2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Given the proximity of the Floating Hotel to popular beaches, we created inflatable floats inspired by exotic dishes on the menu of Fishmania. Ray fish, lobster and octopus floats became our advertising medium. We placed them around beaches and pools to reach residents and tourists directly. Every time they used our floats, it reminded them of Fishmania, an exotic restaurant with a unique location.

Creative Execution

To introduce Fishmania, fish floats on beaches and in pools caught people by surprise. With social media to help, more people were informed about the floats and invited to experience the location of our new restaurant. Ushers along the beaches and pools inform customers and lead them to the floats. In less than 3 weeks we were able to cover most of the famous public beaches in Bahrain along with some of the high-end community pools.

The seafood floats did more than just raise awareness; they brought in more customers to the restaurant than expected. Demand for lobster and octopus dishes rose since the introduction of the seafood floats. Reservations to the restaurant were also up by 170%, with there even being a waiting list on weekends. Finally, Fishmania was ranked in the top 5 seafood restaurants on Tripadvisor.

The campaign used the seafood floats as a new medium of advertising thus created our own media. It was a direct call-to-action to experience the location of the restaurant. The number of people who were exposed to the campaign and then visited the restaurant measured the success of the campaign.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

In a country with more than a hundred seafood restaurants we had to use an innovative advertising method to attract customers. Our approach was to create a direct experience rather than go down the conventional way. To reach tourists and local families we placed our floats where they readily frequent i.e. on beaches and in pools, giving them a hint of our location, which then translated to footfall.