2022 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Direct?

To be bold, we decided to challenge the status quo and reach Gen Z's and Millennials on platforms like Tiktok to buy houses worth millions. These gens had undeniably great influence on trends, strong purchasing power and the ability to affect change. While other competitors wasted time with older generations, no one took the time to truly reach the most daring generations, one that had the strongest power to confidently impact the brands bottom-line. Yet time and again, reaching the youth, proved to ultimately overflow drastically into all other generations. We needed one target audience, one message, and one strategy.

Background

Memaar Al Morshedy a real estate developer struggling to stand-out amongst the overly crowded communication scene. Although communication was redundant, it was still quiet abundant. Zahra, a real estate project, the-perfect-beach-getaway, the-sandy-summer-house, it's uniqueness relied on many diverse entertainment activities that unleashed each individuals true colors and allowed various contradicting emotions to be experienced. Loud parties and calming beaches, quiet gardens and exciting water-activities, a sports club, clubhouse, and an entertainment area arena all in one place. Zahra wanted to be positioned as an all year-round destination. While they had already launched the first extension the previous year the brand saw low brand awareness and recall. The launch of their second extension was a make it or break it. Objectives: 1) Drive project/brand awareness 2) Drive strong brand recall 3) Sell out second extension by first quarter from launch

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

Our music video was meant to be an entertainment piece, one that would be felt, not only heard. Speaking through the eyes of youthful and raw emotions, we used every single element to express this fusion and confusion. Our celebrities were handpicked; male and female, ballet-dancer and actor, elegant and charming, and their reputation highly symbolic to the values of the brand. Both voices resonate strongly, extremely recognizable, and iconic. Both have strong presence and are attractive to the opposite gender. Our song lyrics were a metaphorical poem about love symbolized through elements in the project; beach, sands, star-lit sea, and all the entertainment that is offered. Our visuals complemented the metaphorical elements at hand and expressed raw and innocent emotions; speaking the youth's language. Our music tune also had fast paced and slow paced verses that helped hype up and soothe down our audience.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

The challenge was to create bold communication that can with-stand both the real estate and Ramadan ads; to reveal the true essence of the brand. Given the entertainment highly populated in the project, we changed courses and focused our communication on Gen Z’s and Millennials. With extensive research, we discovered that due to the-overly-exposed-digital-era they had unarguably the strongest influence on trends, solid purchasing power and the ability to affect cultural change. While other competitors fought for the attention of older generations, no one looked to capture the most courageous one; one that could strongly impact the bottom-line and overflow to drastically affect the rest of the community. The increasing individualism and distinctiveness, these two generations witnessed strong contradicting emotions that keep fluctuating in intensity. Our key message was to bring to light this fusion and confusion and celebrate it, rather than shy away from it; the euphoric confusion.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Based on our data we revealed the most frequently used platforms by the demographics we chose. We placed our music video on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and put an emphasis on Tiktok and Anghami, given the fact that they were the most prominently used apps from these two generation. We singled out Tiktok and planned to hero-fy it as a platform, to further emphasize our intended audience group. The platform enabled us to create a new channel of customer acquisition and generated surprisingly high qualified leads, inspired consumers to take action and purchase houses through the platform. An everlasting bond was created with consumers for our understanding of their language and use of digital platforms.

List the results (30% of vote)

With the previous campaign in mind scoring, Zahra second extension launch saw 80-90% scores across all brand attributes, tapping into a new target audience, and hinging on this success to change the communication scene. Zahra quickly sold out, with only 7 houses left in only a few months. Altogether the music video came to express what our intended audience needed to hear, for the first time leveraging on the power of Tiktok real estate houses worth millions were being sold over Tiktok. Reaching millions of views, above-benchmark results with record high 34.7% qualified leads. Youtube saw 76M views increasing on a daily basis, cost-per-lead decreased 45% during the highest seasonality. On Anghami reaching #1 charts with 68% of users 16-29yo. Although the entertainment piece was meant for Egypt, 9 other Middle-eastern countries pitched in with high percentage views and searches. Tiktok uses Zahra as a case study across the MENA.