2018 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Getting through to Egyptian millennials was never going to be easy. They’re a highly opinionated, tech-savvy generation who after sparking a revolution refuse to stand for anyone or any brand telling them what to do. To get them to listen, our creative needed to be bold and brash. We needed something with the power to make an impact amidst all the media millennials were drowning in; something with enough balls to call them out on their cockiness, and that wouldn’t tiptoe around them or look down on them the way they were used to. In a nutshell, our creative had to be a slap on the face.

The Brief

Production cost: 1. Production of films: $ 15,500 2. Production of courses: $ 3,000 3. Development of website: $ 1,100 Media spend: 1. Facebook (paid): $1620 2. Facebook (free impressions): $22,880 3. YouTube: $46,140

Creative Execution

With the suddenly limited budget we had, we had to get inventive! We created an online hub populated with soft skill courses, compromising on production value in favor of partnerships that would increase our credibility among our audience: one with a football player turned popular life coach, and the other with Egypt’s premier online education platform. We then created two awareness films playing on all too common stories of cocky students falling flat on their faces after graduation. With not enough money, but determination in spades, we pooled all our talents together to make the films happen. The director took on the role of editor with his bedroom doubling as our studio, our copywriter pulled double duty as composer, and a tech-savvy account manager handled post. We also replaced the cast with dolls, and stuck it out through a 24 hour shoot instead of the two days we actually needed.

Results

The performance of the campaign greatly exceeded our expectations. The films in particular were responsible for increasing the association with 'confidence’, interest in the brand, and testing as best in class for ad recall and brand interest: - Ad recall: 31.3%* - Brand interest: 664.5%* - Total Views: 4.4m** - Average percentage viewed: 88%** - CPV: $0.01 – four times cheaper than the benchmark of $0.04* We engaged our audience hrough our Facebook GIFs, directing them towards our online and on-campus courses: - Reach: 52.65% of our target audience of 41.4m* - Ad recall: 13.15% - almost double the benchmark of 7%* - Engagement: 115k* We also wanted to reach as much of our audience as possible through our online and on-ground skill-building activities: - Number of students reached: 150k* - Number of course attendees: 20k* * Media agency campaign report, July 2017 ** Rexona YouTube analytics, July 2017

Our goal was to make Rexona's confidence platform, locally relevant. The only way to get through to Egyptian millennials was by eschewing the global communication that the brand had long relied on, and connecting directly with our audience through what confidence meant to them. But with the devaluation of the EGP, we had to pool all our resources to foster that much sought after personal connection with our audience. With only $20,000, we created Rexona Confidence Academy: an online educational platform for fresh-grads populated with certified courses, reached over 150,000 students, and 600% increase in brand interest.

The first thing we had to do was find that one confidence-based insight that would really resonate with young Egyptians. As a youth-majority population with an unstable economy and escalating unemployment rates, we knew almost-grads were facing an uphill battle. The tension point we zeroed in on was this: In Egypt, university education is seen as an extension of high school, almost a mandatory. But while universities were producing thousands of qualified professionals every year, they weren’t preparing them for the transition to the workplace. This entry to the ‘real world’ was leaving fresh grads lost and confused, in a full-blown crisis of confidence. As a brand that owns the confidence platform, we knew it was our responsibility to step in.