcast the event live across the region on multiple devices. Targeted Google Mastbox formats (by topic/interest) supported all activity, also broadcasting live using banner sites, and behind-the-scenes clips were captured and targeted to those who missed the live stream.

We broadcasted the show live online, by turning digital banners into TVs! Working with Google we undertook a ‘Google Blast’ and turned banners into TV Screens. In a Media First, we used a ‘Cross Screen Masthead’ takeover stream the event live across the Middle East on all devices. Google Mastbox formats supported all activity, again broadcasting live using banner sites. Behind-the-scenes clips were captured and targeted to those who missed the live stream. Before the live streaming began, we road-blocked the YouTube Masthead slot for a whole day and used it as a countdown to the start of the show.

The impact of the activity was widely felt. Most impressively the brand saw a 800 bps (Basis points) increase in top of mind awareness during the activity period, and a huge 8% more consumers claimed to use this brand as part of their beauty regime following this campaign! Earned Media worth a massive $1,234,886 was secured and nearly 70 key opinion leaders and media attended the live event in person. This spread Lux’s status as a Beauty brand wide and far. Our Facebook Organic Page reach grew by 104% and on the day before/day of the event. We also saw a huge uplift in the number of subscribers on our YouTube channel during the event period– from a base of 500 pre activity 3,250 subscribers 24 hours later! (+552%). The average time spent viewing the live stream masthead which had to be clicked to expand was 3 minutes – significantly longer than YouTube averages. Internally, Unilever considered this one of the standout campaigns of the year for performance and strategy.