2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

UEFA Euro Cup is one of the most awaited football tournaments, especially amongst Arab fans. In 2016, the UEFA Euro Cup coincided with the month of Ramadan, which set the perfect scenario for the brand to reach out and engage with the Arab audience through fun, relevant and engaging content. The creative idea: A web series on football to engage our audience during Ramadan.

Creative Execution

Implementation: Studio Xpress was an Arabic football analysis web series packaged just like a broadcast quality sports news TV program. The Studio Xpress logo was designed to create association with UEFA Euro 2016, whilst incorporating our brand colors as well. The launch of Studio Xpress was announced on ‘Selfie Sport’, a weekly online program hosted by Mohammad Awaad on his social channels, with an average viewership of 55,000 fans. This helped generate buzz for Studio Xpress amongst the Arab audience, well before the first episode was aired. Timeline: June 10 to July 10, 2016 Placement: Studio Xpress episodes were all aired on Mohammad Awaad’s Facebook & YouTube properties, which included his expert analysis and discussions on the players, coaches and teams of the EURO Cup 2016. To encourage live conversations, we generated hashtags in Arabic and English.

Campaign Reach on Facebook: 5,813,536 Total number of Views: 1,345,799 Unique Views: 1,204,178 Minutes viewed: 1,139,591 Likes on the videos: 37548 Average engagement rate of 44.7% Twitter: Impressions:50,000 Mentions: 600 Tweets:50 YouTube: Views: 111,142 Likes: 3,892 Videos: 31 Impact: We launched the Xpress Money Arabia Facebook page along with this initiative, which reached 40,000 fans within 3 weeks! Visibility Unique views across social media channels 1,315,320 Behavioral impact 7 point increase in brand awareness 1 out of 3 participants surveyed were likely to consider using our brand In addition to the set campaign objectives of increasing brand visibility and awareness amongst Arabs, the initiative also generated additional business for the brand 9% increase in transactions from UAE to top 5 Arab corridors; Jordan, Egypt,Lebanon, Morocco & Tunisia 70% ROI on campaign spends

It is very uncommon for a money transfer brand to associate itself with a sport. Association in the form of sponsorships is the most a brand like ours would go & link itself with. Typically we see a footwear, clothing, accessories or beverage brand associating with sports. We took the unconventional route and created a football analysis web series around UEFA Euro Cup 2016, a global property followed by millions across the globe. We replicated a football studio in a television broadcast style to stay true and as close to the content we were showcasing.

Since we wanted to get the attention of the Arabs in a short span of time, we decided to take the influencer route. We partnered with Mohammad Awaad, a sports enthusiast, commentator and Editor-in-Chief of Sport 360 who had a Facebook subscriber base of over 600,000 at the time of our signing up, to capitalize on the football fever. With a Facebook page in Arabic and a steady growth of nearly 75000 fans per month, Awaad was the right tool for us to reach the perfect audience. The intent was to utilize Awaad’s Facebook, Twitter & YouTube properties to create awareness about our brand, without advertising spends or overtly promoting our brand.