Tagged: integrated
Choose your own ending…
I love the Met’s ‘Choose your own ending’ campaign (Cannes Lion Gold 2010).
I love it because it’s so driven by insight. I’m hazarding a guess that the brief was something along the lines of ‘decrease knife crime in London’ but the insight (knives don’t offer protection) is spot on. The idea of showing how knives start problems is brilliant and clearly ignited in this campaign.
You can’t help but try a few different routes through the storyline (just to see what happens); if you haven’t seen it already, I suggest you try it for yourself..
Five things I learnt from Cannes 2010
It pays to be fun
VW’s The Fun Theory proved people don’t like taking the stairs when there’s an escalator – but when it’s turned into a giant piano they do. Welcome thefuntheory.com
The powerful nature of this campaign is the proof of peoples intrigue into human behavior. Reactions to, and motivations for, having fun are what make the subsequent viral materials so engaging.
Technology innovation is truly here
Nike’s Chalkbot proved how fusing some of the biggest and baddest technology with social tools really does pay dividends in bringing an idea to life. Didn’t somebody once say impossible is nothing?
And so is simplicity
Everyone’s familiar with the great Facebook item grab campaign in the IKEA showroom. What a great reminder of how we should be looking to exploit new media channels they way they were meant to be.
PR is integrated
A look at any of the Titanium and Integrated Lions show us how big a part to play PR has in every advertising story we now strive to tell. Gatorade’s Replay and Heineken’s Auditorium are testament to this – PR has become really fun!
If everything else fails – there’s always a beer
Great humour, spot on for target audience. Bravo Thooeys’ Beer Economy
Tales from London – Part 3
As we progress through the tales from London the posts are getting progressively shorter. I hope they bring this window display to French Connection Dubai. It’s very cool. I want to see a hologram revival.
GyroHSR Dubai seeks brilliant and brave new client
GyroHSR has this week launched their eagerly anticipated pitch. The integrated agency, founded 30 years ago with its head office in London has announced that in a rare move, its Dubai branch has completed a review of its business and in an aggressive shake up, has opened up space for a new account. They will be handling the pitch from their Media City office and are inviting prospective clients to contact them.
Word on the street is that four major international corporations are already jostling for position and there are rumoured to be seven flagship Emirati brands as well as numerous local start-ups all wanting a piece of the action.
The brief states that GyroHSR is looking for a client that isn’t afraid of a big idea. They’ll be brave and bold, clever and fun. They will have strong values and a hungry, entrepreneurial culture. They’ll want an agency with brains, energy, passion and ideas. An agency who values bravery over budget.
Fiona Menzies, General Manager enthused, “We would love the opportunity to put our five years of international airline experience to use in this market. We’re really hoping to attract an airline that wants to shake things up and approach the market in a new way. We’re media neutral – above, below, on, off, or through – we rub out the line and concentrate on the idea.”
Lucy Miller, MD summarised, “We are very happy with our existing accounts but feel the need to embrace a new challenge – we’re a young, hungry team and we live, eat and breathe ideas, and we’d like to work with more clients who value those same characteristics”.
Companies that are ready to think differently and embrace new ideas should write a sentence on why they should be considered for the client selection process.
Email us: fiona.menzies@gyrohsr.com / lucy.miller@gyrohsr.com
Pop in: 1204 Business Central Towers
Call us: 04 433 1864 / 050 104 6745
Tweet us: www.twitter.com/GyroHSR_Dubai
Blog us: www.gyrodubai.wordpress.com
Facebook us: www.facebook.com/gyrohsr
Visit us: www.gyrohsr.com
Sirius Celebration
Slide 3We were briefed by Sirius (Jumeirah Hotel Group’s loyalty programme) to communicate multiple Jumeirah festive offers to the Sirius database.
