2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Background

Home Centre’s a homegrown home furniture and furnishings retailer from and across the Middle East. It competes for regional market share with its biggest competitor - the well-known furniture brand from Sweden. During COVID-19, while brick and mortar retail came to an abrupt standstill, e-commerce was growing and burgeoning in the Middle East, including in the home retail category. Home Centre needed to earn attention and drive growth for its business through its e-commerce platform, during physical retail and mall lockdowns. Objectives - Home Centre defined key objectives for growth during June-August 2020 in the middle of COVID-19 lockdowns: 1) Brand Consideration: +10% to equalise with its Swedish competitor. 2) Brand Relevance: +25% to be more relevant to Arabs than its Swedish competitor. 3) Footfall (online + offline): +150% to get people visiting Home Centre online and offline to achieve the business goals. 4) Revenue: +50%. 5) Purchase Volumes: +50%.

The Interpretation of the Challenge (30% of vote)

To grow its business during COVID-19, Home Centre needed to define and target its primary buyers. With 80% of its buyers being moms, and its primary target audience being Arab and expat Arab moms, during COVID-19, Home Centre wanted to appeal to Arab moms across the Middle East (its primary audience group). Run-of-the-mill promotions drive short term sales spike in the home retail category in the Middle East. But to build brand resonance and brand value, Home Centre needed to be more appealing as a brand (not just a store). Looking at research conducted into this audience, during COVID-19: 65% were paying more attention to what brands are saying. 72% preferred emotional stories. 83% wanted to associate with more purposeful brands. 95% of the work from that had earned their respect during Covid-19, did all of the above. Home Centre needed to find the opportunity to do all of it.

The Insight / Breakthrough Thinking (30% of vote)

Home Centre believes in ‘every home has its own unique story to tell.’ But there was one story not being told across homes in the Middle East. According to Gallup, 15% of homes in the Middle East don’t have a father. For context, Sub-Saharan Africa (32%), Latin America (30%), US/Canada (19%) are the only regions ahead of the Middle East. The global average is 13%. Yet, single moms, remain a cultural taboo in Arab society, often, seen as having failed at being good wives to their husbands, or never being good enough to fill the shoes of an absent father to their children, or worse, including being wrongly judged as immoral and adulterous. So, they are never shown in advertising in the Middle East. We wanted to challenge that taboo, with Home Centre becoming the first brand in the Middle East to ever speak about, recognize and support single moms.

The Creative Idea (20% of vote)

To shine the light on Arab single moms, supporting them, even if Arab society did not, we picked an occasion when homes with single moms are left out. With 'A Dad's Job', we integrated a new conversation into culture and media, by tackling an untapped social and cultural insight, as we disrupted a conventionally- used but attention-worthy cultural occasion in the Middle East: Father's Day. Because if single moms are doing a dad's job everyday, besides doing a mom's job, why don’t we celebrate and include their homes on a day we celebrate dads too? We effectively integrated into channels used for Father's Day and transformed those channels in a disruptive manner, to instead challenge the cultural taboo around Arab single moms, in a year-long plan comprising initiatives across channels. In turn, we included and integrated single moms into not just Father's Day, but also, into advertising, marketing and society.

The Outcome / Results (20% of vote)

“The first brand to recognise single moms in the Middle East.” (Arab Ad) “A groundbreaking spot.” (Shoot Online) “No other brand has dared to address these issues.” (Arab News) “With 80% of buyers being moms, it has resonated not just with single moms but also, with moms across the region.” (Al Jadeed) The idea travelled: 1) 1.1 billion earned media impressions. 2) $3.72 million earned media value. 3) 102 million cross-platform organic views. 4) 63% of the region reached. With a $50,000 media and production budget, the positive sentiments earned for tackling the taboo of showing single moms in advertising, overwhelmed the initial negativity, changing from 50% negative to 86% positive. Resultantly, the positive sentiment impacted the business over the 3-month period starting Father’s Day vs. 3-month period prior, during a health and economic crisis: 1) Consideration: +23%. 2) Relevance: +28%. 3) Footfall: +190%. 4) Revenue: +120%. 5) Purchases: +170%.