2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Background

In Egypt, four main transportation modes exist; personal car, taxi’s, public transportation, and in 2014 ride-hailing services; the latter dominating market share. Egyptians value three main things; comfort, always being available (since they have limited time management skills and are always hindered by traffic), and lowest possible prices. While public transportation delivered on only low prices, ride-hailing services deliver on always-available and comfort, but recently prices have peaked plummeting their market share. Egypt desperately needed a transportation solution that met consumer needs; Swvl was the only brand to promise and deliver on, fixed times, routes, and prices. Yet, penetration and usage were stagnant due to the deeply rooted negative connotation associated with public transportation. The brief was to launch a brand copy that gave the brand an appropriate positioning. The objectives; to increase brand affinity, become an approachable brand, and increase usage.

The Interpretation of the Challenge (30% of vote)

Swvl is a pioneer in the category; creating a new service, to a new target audience. The first challenge was, Swvl offered something unique to the category; public transportation was extremely chaotic, unorganized, filthy, and not always available while Swvl offered a digitized ride-hailing service that had fixed routes, prices, and times. Swvl was progressive and logical within an outdated and illogical category. The second challenge was, the brand targeted the consumers that seek logic, who had more in common with ride-hailing consumers. The desired outcome was to become top of mind mode of transportation for our consumers daily commute, appropriately position the brand as a logical solution in an illogical category, and ensure communication is relevant and relatable in order to increase brand affinity and usage.

The Insight / Breakthrough Thinking (30% of vote)

During our research, we segmented users into; long distance commuters, daily commuters and non-frequent commuters. All segments showed their interest in systematic and logical solutions, yet feared the chaos and misery of Egyptian public transportation. Egyptians are extremely absurd and irrational in the way the move from point A to B. With limited resources, they get creative. Our research entailed 20 people looking around Egypt's street with an eye to capture absurd set-ups. We also monitored social media online discussions, groups sharing “OnlyinEgypt” content, image navigation and held focus groups to further understand consumers take on absurdity in Egypt. The breakthrough discovery was in how absurdity was overlooked, and our approach was to shed light on Egyptian absurdity in contrast with SWVL as a transportation solution; to further reflect how logical it is and how it spoke to the logical consumer.

The Creative Idea (20% of vote)

We challenged the status quo by positioning the brand to speak to a specific mindset and challenge the category's norm. Our creative idea was to create a contrast between logical and illogical means of transportation yet maintain a realistic approach. The contrast in absolute trapped us into approaching the topic in an exaggerated manner, which we believed created the disconnect between the brand and the consumer. To become a more realistic and relatable brand we chose to not use a fictional approach, but rather represent logic and illogic in a real sense. By using real Egyptian insights and situations the consumer faces daily on Egyptian streets. We showcased our Swvl consumer's journey to the Swvl bus stop. In our film we portrayed the real chaotic and absurd situations witnessed daily by our target consumer, represented the consumer's unique logical mindset, and finally what the brand promises.

The Outcome / Results (20% of vote)

In terms of business impact, 99% of consumers who try Swvl continued using it, versus our nearest competition with 50%. The number of inactive users who activated their account increased by 3% after launch; compared to prior launch with 0.1% inactive users. Business net revenue increased 3% and bookings increased 40%, without any promotions which the ride-hailing category usually heavily depends on. In terms of consumer awareness our communication challenge was resolved when the campaign gained total impression of 23,132,816 and total engagement of 765,558 in only the first 2 weeks. Our target audience understood the brands promise and was evidently reflected in the positive sentiment towards the brand due to the 91% increase directly after the copy launched; in comparison to 10 days prior to launch. We not only positioned the brand in the consumers mind as a logical solution using our promise but also properly.

Please tell us about the challenger brand and how your campaign challenged / was different from your competitors

Since we were introducing a new category, we had to consider all modes of transportation as competition. In terms of public transportation, they had no communication but were aggressively used due to their availability and low prices. With regards to car-hailing services, there existed two main giant competitors who recently introduced a similar ride-hailing service. Both brands were already well-established and entered the market leveraging on the equity of their brand. Yet, all their communication focused on translating transportation as a service that will not only make you reach your destination, but also reach your dreams. The biggest differentiation was that our core creative strategic idea was in being realistic and grounded versus competitors aspirational approach. We shed light on the everyday illogical chaos in the streets to set contrast with Swvl showing what the brand truly stands for.