Transforming Saudi Arabia
I was asked to come in as the Brand and Creative Strategist for QP agency to help win a new piece of work for a Saudi Government entity: NDF.
NDF is the Saudi government’s second arm to a $3 trillion dollar investment programme to change Saudi Arabia for the good of the people by 2030, which includes moving away from a reliance on oil.
The other investment arm (PIF) is tasked with investing in things like infrastructure to bring investment into the country, NDF’s job is to focus investment in the economy and society, which includes funding SMEs, businesses in sectors like agriculture and exciting emerging national markets like Arts, Culture and Tourism. Very much for the people of Saudi Arabia to thrive in business.
As a Government Bank, the client’s content to date was very long, dry and corporate. It needed to be more public-facing to appeal to a much wider audience while retaining the interest of the industry stakeholders. I lead the whole project from the Proposal and Costing to Brand Research, Strategy, and Concept Creative. Furthermore, we were then asked to launch the Brand, so we developed a Campaign Strategy and Creative Concepts as shown and explained here.
From the strength of my involvement in this Research, Brand Strategy and Concept Creative project, we were commissioned to create a national brand campaign.
Research
I lead the whole research process with an extremely senior team at NDF. This included stakeholder interviews, workshops, surveys and desktop research.
The research outcome allowed us to understand the client objectively and create a benchmark document that any relevant department and agency could understand and use.
The research led us to identify 3 key pillars of impact that NDF will have on the people and country of Saudi Arabia. We then discovered NDF’s position within those pillars that will resonate in the minds of the stakeholders.
Strategy
This strategy phase included a series of workshops which included Brand Archetypes, Brand Architecture recommendations, Narrative and TOV Development, Purpose / Vision / Mission Statements and a Brand Story.
I also developed examples of how all the elements above could be played out in campaign territories to bring the strategy to life and give it context. The brand narrative led to the development of the brand story which we turned into a mood film that ultimately won us the campaign work.
Below is my proposed Brand Architecture change from their existing House of Brands (left/top) to a proposed Branded House (right/bottom).
Concept Brand Creative
The visual identity did not need to be changed for this project but an update to the art direction and tagline were needed.
We used the mood film / concept brand film (below) and developed the mock outdoor posters (below) to showcase our proposed art direction and tagline to capture the client's imagination with huge success.
Concept Brand Film & Concept Brand Ads
Website
Updating the website was a key part of this project, which I had considered as part of my competitor/comparator audit in my research.
I lead the design and development teams and creative-directed this project as I have extensive experience in digital and UX design. See the designs below and click the button to view the website.
Brand Campaign
To help support the launch of the new brand tone and strategy NDF required a big idea to engage the domestic audience.
We wanted to ensure that the campaign pointed to genuine success stories showcasing how NDF had helped people realise their ambitions to deliver on the promise of the brand narrative. This idea also allows us and the client to continually release content over the coming years targeting different sectors using real-life stories.
To attract attention and build awareness we needed a visual connection and a campaign tagline that answered more than the brand tagline: ‘Transforming Saudi Arabia’ so after a series of workshops in Riyadh with the client, the ‘For You. Thorough You.’ campaign was born.
Brand TV / Cinema Ad
SUCCESS STORIES
Behind these ads sit documentary-style case studies relevant to each sector/fund on how NDF transformed their business or lives.
These fabulous pieces of brand content are the brand proof points so many clients lack. We will be continually shooting this content to build a library of case studies. It is not a throw-away campaign but a series of assets showing the success of the organisation.