We identified that there are many hotels and restaurants offering ways to spend the festive season in Dubai and that our target audience don’t have time to be spoilt for choice – there’s no time to ‘organise’ the season and they definitely don’t have time to learn about a complicated loyalty programme
So in summary, our target market is busy. It’s all too much… they can’t be bothered. They just want to celebrate
Strategy
Make Jumeirah the ‘home of celebration’.
Remind people that by spending time at Jumeirah, they’ll be earning points on their Sirius cards to spend on themselves later. Doubly nice.
Idea
Rewrite the message of Earn then Redeem as Celebrate then Celebrate meaning: Celebrate with Jumeirah then celebrate again with Sirius
Execution
Stylish website at the heart of the communications – if simplified the process of gaining information, and aimed to excite and inspire the user to book their festive celebrations with Jumeirah.
Radio promotions across four stations for the whole month supported by on and offline advertising and social media, owning ‘celebration’.
An amazing competition allowing a lucy couple to fly Upper Class between Dubai, London and New York staying at trademark Jumeirah properties (including Burj Al Arab) over a ten night extravaganza.
And we took the stress out of the festive season with the Sirius Celebration Planners which included offering members access to ‘real’ Celebration Planners , a guide to the holiday season with a pull out festive planner and an 800-celebrate hotline.
Results
5,000 new Sirius members – up 23%
26,000 earn transactions – up 10%
2,500 redeem transactions – up 15%
20,000 web visits, 45,000 page views
6,000 competition entries
Over 40 hours of radio air time
Over 100 ‘celebrations’ given away on air
One lucky winner who won the ‘Jumeirah Jet Set’
The Art of Brunch
Boasting several prestigious awards and mouth-watering spreads that make you stuffed just looking at them, the brunches at Al Qasr and Mina A’ Salam undoubtedly offer a fantastic product. But with the recent boom of brunches over Dubai, Jumeirah tasked us with creating a campaign to defend their position as ‘Best Brunch in Dubai.’
Dubai brunches definitely connote many things (those we can remember!), but when you really get down to it, the craft behind Al Qasr and Mina A’ Salam’s brunches is truly a fine art. This sparked our concept – The Art of Brunch.
Inspired by the works of Arcimboldo, the Italian Renaissance painter, we directed a two-day photo shoot to create the first embodiment of an awarding-winning brunch. Sure we’ve all played with our food at some point, but try turning dim-sum into eyebrows and a fish carcass into a collarbone. Seven master chefs, 10 kilos of marzipan, 1 live lobster, 2 crabs and countless kilos of oysters and prawns later, a man emerged with as cheeky an expression as any guest walking into a Jumeirah brunch for the first time.
The concept was executed across print, online, radio and on-site collateral resulting in a full-fledged integrated campaign proving that you really are what you eat; and we think in the case of Al Qasr and Mina A’ Salam’s brunches, that’s a very good thing.
How do you like this?
The number of fine dining restaurants per capita in Dubai is absolutely astounding (good for us the consumer, bummer for the outlets!). In this saturated sea of restaurants that all feature high quality, impeccably prepared food aback luxury interiors, how can one truly stand out?
This is exactly the issue we were commissioned to tackle as Fire & Ice, the preeminent steakhouse at Raffles Dubai, was poised for a re-launch. Flip through any magazine and the shots of glisteningly rare steaks, perfectly positioned char-marks and oozing au jus leap off the pages, claiming that ‘this’ steakhouse, is really, really (no really!) the best. But where’s the point of difference in that when everyone has a winning wagyu?
For Fire & Ice, it’s that no matter the level of detail and scrutiny with which you demand your steak prepared, they will deliver to a tee (-bone). With that in mind, we set off to create an integrated campaign that seductively screamed that message. From a series of poignant print ads to some very cheeky radio spots, an HTML asking the consumer “How exactly do you like it?”, and a menu that might make you blush, we created a voice and visual for Fire & Ice that engaged directly with the consumer.
