2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

This year, we developed an insight after speaking to a focus group of 20 mothers that had kids between the age of 7 to 12. To most kids going back to school after the holidays represented tensions, fears and certain expectations. Tensions that often scare them, like being exposed to bullying, the popular kids, the stress of homework or even the simplest task of waking up early. The creative concept: Using puppets as a fun way to represent these fears and tensions, Sun & Sand Sports will be the kids ally to go back to school encouraging them to face and overcome these situations a lot more through participation in sport. Allowing them to be more confident in themselves and have a more positive and active attitude towards life.

Creative Execution

In order to achieve our objectives our plan included delivering effective creative assets and utilizing an integrated marketing plan to successfully deliver our message. We utilized outdoor, print, digital & retail but mainly large screen media, Cinema and TV to channel our key assets effectively. We bought a total of 180 spots on OSN Kids HD and OSN Family HD for a period of 1 month airing over 4 times daily. The 3 x 30 second movies also played at Reel Cinemas at The Dubai Mall (TDM) and Vox Cinemas at Mirdif City Centre (MCC), Mall of the Emirates and Dubai Festival Centre (DFC). At MCC, DFC and TDM we even promoted the film by creating the puppets as Mascots that interacted with kids over 3 weekends in the said locations at Cinema Foyers or stores distributing cool stickers, taking pictures and have promoters explain their presence.

The back to school campaign was a successful campaign. Our objective was to grow the kids category by 4% instead grew it by 5.2%, and on weekends when the mascot activation took place, our stores saw an uplift of sales upto 40%. The reach was incredible with almost 300,000 views in the cinema and reach of 1.2 million households through TV. The creative was very well accepted by parents and kids with over 1.5 million views on digital channels with a view rate of 22% and avg engagement rate of 25%. The campaign also had positive reviews measured through social engagement and our onground activations In turn organically growing our social follower base by 2,000 on instagram and 8,000 on facebook .

Sun & Sand Sports (SSS), home grown brand took a crucial insight of kids going back to school and drove a positive message to encourage kids to participate more in sports to deter the fears they may face when at school, be it bullying, homework, popularity or waking up early. Delivering creative film content to global standards that reached 1.2 million homes through TV, a digital view rate of over 22%, average social engagement rate of 25%, 1.5 million views digitally and commercially grew the kids category at SSS by 5.2% makes it a worthy submission.

The creative strategy included the creation of 4 characters that represented the fears –Bullying, Homework, Popularity and Waking up early that resulted in key 3 films and 4 prints to show how participating in sport can beat these fears. Film 1– set in a swimming auditorium, showed how bullying was beaten because the kid challenged the bully by being better at swimming, causing the bully to go away. Film 2–set in a soccer field, the new kid in the football team beat being intimidated by popular kids by having the right football skill and scoring a goal, the popular kids then recognizes the kid for his ability. Film 3 –set in a girls bedroom, shows how pro-active and positive the kid is as she has taken up running, is excited to go to school and not effected by her alarm clock ringing so early in the morning.