Brother of Noura
STC
Issue 53 | December 2019
Agency
J. Walter Thompson Riyadh
Creative Team
Chief Creative Operations Officer: Chafic Haddad Executive Creative Director: Rayyan Aoun Creative Director: Hessa Al Sudairy Senior Art Director: Ahmad Shanaa
Production Team
Head of TV Production: Joe Aboudaher
Other Credits
Associate Business Director: Jad Haddad Account Director: Ziad Rayes Account Manager: Yasmin Moufti Head of Strategic Planning KSA: Dana Alkutoubi
Date
March 2019
Background
STC is the leading telecoms company in Saudi Arabia. They wanted to lead the change in mindset of a country in which women had little representation beyond the family and the kitchen.
Though women had been permitted to drive since June 24th 2018, social change was still largely cosmetic. STC wanted to remind people that just as women had been influential in the creation of the Kingdom, so they would be influential in the country’s economic and social future.
Idea
The idea of the online video was to remind people of the story of King Abdulaziz, who, in 1902, had been driven by his sister Nora to lay the foundations of modern-day Saudi Arabia. She had been such a driving force, in fact, that the King changed his name in her honour to Akhou Nora, meaning ‘brother of Nora’.
The campaign was launched internally to STC’s own workforce. 17,000 male employees changed their email signatures to recognize important women in their lives. The streets inside STC’s compound were renamed after five important female employees.
The campaign was then directed outwards, at a broader audience of citizens.
The message was, “It’s not by celebrating women being allowed to drive a car that you promote female empowerment but by acknowledging their historic right to drive the country.”
Results
Famous TV hosts joined the movement through customised pins and car stickers.
Influencers featured the names of their sisters, daughters or wives as their profile pics. Even the Royal Family acknowledged #BrotherofNora. The hashtag was the second trending topic of the day. The film attracted five million views and 40 million impressions worth $1 million in earned media.
Brand awareness of STC increased from 54% to 61%, top-of-mind awareness from 70% to 72%.
Our Thoughts
The subject of Brand Purpose has dominated marketing discussion boards in recent months since Alan Jope’s speech at Cannes Lions about “woke washing”.
He warned marketers not to fake their purpose, to acquire a sudden but spurious conscience. Many seem to be ignoring the advice. Not STC, however, which is reengineering its own business around the role of women before urging others to do the same. Brand tracking shows all the numbers are up. It would be good to know if business is up as well. It would be heartening to know that purpose equals profit.