CMO Middle East
If you attended the CMO Middle East event in Dubai today you were introduced to a barrage of common buzz; mobile marketing, the move towards online in MEA, emerging markets leap-frogging more established markets to future technologies, the need to keep budgets in a recession, and so on – all wrapped up with a need for accountability and transparency. There were constant references social media, but few delved further into it – perhaps day 2 (which I won’t unfortunately be attending) will bring the anticipated discussion around web 3.0?
Maktoob enthusiastically discussed the future of online in the region – clearly boosted by the Yahoo! takeover. We saw the ‘yet to be Arabised’ It’s you campaign (on Google’s Youtube) and the proud release of BPA audit figures. Backed up with a healthy obsession with targeting – based on tracking and analytics – Yahoo!’s Maktoob looks to have serious intentions of leading the changing face of MEA’s ad landscape. We wait with bated breath to see how the Yahoo!/Maktoob partnership develops.
One point which got me thinking was raised by Jumeirah’s Thatcher Brown, who walked us through Jumeirah’s marketing strategy. A heavy focus was on internal training and loyalty, backed by the need to provide 100% reviews in every part of consumer feedback. With loyalty at the top of the agenda – Thatcher presented the idea of the ‘Dubai Loyalty Scheme’ – which could be an arousing concept for Dubai Tourism (also present at CMO ME) to consider. But even more so for the brands in the UAE who aim to be leaders in their industries.
This is not to say a ‘stamp-able loyalty card’ every time you pass through customs control – but instead the mentality that Dubai as much as anything needs to go further than selling itself, but create brand loyalty for itself. Challenge number one – build loyalty in Dubai. Challenge number 2 – ‘own’ Dubai in your industry. Arguably Jumeirah own Hospitality in Dubai – one of the most established brands in the UAE, a very new brand globally. In essence instead of selling a brand globally – the idea here is that if you can build loyalty in Dubai, and you own hospitality in Dubai, you’re almost there.
As an agency insider it was brilliant to see what CMO’s in this region are thinking and doing. It’s clear that there are a lot of ideas and enthusiasm, as well as a belief that the MEA region, alongside markets such as India and China are genuinely amongst the most exciting to work in. And even further, technology isn’t getting in the way – thoughts around the preciousness of an idea, a need for local understanding and an openness to media execution, over using a particular media for the sake of it, seem to be king.
This was summed up nicely by some final thoughts from CMO Council Executive Director, Donovan Neale-May. He talked about ‘Share of mind over share of market’ – the importance of realising how to best connect with your audience.
Simply DIFFerent
Faced with a high profile partnership with the Dubai International Film Festival which Madinat Jumeirah wanted to generate exposure through, Gyro jumped at the chance to be a part of the scene.
Through a media plan spanning online, print, radio and outdoor there was an opportunity to create real wow factor and to showcase MJ in Dubai and internationally as the choice for the elite. The tag ‘Live like a Filmstar’ was born and from this an array of glitzy concepts.
We wanted to put the audience in the shoes of a filmstar. Finally the decision was taken to go with a strong hero image which fused the red carpet experience with the paparazi disguised as the starry midnight sky.
Results: Over 2,500 microsite hits in launch month, increased awareness.
Reaching target – from techie to the top
We were approached by Nokia Siemens Networks to help win a large tender process across the MEA region – the aim was to engage not only decision makers but those who make the decision for the decision maker, and those who make the decision for those decision makers and so on (you get the idea).
Enter Gyro and a classic targeted b2b campaign. From engaging printed technical documentation to interactive demos and the piece de resistance – the high value direct mail piece.
Sent to the 35 top executives, this piece played on the fact that the project in hand was one of the most challenging in the world with regards to scale, complexity and geographical and socio-economic challenges. The recipient was greeted with a challenge of their own – the ISIS puzzle – which is billed as the most difficult puzzle in the world. We were able to get some extra tips on how to complete the puzzle from the manufacturer and offer these as much needed assistance.
The message? Nokia Siemens Networks is best placed to help you with your most difficult challenges.
Results: created further opportunities and dialogue in an ongoing tender process.
