Brand | LINKEDIN |
Product/Service | LINKEDIN |
Entrant | EDELMAN Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES |
Category | Glass |
Idea Creation
|
EDELMAN Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
|
PR
|
EDELMAN Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
|
Background
Brand challenge:
Linkedin’s value was underestimated in Saudi Arabia. It's English-first platform was perceived as aloof and out of touch.
Qualitative research showed it was perceived as a global brand, distant from Saudi Arabia, which didn’t understand the needs of the local market, and offered no noticeable contribution to the job market.
This perception placed LinkedIn at a massive disadvantage compared to local and regional Arabic-first competitors.
It wasn’t the first choice for either hiring or professional brand positioning in the country, and it had a slower increase in sign-ups than its competitors.
It was vital to address this brand perception issue if Linkedin was going to have a chance at increasing their footprint in the marketplace.
Objectives:
• Increase platform sign-ups
• Elevate brand perception
Brand values regarding gender:
• LinkedIn believes in equality and has a gender neural platform.
• Linkedin believes in matching the right talent with the right opportunity, regardless of gender.
• Professional Saudi women were not present enough on LinkedIn, or their presence was not visible enough. This was hindering their chances of being matched with the right opportunity and making an already un-equal job market place even more un-equal in terms of opportunity.
Describe the cultural/social/political climate in your region and the significance of your campaign within this context
Saudi Arabian Women’s right are limited in comparison to those of men, and in comparison to women in other countries.
The World Economic Forum's 2016 Global Gender Gap Report ranked Saudi Arabia 141 out of 144 countries for gender parity.
Female representation in the Saudi Arabian workplace has started to happen, but it is still in its infancy in terms of numbers and ratio. The workforce is heavily male-dominated, and women find it difficult to break in.
Women in Saudi Arabia constituted just 13% of the country's native workforce in 2015. The figure is now at 22%.
The Saudi Arabian government announced an ambition of increasing the participation of Saudi women in the workforce from 22% to 30% by 2030.
Unfortunately, Saudi isn’t yet moving in tandem with the government’s goals. So, while women employability is a priority, addressing the issue is seen as controversial and out of step with the reality of the country.
Additionally, traditional Saudi Arabian culture values female humility, so placing pictures of women on platforms like LinkedIn is not the norm.
A campaign that breaks the code and normalizes the representation of women is important for visibility and moving the needle forward.
Describe the creative idea
Our idea was to use LinkedIn data to rectify the subjective narrative and to tell real stories, from professional women, thereby affirming their potential and giving them a voice via LinkedIn.
LinkedIn’s mission is to match talent with opportunity and there was a great need to do EXACTLY that in Saudi.
First, we conducted an in-depth research which exposed some fascinating contradictions relating to female employment.
Using this data, we created the “Hear it from me” (#HearItFromMe) campaign, turning LinkedIn into a platform that amplified the voices of Saudi career women, making them visible to recruiters and public, via online film, social media, interview and more.
We delivered training to women and employers, giving people tools to take action in the real world, enabling real change.
The campaign encouraged companies in Saudi to re-evaluate their hiring practices and well as inspiring widespread conversation on earned, owned, social and mainstream media.
Describe the strategy
Our strategy was to channel & align LinkedIn’s efforts with their human capital ambitions by getting professional Saudi women to sign up to LinkedIn & understand how the platform supports their careers & professional needs.
We leveraged this insight: Saudi women reject the negative narrative deeming them unavailable or unready & seize every opportunity to voice their opinion and show their capabilities.
The target audience was both female professionals and Saudi Arabian employers.
Since female employability is a high priority on the national agenda, and controversial, we knew LinkedIn being vocal and having career women talk about their challenges would earn the media attention.
Discussing the campaign research on Al Arabiya (a most viewed talk show),and feeding the story in to social media with LinkedIn’s first ever female Saudi employee, led to huge amplification.
Describe the execution
The in-depth preliminary research study was the vital first step of the campaign activation.
It afforded us a unique insight in to the REAL challenges facing women (vs. assumptions), and allowed us to design a campaign specifically targeted to approaching those issues in a practical, meaningful way.
Key findings informed the following activations:
• Social media data cards sparking conversation on Facebook and Twitter
• LinkedIn’s first Saudi female employee as campaign spokesperson, Blogging and vlogging (Trusted local voice to help break the aloof global brand image).
• Traditional media press release and media interviews with AlArabiya News Channel's PrimeTime Morning show.
• Tangible tools for employers to place Saudi female Talent:
- A Playbook guiding companies on using LinkedIn to place talent
- 8 workshops educating 400+ Saudi women on building their professional brands and getting noticed by prospective employers (In collaboration with Ministry of Labor & Saudi universities).
Describe the results/impact
• 100K new sign ups during the campaign quarter, bringing the total Linkedin membership in Saudi to 3M
• Linkedin’s platform generated over 548K impressions and over 13K clicks, which exceeded the engagement rate benchmark (0.65%) on the platform by 457%
• 35% increase in perceptions associating LinkedIn with career progression among Saudi females
• The campaign broke records on social media and earned more coverage than previous Linkedin campaigns in MENA.
• Twitter engagement rate = 6.5% (regional benchmark is 3%) with over 60K engagements.
• Facebook engagement rate = 10.6% (regional benchmark is 5%) with over 70K engagements.
• 40 pieces of EARNED coverage across tier-1 dailies, broadcast and trade publications.
• Total media reach of 49M impressions and an ad value of more than $160K
• LinkedIn received countless collaboration requests from companies and was viewed as a partner in finding and attracting female talent
Credits
Nimati Alemam |
Edelman |
Director of Strategic Planning |
Bhavna Thapar |
Edelman |
MD of Brand |
Rosina Casserly |
Edelman |
Senior Planner |
Richard El Ayyesh, Senior Art Director, Edelman |
Edelman |
Senior Art Director |
Richard El Ayyesh, Senior Art Director, Edelman |
Edelman |
Senior Art Director |
Richard El Ayyesh, Senior Art Director, Edelman |
Edelman |
Senior Art Director |
Richard El Ayyesh, Senior Art Director, Edelman |
Edelman |
Senior Art Director |
Richard El Ayyesh, Senior Art Director, Edelman |
Edelman |
Senior Art Director |
Richard El Ayyesh, Senior Art Director, Edelman |
Edelman |
Senior Art Director |
Richard El Ayyesh, Senior Art Director, Edelman |
Edelman |
Senior Art Director |
Richard El Ayyesh, Senior Art Director, Edelman |
Edelman |
Senior Art Director |
James Mitchel |
Edelman |
Associate Director Digital |
Nada Enan |
LinkedIn |
Senior Manager Marketing and PR |
Reem Mohammed |
LinkedIn |
Head of Saudi Arabia Public Sector |
Zeina Harmouche |
LinkedIn |
Marketing Manager |
Links
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