2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

UAE is one of the world's fastest-growing destinations for business and leisure visitors. With the number of visitors constantly increasing, passenger traffic at the airports increased by 6% year on year since 2015. At present, Etisalat has better positioning of their airport stands and more retail outlets in the country. du saw an opportunity here but knew they had to find smarter ways to capture the market. They therefore created a unique tourist SIM plan for incoming visitors, offering an enticing and cost efficient local SIM alternative. Our job was to create a unique customer experience to compel tourists to choose du.

Creative Execution

Our journey began with the ‘tourist to be’ when they were in their home countries and actively building their visit to Dubai. Performance based media was deployed in home markets building a subconscious link between their adventure and the coverage of du. We geo-targeted all terminals at the UAE airports, targeting the partner telecoms in the region, so that users were easily identified as “tourists” upon landing and opening their phones in the UAE. Pre-landing, we tagged the safety announcement and turned the Cabin Crew into brand voices. At the end of every flight the cabin crew would remind the travelers to purchase the du tourist SIM at the du store in the terminal. Most travelers usually expect to hear safety announcements. However, this stunt caught their attention in an unexpected manner, helping the brand be top of mind and pushing them to convert upon landing.

500K travellers heard about our tourist SIM and followed the Cabin Crew Stunt to find the du outlet in the arrivals terminal. The campaign delivered a 60% uplift in overall Airport Tourist SIM sales compared to 2015. The Cabin Crew enjoyed the shift of traditional script.

The du telecom Cabin Crew fever campaign demonstrates an inspiring and innovative execution in “the use of stunts” category. The idea was to effectively target incoming tourist in the region. By partnering with the region’s leading LCC carrier and designing a first of kind execution in the region, we got the cabin crew members to get on board and be an extension of our brand voice. The stunt caught the inbound tourists by surprise. Thereby translating into a positive uplift in Tourist SIM sales in the UAE.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Etisalat retail outlets are well positioned – fist eyesight in airports, up to 25 more retail outlets in the country. A consumer could easily reach for first instead of best. As the second on ground, du had to be smarter, be quicker, be agile and be relevant in their communication experiences. Based on global travel research, we knew that travelers consider WiFi to be critical to happiness during a city visit. They plan elements of their trips 3 months out and telecom operators crept up as 5% of total search volume and 2% of social chatter. People cared about affordable access to data and phone calls on ground and most importantly, they actively cared about it before reaching the arrivals hall. Identifying the airliners that drive the most tourism traffic to the UAE, we set out to create a new media and marketplace for the du