2018 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

To promote the card, we didn’t do a standard promotional or traditional campaign talking about how the card is good for women. We brought the card’s promise of being ‘unique to every woman’ by creating the FIRST OUTDOOR CAMPAIGN IN SAUDI ARABIA WITH WOMEN ON IT, without breaking any of the rules.

Creative Execution

We took a plain mirror, placed it on a MUPI, armed it with a camera, linked to an NFC device, a Bluetooth beacon and a simple message: “Discover a card that’s unique to you.” MUPIs were installed across popular malls in Saudi Arabia. The beacon inside each MUPI sent notifications and invited all who were women to check who we had in mind for the card. And as they walked up, they saw themselves in our ad They could get a picture taken, get it sent to their mobile and then, share it with their world Each share became an ad for the bank. Using the beacon notification, a link allowed women to contact the bank directly and start the application process. Just like the card, each ad turned out to be unique to each woman too.

Saudi Gazette: “Al Rajhi Bank makes every woman the star of the ad” SABQ: “A first in the kingdom. A woman’s face on an outdoor ad!” Reach: 2.6 million women Live Interactions: 4300+ women Cards website traffic: +58% vs. competition Card acquisitions: +17% vs. competition Brand image with women: +63% vs. the period before

No brand in Saudi Arabia shows women on an outdoor ad, owing to cultural sensitivities and regulations in the country. This is prevalent despite the country evolving – women can now drive from June-2018 onwards and women can travel and work without permissions from men. Amidst this restrictive environment, to promote its new card exclusively built for women, Al Rajhi Bank, a leading Islamic bank, hacked the cultural restrictions, giving women a presence in outdoor advertising - one that they didn’t have before - by creating an interactive outdoor ad with women on it, without breaking any of the rules.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Saudi Arabia is changing. Women can now drive (from June 2018), get jobs and also travel without permissions from the men in their lives. Yet, despite all these changes, In Saudi Arabia, until today, advertising and media shows a lot of gender bias. While it is normal to feature men across print & outdoor channels, showing women is not acceptable, due to cultural sensitivities. Since were launching the bank’s first card, exclusively for women, our approach needed to be a “first” too – we needed it not be yet another campaign using generic insights into women in Saudi Arabia. We needed to have the bank ACT; do something meaningful and additive to women’s lives to show how the card adds value to their lives.