2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

To take a regional story global, by shining a spotlight on global relevance.

Execution

Every year we seek to ensure that our key findings provide actionable insights on hot issues such as terrorism, and the oil crisis. We created a comprehensive suite of collateral: ‘Top 10 Findings’, press releases, presentation, short videos and our in-depth White Paper, titled “Inside the Hearts and Minds of Arab Youth”, which featured for the first time opinion pieces by internationally renowned experts With a key focus on digital, we created new channels on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and 20-30 second shareable and ‘snackable videos’, for the top 5 findings. We hosted a press conference and a gala event for key, international media and clients, along with HE Shamma bint Sohail Faris Al Mazrui, UAE Minister of State for Youth Affairs as keynote speaker and a spirited panel discussion with leading Arab media figures. Similar events were held in Berlin, London and New York collaborating with think tank organizations.

Coverage of the 2016 ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey exceeded all our expectations, making front-page news on the Washington Post, The Guardian and Frankfurter Allegmagne, as well as stories in the International New York Times, Forbes, The Economist, Bloomberg Business Week, the Financial Times and Sydney Morning Herald among hundreds of other outlets. In total, our coverage generated a combined total perceived ad value of just over US$40 million. On Social, too, our survey campaign recording more than 166 million hashtag impressions against an internal target of five million. As with previous editions of the Survey, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, tweeted the Survey findings to 10 million followers. Today, a number of government clients have sought our agency’s advice a result of our proven ability to demonstrate our ‘evidence-based communications’ methodology through the Survey.

The Situation

Good PR is based on facts; and the Arab Youth Survey demonstrates that solid evidence is the basis of the best thought leadership. While meticulous research & analysis underpinned the findings, the global coverage depended on more than just an excellent final product; regional & global media relations; innovative approaches to disseminating the findings and even some high-level government lobbying all played their part in the unprecedented global coverage of the 2016 Survey.

The Strategy

While the overarching goal has remained the same since we launched the Survey – to provide evidence-based insights into the attitudes of Arab youth that can inform policy-making in the public sector and business decisions in the private sector – this year, with the Agency celebrating its 15th anniversary and the Survey reaching its 8th edition, we decided to go big with our thought leadership initiative. With a much bigger focus on digital, combined with a ‘hit list’ of global Tier 1 media and local media, a gala launch, and an increase in thought-leadership activities through additional commentary from third party experts, we wanted nothing less than to create a true Global Media Event.