2016 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

Persil Black has forged a strong bond with women in the UAE. Not only had it carefully washed their Abayas for 7 years, it has also championed an inspiring Abaya fashion movement that has propelled the ambitions of many young and aspiring Abaya designers. However, other similar black fabric brands with stronger equity and deeper heritage in the region, constantly wanted to steal women’s hearts away from a brand that was somehow still perceived as a foreigner. The brand needed to do more to ingrain itself in the GCC culture and further grow its affinity with Arab women.

Results and Effectiveness

To amplify message to Emirati women, we used an approach that combined scale to ensure reach with a highly targeted &contextual approach to ensure relevancy &traction. Content was seeded on YouTube,TV stations MBC 1, Al Aan during programs with National Day coverage. We pushed content on mobile on National Day using geofencing technology around high traffic areas-Jumierah, Dubai Ladies Club, &City Walk Mall. Natively placed video on top women’s site Ounousa for seamless integration within similar content. To build advocacy & credibility,we teamed with Emarati influencer Alreem Saif to help drive the message to her massive following of local women

Creative Execution

The idea was hiding in the obvious. It was living in the Persil Black bottle itself. Through collaboration between a musical instrument maker and a sound engineer we transformed the Persil bottle into a real guitar and brought a woman to sing the UAE’s national anthem while playing the Persil bottle guitar. We wanted this to be a strong symbol of national resonance from the very core of the brand and with the powerful voice of a woman.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The United Arab Emirates leads the Arab world when it comes to women empowerment. Women hold 2/3 of public sector positions and over 30% are in senior decision-making roles. But although women are becoming more assertive about their role and the potential they could unlock for their country, there are still a lot of cultural sensitivities towards what veiled woman can or cannot do in society. We realised that to build affinity with Emirati women we needed to fuel their quest towards empowerment with a daring initiative with Persil Black as the enabler.