In a saturated market, it was imperative to drive talkability, buzz, engagement and consideration for Yas Island and make the destination famous through a globally renowned celebrity attaining the "Chief Island Officer" role. The measurable metrics to achieving this included reach, video views, post engagement, and earned media value to expand share-of-voice in the UAE market. Yas Island followed specific KPIs including reaching six million individuals, driving 32 million video views, one million post engagements. To do this, the company partnered with celebrity Kevin Hart.
Objective
The primary objective of the campaign was to drive consideration, incremental package sales during the key competitive summer season and increase revenue by 30 percent and average order value by 15 percent compared to the same period pre-COVID in 2019. This was very ambitious considering the path to recovery is still ongoing and Abu Dhabi continues to have strict PCR testing requirements to enter anywhere in the city.
Context
This is the first year for the campaign. Although Yas Island is the leading destination and most searched for in the UAE compared to competition, it was crucial to recognize that world renown attractions such as Atlantis the Palm were close behind. With the travel boom looming in early 2022, capturing market share and filling the empty void that people experienced post the pandemic is essential to rebound the brand's revenue and positioning. The perfect time to capitalize on this trend was the summer period, when schools are out, and a huge influx of individuals become in-market for entertainment and vacation opportunities.
Creative and Media Strategy
The target audience was the middle-class family traveler; this demographic has an average household income of 20,000 to 55,000 AED. Approximately 1.6 million families in the UAE audiences are part of this cohort and make up approximately 59 percent of the outbound total traveling population.
The in-bound tourists heading to the UAE are usually from Russia, western Europe, and south Asia, leading to 7.12 million visitors potentially visiting the UAE. With travel restrictions easing, the wider GCC population is also going to be a potential audience, building awareness and consideration in this audience offers incremental return in large families making overnight bookings. Another target consisted of U.K. travelers going to the UAE, capitalizing on the global recognition of Kevin Hart to capture their attention.
Strategies included:
Considering that this campaign was video-driven, the strategy was to leverage a purely digital approach with 100 percent of the budget, focusing on social media channels to spark virality and engagement. Yas Island captured the trend of TikTok as it was growing exponentially in the MENA market with the mockumentary episodic series. The overall campaign media budget was $1 million.
Kevin Hart is a global superstar, but his presence in the MENA market is not a regular occurrence. Using mass reach channels with premium formats such as TikTok top views and YouTube mastheads played a significant role in achieving the marketing objectives as it took audiences by surprise seeing such a star in the widely loved local destination.
Over the past two years, the global travel industry suffered a $2 trillion hit. Yas Island, heavily reliant on international visitors, saw a 75 percent footfall drop during the pandemic, impacting its bottom line. MENA's recovery, reaching 78 percent of pre-COVID levels by Q3 2021, highlighted the sector's slow resurgence. Yas Island aimed to rebound amid the travel boom, emphasizing the need to stand out from competitors like Atlantis the Palm. The campaign sought to compensate for pandemic losses, focusing on recovery, increased footfall, and distinguishing itself in a crowded market, crucial for Yas Island's consideration, visitation, and overall success.
Yas Island topped the competition based on a YouGov study comparing Yas Island's awareness levels with Atlantis the Palm, which had an edge on the brand in March. During the campaign period, Atlantis the Palm's awareness score dropped from 60 points to 51 points in June while Yas Island increased from 54 in April to 67, maintaining this throughout the summer.
An assessment was done covering the impact of the communication when it comes to search volumes of keywords related to Yas Island to assess an uplift. Impact was indeed significant: a 60 percent uplift in Yas Island Park search volumes, and a 15 percent uplift in branded volumes.
These factors contributed to over 1.1 million sessions on the Yas Island website compared to 400,000 in the same period in 2019, and a record-breaking year, helping surpass full year 2019 revenues with only six months into 2022.
Yas Island took the concept of celebrity partnerships to a new level, by creating an official CIO, responsible for advising the destination's various attractions leading up to the summer. Considering COVID-19's impact on travel and tourism, by capitalizing on the concept of revenge travel and positioning YI as the ultimate destination for UAE staycations, the brand was able to break YI revenue records, surpassing pre-Covid revenues by 114 percent and the average order value by 50 percent versus the same period in 2019. This was possible through effective utilization of first-party data.
