2022 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Social & Influencer?

adidas launching in Egypt the “Run for The Oceans” platform, a global movement to end marine plastic waste, was a challenge. How can you get Egyptians with their lazy culture contribute to saving the oceans with their low awareness on sustainability? adidas gave Egyptians a reality check, shocking them with factual consequences of taking their Nile River for granted via social stunt led by 4 Key opinion leaders. adidas had over 30,000 participants, versus 7000 runners in Egypt’s biggest marathon, amounting to 4,000 KGs of plastic removed from the Nile.

Background

The sports scene in Egypt has been fairly a clean slate, sportswear brands are considered niche which is shown through the value of the sportswear market vs. FMCGs proving people's low interest in sports, let alone running. Given that the Nile River is the 5th greatest contributor to the Ocean waste according to UN Environment report in 2018, Egypt has been identified a potential market where adidas can leave a mark bringing its sustainability philosophy to life through the ‘Run for the Oceans’ campaign, a global movement to end marine plastic waste. It was completely irrelevant to Egyptians especially in a country where responsible communication has always adopted mainly societal and health topics rather than environmental, hence, the overall awareness on sustainability issues was almost non-existent. Our objective for this campaign was to influence our audience to take the necessary action and positively contribute to the cause.

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

We created a social stunt on Instagram that inspired our audience to ‘run’, using 'Influencer Activism' through two phases, teasing and shocking to build anticipation and appeal to the audience emotionally. Credible exposure and genuine relevancy had to be coupled in support of our 'Influencer Activism' approach. Aly Kassem, Mariam ElKhosht, Layla Ghaleb and Hussein AbdelDayem were our four selected influencers who answer to our approach. Mariam El Khosht was crucial for credibility, being in her element as an animal activist who saves marine life. Same for Aly Kassem, a young public figure known for his healthy lifestyle, came as another genuine supporter to our cause generating strong engagement in admiration of his contribution. And through, Hussein AbdelDayem & Layla Ghaleb, people were to be encouraged to participate relating to them as sports figures. We aimed for more than a social movement but rather a revolutionary change of behavior.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Egyptians unite over a sense of threat to act against them. So, the ‘harming love’ built our idea, shocking Egyptians with how their low awareness on sustainability is harming the Nile River. Our target audience, the youth who are 41% of the population known to spend an average of 7H 36M a day surfing the Internet from social media consumption to online gaming to watching videos, 79.9% of whom are on Instagram which inspired us to create the social stunt on Instagram to be able to reach them and generate engagement. We ensured the audience's change of behavior from being lazy to active participants, having them download the app, participate in the runs and track the impact of the runs on the collection of waste from the Nile River.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Through a social stunt on Instagram to inspire our audience to run and promote our cause. We created a well allocated partnership, of only 4 influencers and in only 10 days, adidas had over 30,000 runners participate in the movement. The stunt had two main phases, phase 1 was to build anticipation while keeping it real. Our 4 influencers' shared their runs from adidas app on Instagram, each post displayed the route map which were the campaign initials paving the way for the cause reveal and what the initials stand for. Phase 2, we had to choose the most startling Nile facts in our 4 different influencers' videos to connect emotionally with the audience triggering them to run. Following the Influencers' reveal, the brand united the voices of the influencers in one film and launched on its MENA page.

List the results (30% of vote)

In a country that didn’t have sustainability as part of its system, and a lazy culture with no interest in running, adidas had Egyptians run and care for an environmental cause. Through a well allocated partnership, of only 4 influencers and in only 10 days, adidas had over 30,000 runners participate in the movement that reflects a major change of Egyptians’ behavior compared to the 7000 runners who participated in Egypt’s biggest marathon, resulting in adidas removing 4000 KGs of plastic waste from the Nile River. These results demonstrated almost 600% over achievement on the business KPI and number of participants have also translated in app downloads which have also been overachieved. Not only so, but also, the campaign scored 475% better performance than the global assets given the local relevancy of the content.

Please tell us about the social behaviour and / or cultural insights that inspired your work

It takes Egyptians an ash away from the threshold of falling and a great deal of threat to take a stand against harmful events. It took 30 years of tyranny for Egyptians to rebel against a broken system, 40% of Egyptian women are harassed before actioning against one, 17.8% rise in accidents before passing traffic laws to curb accidents, 204 cases detected before paying attention to the SMA fatal disease, and many others that got the Egyptians unite over a sense of threat to act against them. Although Egyptians might believe that change is necessary, their lazy nature have always delayed their action and have turned them to social media as the hub to unite and create a change without moving a finger. We aimed for more than a social movement but rather a revolutionary change of behavior that gets Egyptians run for a cause that they were oblivious of.