2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Football is not a unique platform. The world’s biggest brands own elements of this space. Coca-Cola owns the du Coke studio, Pepsi owns achievements and so du decided to own the du FC platform. Each brand speaks to who they could grow up to be. No brand celebrates the young players as the stars they are today. Research indicates that to be big in football, you have to be close to the scouts. Our European youth football counterparts touch glimpses of stardom by growing up with scouting networks and academies of major European clubs in their backyards. We needed to bring this touchstone and the professional feel of European leagues to our Youth league.

Creative Execution

Building on a 91% internet penetration in the region, the campaign was heavily promoted on online channels with a focus on a product integration. The below special execution was part of a holistic campaign with a key focus on our partnership with 365 scores , a premium regional sports site. We integrated features into their app, thereby helping youth footballers in the UAE to believe that they were already part of something professional. 365 scores created content around each big game. They also integrated the fixtures and standing on their app so that those participating or watching got a flavour of what it was like to play in a big European league. • Video edits of some of the games where a goal was scored • Video highlights of some of the talents • Interview with coaches or Salgado on some of the games or talent

Overall Campaign Traffic – 145,535 Registration exceeded 5 K players and 450+ teams in 2 months (Campaign Objective – 5K Registrations) 365 Scores - Results: 2.4 M Page views for the special execution CPC at $0.44 (2x as efficient as the benchmark) CTR: 3.60% (6x over the benchmark) 28 K searches of du fc teams 5.3 actions per user on the section

The du football “Alongside the Stars” campaign demonstrates a thorough media strategy and a first of a kind execution in the region by levering partnerships with premium sports sites such as 365 scores. The campaign was heavily led by digital and social platforms leveraging the power of engaging content . 365 scores created content around each big football game along with integrated fixtures and standings on their app . Those participating or watching got a flavour of what it was like to play in a big European league thereby amplifying the impact of the content.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

We needed to bring the professional feel of European leagues to our Youth league communications here in the UAE. Thereby inspiring new talent to sign up and showcase their skills. We wanted to inspire the youth to register in the program, so we built on the success stories of last year creating 3 videos talking about the experiences of the 3 finalists in European clubs and how it has changed their life. • Nawwaf targeting Emiratis , • Rami targeting Arab expats and • Lucas targeting European Expats