2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Middle Eastern Consumers support home-grown talent obsessively The TV scene in the Middle East is dominated by Pan-Arab output which generically reflects the region, not localized culture. Domestic TV in places like Saudi Arabia is censored and contained large volumes of religious programming- hardly the kind of environments to associate a youthful brand like Close Up with! However, in a market dominated by imported TV formats and Turkish dramas, homegrown Arabic stars are held in high regard. High performing shows such as The Voice and Arab’s Got Talent are a reflection of the passion that exists for local heroes. Many of these entertainers have become a firm part of Arabic culture. Given their trusted and aspirational status, Arab brand ambassadors are a powerful asset. Over the past few years, Close Up has been building associations with Music & Dance platforms, to their Freshness message to life and to appeal to the youth audience. We were tasked with finding a way of using Music & Dance to help Close up launch their latest product range.

Results

Challenge & Objective: Help launch Close Up’s new variant of toothpaste and cut through a noisy, low interest category. Brushing your teeth is a very personal ritual. It places the brand and consumer in intimate contact, a brand experience that can last over two minutes (if you are following your dentist’s advice). Therefore, for many consumers, trust is a key purchase driver when it comes to toothpaste- they won’t get Up Close and personal with any old product! Insight: When choosing brands, consumers in the Middle East trust the opinions of people close to them. Word of mouth and trust go a long way in our region; professional endorsements were an opportunity worth capitalizing on. Strategy: Consumers would love to get Close to their on-screen idols. We knew Close Up users loved music and would love to meet their idols. Execution: Transfer the trust fans have for Nancy Ajram, onto the Close Up brand. Desk research identified Nancy Arjam as a key influencer for our audience. A singing, dancing and acting sensation, the glamorous Nancy Ajram is a reflection of modern Arabia and an aspirational role model for many across the region. We partnered with Nancy to feature in her up and coming single video ‘Yalla!’. However we went beyond just a typical product placement. To maximize interest and hype we ‘teased and revealed’ Nancy’s forthcoming single, using a real-time social media campaign which exchanged Tweets for audio clips of the new single. This ‘teasing’ capitalized on the frenzy of interest that existed prior to Nancy launching albums or singles. To maximize impact, we incentivized social sharers with a second preview clip. Post-campaign, Close Up featured within Nancy’s single where it continues to generate earned media impressions today.

A hashtag #CloseToNancy was established and we began collating Tweets in real-time. A 24 hour social media monitoring team replied to each tweet in real time with a personalized reply ‘From Nancy’. We kept access to the single exclusive. The only possible chance of hearing even a few seconds of was by compiling a #CloseToNancy Tweet. Tweeters had the opportunity to listen only once before the link expired. A second clip was made available to people who shared the campaign socially. Twitter was used to target fans of the Nancy Ajram page, and ‘Look-a-like’ targeting identified and targeted similar profiles.

The campaign had a significant impact on sales performance and created massive buzz and engagement with consumers: • On Twitter, during the first week of the campaign our engagement rate was a massive 40%, 16 times Twitter’s standard rate! And this stayed around 20% during the second week, still well above average engagement rates. • During the campaign period, Gross Sales Volume jumped +10% year on year • Market share also increased directly after the campaign, rising from 15% in Oct’14 to 16.1% in Dec’14 (110 bps gain). • Close Up continues to engage fans as the brand is still featured in Nancy Ajram’s video ‘Yalla!’ which has currently achieved over 5m authenticated views, plus many more unofficial views.