2022 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Integrated?

MENA region surpassed 30 million SVOD subscribers in 2021, it became very clear that content was king and whoever had access to the best of it was in the running to win the streaming wars. With this in mind, having exclusive access to "Friends the reunion" wasn't enough we needed to break through the clutter with impactful storytelling. We started with a real-time OOH response to a conversation had by a famous radio DJ, and escalated quickly to digital, social, and on-air conversations moving this from a typical ad campaign to evolved integrated storytelling and conversations that drove business results.

Background

OSN Streaming is a challenger brand in the UAE. Even with the most sought-after content from Marvel, Disney, HBO and Paramount, it faces a consistent challenge of having top-of-mind awareness and being part of the cultural conversation. In addition, being an ever-present part of the cultural conversation is never easy so when OSN took headline sponsorship of Friends: The Reunion, it needed a creative way to break through the clutter and drive mass excitement and engagement. Our objectives were to attract new subscribers and to create mass awareness of OSN as the exclusive streaming app to watch the eagerly anticipated Friends: The Reunion.

Describe the creative idea

The plan was to leverage a well-loved UAE personality. So when OSN heard Virgin Radio DJ Kris Fade discuss his fear of flying and the fact that he binge-watches Air Crash Investigation on OSN, we saw this as a creative opportunity to reach out to Kris and drive cheeky social conversation around watching the Friends reunion on the OSN streaming app. The idea was to surprise Kris Fade with digital billboards telling him to calm his fear of flying by watching Friends: The Reunion on OSN. This would tie-in with further OOH activations plus a on air and social partnership with The Kris Fade Show to update Friends fans with news about the reunion, trivia on the cast and fun facts about the show (eg number of claps in the Friends jingle). To support the activity, we would use paid social media across multiple channels, optimized for the highest reach.

Describe the strategy

Every time OSN pushes ‘big ticket’ content, it sees an average uplift of 16% in free trials of the app and a brand uplift of 7%. OSN knows that there is a direct correlation between brand uplift and the magnitude of the content released - i.e. the bigger the content, the higher the conversion rate. Friends is arguably the biggest television show of our era and even after 20 years since the final episode, fans still talk about it and watch endless re-runs. Friends: The Reunion therefore presented the perfect opportunity for OSN’s biggest marketing push of the year, creating an integrated on-air, outdoor and social campaign targeting millions of Friends fanatics. We developed an integrated strategy encompassing radio, OOH and social media touchpoints that would showcase social conversation between Kris and OSN in a light-hearted and entertaining approach that truly delighted our mass audience.

Describe the execution

Kris Fade’s on-air confession came as a surprise to everyone at OSN. By teasing him with digital screens telling him to calm his fear of flying by watching Friends: The Reunion on OSN, it sparked an integrated two-week campaign encompassing radio, OOH and social media - showcasing the back-and-forth interactions between Kris and OSN in a light-hearted, entertaining manner. After our initial DOOH, Kris talked about the release of Friends: The Reunion on the OSN Streaming app during his show - sharing updates on his multiple social feeds, while OSN further amplified this exposure using OOH. We unveiled the Friends: The Reunion x OSN billboard along Sheikh Zayed Road, visible to over 700,000 daily commuters. We also ran a competition on The Kris Fade Show for four people to win an OSN subscription and appear alongside Kris and Priti as the six Friends characters on a digital screen.

List the results

• 4 million impressions from OOH • 15% Radio reach across UAE • $1 million in earned, unpaid media • 405,000 combined followers Reach on Virgin Radio and Kris Fade’s social • 375 million impressions, 34 million views and 1 million clicks on paid media (TikTok, Snapchat, FB/IG, Twitter, YouTube, Search, Amazon) • 111,000 free trials activated on the OSN Streaming app • 3X more new subscribers versus regular content campaigns on OSN • 51% higher number of app downloads versus regular content campaigns on OSN