2018 Winners & Shortlists

HONOR 7X CHALLENGE

BrandHONOR ARABIA
Product/ServiceHONOR 7X
EntrantHILL+KNOWLTON STRATEGIES Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
CategoryUse of Talent
Idea Creation HILL+KNOWLTON STRATEGIES Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Media Placement INITIATIVE MENA Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Production AD DIMENSIONS Jeddah, SAUDI ARABIA
Additional Company HU MANAGEMENT Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The Campaign

With Saudi being the fourth in the world for interest in football, according to Repucom’s recent report, and the national team qualifying for the World Cup, football was the heart of the big idea. We related different aspects of the culture and sport to the product’s KSPs. Saudi street football was the perfect example to support Honor’s first edge-less screen and FullView Display feature; as talent can be spotted anywhere, you just need to Max Your View! We used the talent to amplify these messages by engaging Yasser Al Qahtani who currently plays for Al Hilal and has captained the Saudi National team, and Fahad Al Muwallad who scored the goal that qualified Saudi Arabia for the World Cup late in 2017. We also used Mo Sal and Mansor Ash to increase the reach of the campaign through a series of videos across social channels.

Creative Execution

Kicking off in mid-January, the seven-week-long campaign is live on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube with the below execution tactics: 1. Hero video with footballers challenging each other and asking fans to submit their own UGC using #Honor7XChallenge and @HonorArabia. 2. Inspiration Thursdays, with shorter videos of the footballers showing off their skills and reminding fans to do the same. 3. KSP Sundays, to ensure that the phone gets its own SOV with content highlighting its features and relating to the overall campaign with football-related visuals and elements. 4. Highlights Tuesdays, with a video published across our channels collating the best UGC received. 5. Winner Wednesdays, celebrating a winner each week to maintain the hype and excitement. The campaign and promotion focused majorly on the KSA market with support to wider GCC countries, Egypt, and Iraq.

So far, the campaign has reached over 13 million people across our key markets and engagement reached almost 3 million. In the first 3 weeks, Honor received more than 254 user generated videos across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We are seeing videos from Saudi youth studying and residing abroad, across Canada, London and the US. We are receiving videos from Egypt, Iraq and Sudan. The two footballer posts on our channels generated more than 135K organic video views and 900 Twitter engagements, spiking the Honor 7X mentions to reach 8.4K in the first 3 weeks. The #Honor7XChallenge received more than 2 million impressions in publicity with online PR coverage across newspapers in Saudi, the UAE and Egypt. SOV on Google trends increased against our competitors and brand mentions have spiked with over 3.8K mentions. More importantly, we gave young Saudi’s a platform to express themselves through their main passion -

The Arab world went into 2018 with big smiles and much anticipation for the World Cup, with four Arab nations competing in Russia later this year. It was the perfect event and moment to tie a brand to, and working with the football player who scored the qualifying goal for the Saudi National Team was Honor’s strategy to appeal to the Saudi market. The campaign was more than a product promotion, it’s all about entertainment and local pride.

We worked with the footballers to create content that extends throughout the campaign, to consistently inspire and remind our audience to participate in our challenge for a chance to attend the World Cup. The footballers also helped share the campaign via Ssnapchat stories and Instagram posts. Additionally, they signed new Honor 7X phones as a giveaway to seven fans who show the best skills. To go the extra mile, we had Yasser congratulate the first winner via Twitter. The footballers challenged our Saudi audience to show them their best skills and post online mentioning Honor and the campaign hashtag. This drove further awareness through user generated content and we used the best bits in a highlight reel as a weekly drop. Engagement across the 7-week campaign was maintained through the use of prominent Saudi influencers Mansor Ash and Mo Sal.

Credits

Name Company Role
Mirna Eskarous Hill+Knowlton Strategies Art Director
Elias Markopoulos Hill+Knowlton Strategies Regional Director
Mohamed Saber Hill+Knowlton Strategies Account Executive
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