2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

The Event Concept was derived from the mother campaign ‘Conquer the game’. Visualising football as an epic battlefield, highly competitive and full of passion. The Creative Concept takes on an edgy and punchy approach from the creative assets to the live experience; think Sparta 300 meets everyday football. The Tournament Concept was a unique ‘Last team standing’ concept, wherein the tournament day was divided into two phases, 8x 2 hour slots (Phase 1) with the final 9th two hour slot (Phase 2) being allocated to the final 16 teams that made it through. Teams had to “keep possession” of the pitch till the end of their 2 hour slot or be the highest points scoring team in that slot to make it through. The competition concept was brutal and ensured that the quality of football was played at a very highly level

Creative Execution

Our communication plan from June 10th to July 10th included the use of outdoor, radio, print & PR to build awareness and targeted means to recruit including digital & social, guerilla marketing and retail. All registrations were driven to an online platform. Once registered, teams received jerseys to personalize their own team crests, names and numbers, compliments of SSS at the SSS Dubai Mall store. The teams were also given a hotline for any inquiries and continuously kept up to date through email marketing from sign up to event day The event took place at the Koora Dome, Oud Metha on the 15th of July. From 8am until 2am the next day. We had a total of 180 teams and 1080 players compete to be the last team standing in a fully air conditioned venue with 3 pitches, pitch coordinators, referees, entertainment including MC,DJ, PlayStation hub and more.

The 'Conquer the Game' football tournament was an enormously successful event across all aspects, participation, engagement and media coverage. Our target was to recruit 60 teams and closed the registrations with 180 teams. We collected 1,500 database of avid footballers. Thanks to our communication plan that reached 86% of the population through ATL. On social we achieved a reach of over 7.5 million, including 2 million video views and 84,000 likes, comments and shares. To top it all, 28 media outlets in the UAE recognised the tournament with a staggering coverage value over 400,000 USD and naming it the largest one day football tournament in the UAE. Finally from a commercial point of view allowed for our football category contribution to overall business to increase by almost 10%.

Sun & Sand Sports, the largest sports retailer in the Middle East strived to be an asset for the local amateur football community. We did this by creating the largest one-day football tournament in the U.A.E that gave amateur athletes an access to play. The recruitment took a total of 30 days with an effective use of 360 media that reached 85% of the population across the UAE. Delivering a unique tournament concept for a staggering 180 teams and 1,088 players to celebrate the last team standing that generated over 400,000 USD in PR Coverage and more.

In order to achieve our objectives our strategy was to be able to find a way to be closer to footballers than ever by starting to deliver an epic experience with an aim to sustain a long-term relationship. Our strategy included three phases recruit, armor, experience & celebrate. We chose a recruitment strategy that involved a 360 marketing communication effort over thirty days, including mass media to create a noise and targeted channels to secure recruitment by building relationships with key influencers and organizations within the community. We also chose to armor the players with the best gear by curating our retail space, and providing them with services so they could professionally represent. The experience we wanted to deliver was competitive, larger than ever, to international standards yet fun and celebrated through the players, the media and the community.