Solution

Zed developed the brand and brand guidelines, an award-winning website, and is contracted through 2014 to manage all PR, communications and events in Japan and around the world. The first completed Qatar Friendship Fund project was Maskar, a state-of-the-art fishery processing plant in Onagawa. Zed designed the Maskar brand, and organized the opening ceremony, which saw Minister of State HE Dr. Khalid Bin Mohammad Al Attiyah, HE Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah and over 150 dignitaries from the Middle East and Japan coming together to open the plant, bringing renewed hope to the region‚ fishing industry and the people of Onagawa.

QFF’s work continues today helping communities and bringing hope to those most affected by the tsunami, in fact seven projects have been announced in the last year. As new projects are announced, Zed continues to share the story, building awareness and support for
QFF’s work.

The idea was driven by a simple concept: ‘sell more, win more’. Face-to-face meetings were also not common between distributors and retailers, which gave Ducab an opportunity to integrate this into their brand image and become “the closest wire partner”. 

The campaign objective developed from a simple sales promotion campaign into a reputation building campaign, to make Ducab stand out.

We decided to use the Year of the Dragon as our campaign theme and feature a teambuilding, dragon boat racing trip to Thailand as our grand prize. The key visual was engineered to be eye-catching: striking colours, a powerful dragon element, and an exciting tone of voice: “The sales race to Thailand is on”.

The 4-month campaign was launched in a Thai-themed evening event for 250 guests at Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel in Dubai; from then on, the campaign mechanisms kicked in.

Weekly roadshows brought people together and Ducab management ensured that they were also on hand to explain the promotion mechanics and hand out collateral. We also helped to extensively brand the retailer stores, and this caught the eye of the end-buyers who started enquiring. We knew that the radio was always playing in the background of the shops and this led to an additional media element – daily radio reads by DJ’s on City FM101, a local Hindi language station.

We also made the promotion more visible and accessible by launching Ducab Dragons dot-com. This website offered up-to- date information on the promotion, sign ups for free dragon boat sessions, and the opportunity to read more about the prizes. Participants could also log in to personally check their scores and see their rankings in the countrywide promotion table.

Regular e-mail blasts engaged participants by sharing sales tips, and a weekly updated sales scorecard let participants keep track of their progress.

The free dragon boat training sessions on Dubai Creek gave the retailers and distributors a unique experience (and also an excuse to get out of the stores).

After sixteen competitive weeks, 50 sales leaders and winners were rewarded an all expenses paid trip to Bangkok and Pattaya in Thailand, fully managed by Zed’s event teams. And naturally they got the chance to see if their superior sales skills transferred to the water.

The campaign was a success and seamlessly integrated a number of communication touch points, including radio; PR; digital; in-store retail experiences; and of course the teambuilding and incentive trips. The results were overwhelming.