2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Background

Situation Prior to the campaign – Vatika Styling was gaining 1-2% Market share only per year on avg. Brand communication was targeted towards 18-25 year old male youth – Specifically on traditional media like TV. The category was declining at an alarming rate and all the top 5 players were losing market share. Brief - The key category driver of a gel category is “Hold” and Vatika gel decided to go big on that. We wanted to communicate to the gel users that “Vatika gel gives you the best hold ever, no matter what”. Objective was to become No. 1 Player from Strong No. 2 Player in the category in KSA & UAE. Also to maintain CATEGORY LEADERSHIP VIA CONTENT MARKETING UTILIZING ONLY DIGITAL CHANNELS and Become the Most preferred Youth Hair Styling brand in UAE & KSA

Describe the strategy

Vatika Styling realized that core TG 13-24 Male youth has pivoted to new mediums like social and other digital channels. Consumption of Video was at breakneck speed. Youth were interested in Online challenges. Our core TG is Arabs 13-24 Year old male youth whose primary objective is to have supreme hold that can last all day. Time spend by Arab youth in Social Channels was upwards of 4 Hours per day as per Hootsuite reports. In order to communicate this to our TG – We used disruptive content on Digital Channels acknowledging that our core TG is not on traditional channels. Our approach was creation of a series of videos demonstrating - NO MATTER WHAT - VATIKA STYLING GEL WILL GIVE YOU THE BEST HOLD and has ZERO ALCOHOL formulation suitable to our core Arab TG.

Describe the execution

We created a series of Extreme Challenge videos on topics Popular in our TG like Vatika Styling gels vs Wing Walking, Skydiving, Ferrari, Your Girlfriend, iPhone and even two brothers (Saudi Reporters) fighting over Vatika Gels. Vatika Styling Gel was tested under extreme conditions in the above videos and provided unbeatable hold – Every single time. This extreme challenge series was further promoted on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram inviting popular influencers in the region to submit their challenges. This campaign was carried out over a time frame of 1 year. Styling Gel is a non-advertised category and hence was declining. Vatika Styling gel was the first gel player to leverage new age mediums like Digital to connect with our Core TG. Strategy paid off big time.

List the results

We aimed to reach 5 Million VIEWS on digital channels across all our videos – We achieved 27.7 Million+ VIEWS and counting! We dont even consider impression as our metric anymore! Our Instagram page achieved 50,000+ new followers during the campaign. Our Facebook page reached over a million followers. Social engagement rate went well over 10% (Industry average less and 1%) Aim was to grow top-line by 10% - We Achieved astounding 16% IN FY 19-20 Post campaign we became No. 1 in KSA with 25.3% market share and No. 1 in the UAE with 18.16% market share in gels category beating our competition Loreal, Gatsby and Shifa (Source - AC Nielsen Data) VATIKA STYLING GEL has since increased the lead and continues to be the NUMBER 1 brand in UAE and KSA in the category as per AC Nielsen Data