2016 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

Tamkeen’s idea behind the shopping festival is to promote economic growth by transforming the Island into a shopping and entertainment destination over the duration of one month. For the 2nd edition of the shopping festival, Tamkeen requested the agency to provide a platform to showcase the business activities and the entrepreneurial spirit. The festival should aim to stimulate the retail sector, support Bahrain’s entrepreneurs, attract GCC and regional tourism, and inject positivity into the community. This should be done through the following business objectives: - Stimulate and activate the business market in Bahrain. - Celebrate the achievements of Bahrain’s business community and promote their success. - Demonstrate Tamkeen’s impact on business community / private sector at large. - Potentially attract visitors from neighbouring countries and hence activate business in the various sectors.

The Campaign

Bahrain hosts an annual shopping and entertainment festival, which is organized by Tamkeen. Tamkeen Labour Fund is one of the cornerstones of Bahrain’s national reform initiatives and Bahrain’s Economic Vision. Last year’s shopping festival, and its Arabic-driven communication alienated a majority of the expat population, which led to a severe drop in sales. The brand visibility was zero, resulting in a need for a complete overhaul. We revamped the brand identity and created a fresh, 360-degree campaign that set a platform for future events. Our advertising campaign was conceptualized and designed keeping in mind that the Shop Bahrain festival is about much more than just shopping. What resulted was a considerable increase in the number of shoppers and an instantly recognizable brand.

Creative Execution

It’s a known fact that visual marketing is a proven method to capture the audience’s attention. We broke away from the restraints of 2014’s traditional campaign and designed a strong visual identity that gave the brand a celebratory and contemporary aura. Our advertising campaign captured the effervescent spirit and inimitable culture of Bahrain. It cleverly highlighted the essence of the festival converging to offer one shared experience that is instantly recognizable and showed it in a fun, celebratory light. First, we designed a logo that demonstrated a colourful kaleidoscope of multiple cultures and offerings, converging to offer one shared experience. This essentially set the platform and inspired a myriad of other mediums including print, TVC, where a unique ‘paper craft’ technique allowed us to create a pattern that was visible everywhere. These branched into other pieces of communication like radios, POP, POS, mall brandings, digital, ensuring no consumer was left out.

The outcome was an unprecedented rise in the number of shoppers, which shot up by 30% from last year’s result. When it came to numbers, this mega event generated an extraordinary 11 million Bahraini Dinars in sales revenue. But most importantly, we created an instantly recognizable brand and laid out a strong foundation for next year’s event.