2022 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Integrated?

The Arabs to Mars campaign is a perfect example of how an integrated campaign can tie together many different touchpoints/verticals in order to achieve the desired outcome. Every execution within the campaign works towards the same goal - generating buzz for the Mars Mission - and whilst they do it differently, you can see that they all fit within the umbrella concept "Impossible is Possible." The campaign, one of the most remarkable in the country's history, surpassed the government's expectations and managed to put the country on headlines in the region and around the world.

Background

As a part of its space exploration programme, the United Arab Emirates launched the Mars Mission and sent a probe to the Red Planet, which was set to arrive in February, 2021. This meant that the country would be the first Arab nation (and the fifth nation worldwide) to arrive on Mars. The UAE Government wanted to make sure that everyone in the world was watching, because the Emirates Mars Mission’s Hope Probe would be the first probe to provide a complete picture of Mars’ atmosphere and to share the information collected with the whole world.

Describe the creative idea

To make a bang with the Mars Arrival, we created a campaign like the actual interplanetary journey: innovative and full of phases. It used a series of films, activations and outdoor media placements to make the UAE’s arrival in the Red Planet the talk of the town – or better, the talk of the world. PHASE 1: Bringing the moons of Mars to Planet Earth PHASE 2: Teasing the arrival with Hollywood-style trailers and painting the world red with OOH inserts PHASE 3: Inspiring the next generation of space explorers with babies’ first spacesuit

Describe the strategy

The target audience for the campaign was literally the whole world. The Emirates wanted the whole world to see the country as an innovative and future-thinking nation. And since the goal was a complicated ask, it needed a full 360 campaign that would amp up the arrival and make sure everyone in the region and the world was counting down to the big moment. And that was what tied all executions together: the fact that they were all made towards hyping up the launch. Whether people were watching Hollywood-style trailers for the launch, walking past a aesthetically striking OOH in Times Square or being mesmerized with the sighting of two moons in Dubai, the work was always attention grabbing and stunning in itself.

Describe the execution

To start off the campaign, we needed to pack the strongest punch we could. So, we started with a simple question: what if we brought a piece of Mars to Planet Earth? And as crazy as it sounds that’s what we did, with the help of a few cranes and cutting-edge projection mapping: we brought the Mars' moons to Dubai and duped the whole world. Then, we continued building the anticipation with 4 Hollywood-style trailers that teased phases of the mission. Each one of them told a bit of the journey, updating people on the mission, in real-time. Later, we took the message to the world and covered it in red via over 100 outdoor placements. The campaign lasted during the month of the arrival and had all touchpoints working towards the same goal: generating buzz for the UAE Mars Mission.

List the results

The all-around campaign with all of its verticals amounted to truly remarkable results. The UAE wanted to make a bang with their Mars arrival and we delivered the: most-watched live stream ever in the UAE, +2.7 billion engagements, +82M people reached (8 times the UAE population), +5M USD in earned media, +380 broadcast network coverage in 56 countries and +2 hours of TV broadcast viewing time.