Just as Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook’s new Live Streaming service by hosting a live chat with astronauts on the International Space Station, closer to home, du has a new space-orientated digital campaign that has leveraged the global development to engage its audiences online.
Riding the ‘space’ wave, du has challenged Zuckerberg to bring their astronauts a burrito to space.
The message to Zuckerberg was posted on du’s account and within 15 hours received 4.5K likes and now is at 8.8K and running. The message was also re-posted by a user on Facebook, tagging Zuckerberg – challenging him to respond to du and bring their astronauts burritos to space.
“We have had a fantastic response from our followers on Facebook in regards to our message to Mark Zuckerberg so far. Less than a week later and we have received over 8.8K likes on the post, which received 129 shares; from our own post we have reached over 450,000 people. Bearing in mind the message is channel-specific to Facebook, this is a considerable engagement rate in a relatively short space of time,” shared Hala Badri, Executive Vice President, Brand and Communications, du.
One of the reasons why the post received overwhelming response was that it connects the residents of the UAE with a global story, in a surprising and fun manner. “Our customers enjoy knowing that du has the same interests as they do in this respect and by undertaking activities such as this, we reassure them that du is not a faceless corporation, but a brand that has a strong personality and a sense of humour,” added Ms Badri.
For any telecommunications company, connecting people is the core of their business, keeping a key focus on how the global opportunities can resonate with the brand and its customers. A marketing opportunity that du saw in this campaign. “Our customers are core to the business, so we ensure that we have a finger on the pulse of the global news stories and developments that are of interest to them. If a story develops that our customers want to know more about, and which resonates with du’s brand personality, we will see if there is an avenue to be involved in that conversation”, said Ms Badri.
Through the video, created by Leo Burnett, du launched its ‘New Prepaid’ bundle in a 360-degree campaign across social, video, print and Out Of Home (OOH) and this is first time that the UAE mosaic of cultures has been demonstrated through a commercial.
“The unique beauty of the UAE is the number of cultures that work together and live among each other on a daily basis. From our perspective, it makes sense to reflect this cultural DNA in our advertisements to represent the reality of the UAE. One reason the campaign works for all segments is that the bundle we have just launched, ‘the New Prepaid’ does not have a singular target audience; the plans cater to various different modern day mindsets. At the same time, it is a new way of ensuring that prepaid customers never run the risk of losing a connection and missing out on what is important to them – this is something that corresponds to all cultures,” explained Ms Badri.
