December 20, 2022With the COVID-19 pandemic gripping the world in 2020, everyone was trying to avoid contact and spread. The MENA region was not exempt. Simple actions, like paying, became a hassle as they require contact. People generally either paid by cash or card; both requiring contact with elements that may not be sanitary. When people use credit card machines to pay, they were physically punching in their PIN codes and as such, touching a machine that had been used by many others. In fact, at the height of COVID, many were spraying their cards with sanitizers. Even as we slowly moved to flattening the curve and the return of near normalcy; the rule of thumb is the less contact with anything that has not been sanitized, the better.
Mastercard has a contactless feature. This means that people can pay for purchases by simply holding their card next to a card machine – instead of making any physical contact with foreign, and possibly unsanitary objects.
This feature resolves a key COVID-19 anxiety, and Mastercard wanted to raise awareness and adoption.
To get the word out on contactless payment with Mastercard as a resolution to COVID-19 payment anxieties and highlight the ease of use as a simple “tap & go”, we partnered with 21 influential voices across 6 main markets in the Arab world.
We identified and selected key influencers in the UAE, KSA, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Morocco. Each content creator communicated the simplicity, ease and speed of the Mastercard contactless feature. They also highlighted its necessity and relevance amid a COVID-19 world were contactless actions and features are pivotal.
However, in an exercise of co-creation, we worked with each influencer to create native and genuine content that resonates. The same key messages were approached and delivered in different manners by each different influence, to successfully showcase the contactless feature in a manner that resonates with their native audience.
As such, the content created under the singular umbrella of the “tap & go” move was highly diverse and ranged from comedy, to lifestyle, and sketches portraying daily struggles, as well as upbeat and fun videos.
The campaign successfully achieved our objectives by raising awareness and educating key markets on the Mastercard contactless feature. By effectively selecting key influencers across the region and co-creating well-crafted native content that resonated with each Influencer’s audience, we were able to successfully establish Mastercard Contactless as a life-saving service that makes adapting to the “new normal” easier.
Via the co-creation of content together with influencers, each influencer was able to create native content and deliver the desired message in their own creative way as per their different personas – thus successfully creating 22 videos communicating the relevancy of the Mastercard contactless feature.
As such, we were able to reach 2.6 million people across 6 different key markets in the MENA region and raise a high degree of awareness with, 5.1 million impressions, 3.3 million views and 481k in engagement. The overall campaign performance obtained 66.26% in viewership and 9.47% in engagement rates, surpassing the benchmarks by 109% and 480% respectively.
Unilever Food Solutions has historically been a sales-driven operation that relied heavily on its distribution network to provide products to its well-established network of hospitality professionals. However...
