2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Promoting alcohol in the UAE through live activation is restricted to ontrade outlets or special events that have specific licenses. Integrating elements of print, outdoor and other mediums of advertising is very restricted, for example, we cannot run a print campaign featuring brand logos, pictures of people consuming alcohol or connotations of alcohol consumption. Aside from the strict governmental restrictions there are also moral responsibilities that brands and agencies must observe. Promoting alcohol is a sensitive issue in a Muslim country for obvious reasons.

Results

The World Cup - the biggest sporting event of the year with monumental expectations on each game. Equally, our campaign came with big expectations from our clients. 1st step was to get the stakeholders on board. We were already working Bud to create fanzones across 5 locations in the UAE. But we proposed to bring other World Cup sponsors in Sony and adidas into the fold to offer more value and ultimately a better return for each brand involved. We negotiated the agreements between all parties to ensure that this project happened. We also handled the 4 separate venues and made sure their interests were managed. 2nd - Design & Create - with all partners onboard we designed each venue. Each brand had to have equal representation through branding, activation and general visibility. After site-visits and creative meetings with all stakeholders we devised a theme & look and feel that would pulse through the heart of each fanzone. We then got to work on each brand's activations - not only conceiving the idea but making sure that the design was in line with our overall theme. 3rd - Execute - with all activation ideas and branding approved we moved into production. Multi-venue builds all at the same time meant our teams had their work cut-out! 4th - Staffing - so, the fanzones are ready. Now we need to get the staff organised. Each World Cup game at 4 different venues meant that we had a team of over 50 promotion staff working shifts to cover the games. 5th - Management - this wasn't a one-off event. It was roughly 7 months in planning with 1 month of solid on the ground management for 3 major global brands, 4 key venues and thousands of extremely passionate football fans. Phew!

Print combined with augmented reality technology - we took out ad space in the UAE's most popular sporting print publication to advertise our experiences. However, due to the governmental/moral restrictions outlined above we had to be clever about it. So we developed an ad that when scanned with a smart-phone produced additional branded content that told people all the details about our campaign. Design - passing consumers and natural footfall were physically drawn to our spaces by unique design of the spaces. Overall, we offered venues that were different to the plethora of other World Cup screening venues.

The campaign was a success for may different reasons. Below is some of the quantifiable evidence to back this up. The main campaign partner was Budweiser. The 4 fanzones sold a volume total of 350 HL of Bud through cans, bottles and draught sales. The campaign in the build-up and during the active duration garnered 1.5 million AED worth of press coverage There were 5000 direct mentions on social media during the games. We developed the world's first instashop at the live events for Sony PlayStation. Over 50,000 people attended the games over the course of the month.