NEW DAY

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Television
Advertiser: EXECUTIVE AFFAIRS AUTHORITY ABU DHABI
Product/Service: ABU DHABI TOURISM
Agency: TBWA\RAAD
Date of First Appearance: Oct 12 2009 12:00AM
Entrant Company: TBWA\RAAD, Abu Dhabi, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Creative Director/Writer: Martin Lever (TBWA/Raad)
Writer: Timothy Brothers (TBWA/Raad)
Director: Hadi
Producer: Richard Forbes Robertson (TBWA/Raad)
Account Director: Nick McElwee (TBWA/Raad)
Music: Matt Faddy
Media placement: TV campaign - 3 spots - CNN, BBC, Al Arabyia - 12/10/2009

Results and Effectiveness
RESULTS AND EFFECTIVENESS During the 3 month campaign (12 October 2009 - 12 January 2010), hits on the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority website trebled. Visitor numbers increased by 16% in the same period of the preceeding year (from October 2008 to January 2009). And crucially in a Tourism Authority survey of ALL visitors, a staggering 40% of respondents said they had first heard about Abu Dhabi as a tourism destination through our New Day TV campaign on CNN.

Creative Execution
THE CREATIVE IDEA: Today is a new day. In a series of eight 15" films, we showcase eight separate sunrises over iconic Abu Dhabi locations. The movement from darkness to light symbolises the arrival of a new world destination, and captures the mood and tone of the warm Abu Dhabi welcome, underlined by the payoff: Abu Dhabi. Travellers Welcome. The simplicity of the creative idea worked hand-in-hand with the media strategy – as all spots appeared in ad-breaks from 4am to 9am in each regional timezone around the world. Hence we truly “owned the dawn”. The CNN buy also captured a large proportion of our key influencer audience in hotel rooms in cold wintry cities around the world (especially Europe, the US and North Asia).

Insights, Strategy & the Idea
For the dawning of a new destination, we set out to “OWN THE DAWN”. Global awareness of Abu Dhabi as a tourist destination was very low – with no previous international advertising. There was a need to “open the dialogue” with an idea that whetted the appetite to find out more (through travel blogs, personal research, website etc). An emotionally powerful “glimpse” of something new to a discerning and educated target audience. A ‘soft launch’ strategy. Research indicated a majority of destination campaigns shout out loud with superlatives, often communicating undifferentiated superiority. Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority wanted to stand out from the crowd with a TV launch campaign that reflected Abu Dhabi values, and actually treated the discerning target with intelligence. A campaign which would be an antidote to the noise and clutter of CNN ad-breaks. A campaign that didn’t feel like advertising.