2019 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

Sun and Sand Sports (SSS) focused on building the ecosystem around School Got Talent (SGT), a platform created for the Back to School (BTS) campaign. The activation revolved around key aspects from retail, and innovation to communications and events with the aim to connect all the dots and creating an emotional connection with the consumer. This initiative did not only encourage talents, but also created a top of mind brand awareness among the parents and youngsters presenting SSS stores as a complete one stop shop for the back to school collection.

Background

Brief received from Sun & Sand Sports (SSS) was to promote the “Back to School” collection by utilizing "Show Them You" (which is the slogan of SSS) in a way that would engage children aged 6-12 years. Upon conducting research with the leading research provider IPSOS MENA to better understand this target audience, we found that the main concern of parents pre and during the first week of school is that their kids worry about going back to school because they have the fear of not belonging. They don’t know what to expect with the distress that comes with having new teachers and classmates thus making it difficult for them to fit in. In order to overcome these challenges, youngsters need to build their confidence by engaging them into doing the things they love and shape their sense of belonging.

Describe the creative idea.

We identified Youtube as the most popular channel among children and their love for watching vlogs and consuming influencers' content on other social channels. Thus, we recruited social media influencers of different categories (lifestyle, fashion and sports) to act as judges for the talent show and build the relationships between the youngsters and SSS. The YouTube star Mo Vlogs (lifestyle), motivational fitness enthusiast Ben Outtara (sports) and fashion designer Fozaza (fashion) (all with a combined 6M+ followers across their social media channels). School’s Got Talent contest welcomed all kinds of talents from soccer, basketball to swimming, gymnastics and performing arts. The talent show was designed with two concepts in mind: 1. Pride, achievement and belonging. The youngsters were given the opportunity to break their fears and showcase their talent in front of their parents and friends. 2. Creating a reverse effect; youngsters represent their schools and not schools representing them.

Describe the strategy.

The key strategy for this talent show was to use social media influencers as judges for building relationships between the youngsters and SSS. This provided access to a large audience and these influencers persuaded their followers by virtue of their authenticity and reach. The YouTube star Mo Vlogs, motivational fitness enthusiast Ben Outtara and fashion designer Fozaza (all with a combined 6M+ followers across their social media channels). School’s Got Talent contest welcomed all kinds of talents from soccer, basketball to swimming, gymnastics and performing arts. The talent show was designed with two concepts in mind: 1. Pride, achievement and belonging. The youngsters were given the opportunity to break their fears and showcase their talent in front of their parents and friends 2. Creating a reverse effect; youngsters represent their schools and not schools representing them.

Describe the execution

The show was divided into phases: - Phase 1: Recruitment: Use of Social Media and Influencer Marketing to drive registrations for the open day: 1,200 registrations in total. - Phase 2: Live audition: 100 shortlisted out of 325 participants. - Phase 3: Semi-Finals: 100 shortlisted to 16 finalists. - Phase 4: Finale: 16 finalists of which 4 winners were selected. The judging process: - Phase 1: Criteria were taken into consideration: creativity, skills and entertainment values. - Phase 2 & 3: Youngsters were exclusively judged by the influencers only. - Phase 4: 50% vote from the panel of judges & 50% votes from the public (social media and attendees). Media selection included digital, print, radio & in-mall; • Social Media: YouTube, Instagram, & Facebook • Display portals: Targeting youngsters’ entertainment • Radio stations: Targeting all nationality segments • In Mall: Targeting the consumer close to point of purchase

List the results.

The campaign went beyond the main objective of positioning "Show Them You" via an engaging platform. It helped build CRM and ROI. As per the client’s feedback; - The market share increased from 17% to 24% during the campaign - August & September 2018 - Sales increased by 40% vs the same period August & September in 2017 - A solid result considering the current economic conditions which has led to the retail business to drop by 8% earlier that year - The campaign achieved 9 million organic reach with a 7X times increase in fans/follower-ship on SSS social media pages - 70% increase in subscribers on SSS YouTube Channel Because of the success of this season i.e. Season 2 (and Season 1 in 2017), we will be taking season 3 (Aug-Sep 2019) to the next level by making it bigger through a live broadcast on TV!