2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

The wealth of platforms through which content can be distributed has fuelled the rise of the branded content phenomenon. But at the same time one need to get the right equation of content + strategy + reach using these platforms which still has a long way to go. Majority of branded content channels can be found for FMCG’s, that’s why Pepsi needed to do something that would make it standout from the clutter. Content to us is two things, the idea that is based on an insight, and the creative treatment. Once that is sorted out, we need to think about reach, at the end of the day, you might have great content, but what’s the point if it does not reach your TA. Branded content is any content that can be associated with a brand in the eye of the beholder. Activities of our target audience is sporadic making it challenging to build a sustained like-minded audience in this region Legal approvals get delays and it is hard to stick to predefined dates as per the planning calendar. All in all the relevancy of topics per brand needs to grow and that is the aim with Pepsi. Keeping the above in mind, a simple observation that gave birth to our campaign was the rapidly growing mobile penetration rate and the swiftly declining TV penetration rate in the region.

Results

Pepsi preempted that the media would be cluttered with the official sponsor’s communications during the 2014 football world cup and wanted to create something that would make them standout. A simple observation of the rapidly growing mobile penetration rate led to the creation of Pepsi Goal – a mobile game, which turned a city into a football field and its residents into footballers. The app was launched in MENA a month before the world cup via a series of interactive banners and Youtube mastheads. The Pepsi social media page and influencers also helped in creating the propaganda. All communications drove the users to the website where users were asked to download the app from Google Play or Apple App Store. The website also served as a live window for the city matches and as a gaming platform for the non-mobile users.

The app was launched in MENA via a series of interactive banners and Youtube mastheads. The Pepsi social media page and influencers also helped in creating the propaganda. All communications drove the users to the website where users were asked to download the app from Google Play or Apple App Store. The website also served as a live window for the city matches and as a gaming platform for the non-mobile users.

This thematic game lived for 3 months in Jeddah, Riyadh, Abha, Dammam, Doha, Muscat, Manama, Dubai, Abu dhabi, Kuwait City, Beirut, Erbil, Baghdad, Amman, Irbid and Zarqa. The app had more than 70,000 downloads. There were 112,000 matches were played and the app received 4 Stars.