SILA
C o n n e c t i o n
Marketing Campaign September 2012
Marek Mihok | Nikolai Kozak | Alf Lim
SILA
C o n n e c t i o n
Sila Connection Abu Dhabi, as a first of its kind, sought to bring together university students from across the UAE. One of the challenges of promoting a brand new conference was trying to get the word out and gain the interest of enough people. The marketing team therefore initiated a month long campaign leading up to the big date. Given the targeted audience, our approach was aimed at students and curious young individuals. The campaign was conducted both in print and online format, with aspects of guerrilla marketing and social media. After the marketing campaign, Sila Connection Abu Dhabi received in its initial year 150 applications, almost three times more than the number of open spots. This made Sila Connection a competitive initiative right from its inception and started the tradition of annual conferences in Abu Dhabi.
Concrete challenges 1. Reaching out to 9 other universities in the UAE
3. Incentivize the potential applicants to fill out the application
At the time of organizing Sila Connection conference, NYU in Abu Dhabi was only in its third year of operation. This meant that the ties to other universities had still not been established and therefore we needed an aggresive campaign, which would promote not only Sila Connection, but also NYU Abu Dhabi.
Another obstacle, which the organizing team had to overcome was the fact that the youth conferences did not have any history in the region. As such, Sila Connection had to convince young individuals of its legitimacy and seriousness.
Our solution was to designate a delegate from the organizing team to market the conference at a specific university, distribute flyers, posters and talk to their peers. This proved to be a very effective way and we were able to raise interest and receive applications from all 9 universities.
The simple “Win an iPad Quiz� consisted of weekly questions concerning the environment. This way the people not only participated to win an iPad, but at the same time became more aware of the environmental issue in the UAE. Simultaneously raising their interest in the topic and raising their chances to win, we recorded a spike in the number of applicants, which culminated at 150 and exceeded all our expectations.
2. Campaign that speaks to both local and international students and across different fields of study
4. Bring a spirit of fun and innovation to the campaign
Sila Connection strived from the very beginning to bring together students of diverse backgrounds and nationalities. The UAE is very open to expats from around the world, but there is many times a divide between the local culture and the culture of expatriates. In our campaign, we tried to bridge this divide and speak both to Emirati and international students. Conferences are more often than not a place for a conversation for a specific group of people with shared interests in environment, business, engineering, arts etc. Sila Connection wanted instead to intitiate discussions between students of all majors, believing that a change in community can be achieved only if people of varied interests collaborate together. This belief of openness to everyone was a unifying element of both our print and online media campaign in the time leading up to the conference.
Last, but not least was our effort to connect to our peers, to students. Sila Connection was conceived to be for students and we tried to bring a fresh spirit in the campaign by an impromptu guerilla action and by offering various useful articles to students, such as water bottles and USB-keys. The Guerilla campaign in the cafeterias of the respective universities targeted the high consumption of bottled water and the lack of recylcing opportunities in the UAE. We printed out stickers with a simple message that reminded students about this topic. Hundreds of bottles were transformed and carried around for weeks after.
Online Campaign
Conference and Branded items
Print Posters