Brand: Emirates NBD
Media: Online
Media: DM
Category: Finance
Geo: United Arab Emirates
Idea / Title: The A/C Vests
Agencies: FP7/DXB (A part of McCann Worldgroup) and Starcom MediaVest Group
Advertising Agency: FP7/DXB, Dubai, UAE / Starcom MediaVest Group, Dubai, UAE
Mai Cheblak, Associate Vice President, Group Media
Sapna Kalati, Manager, Group Media
Tahaab Rais, Regional Head of Strategic Planning & Creative Strategy, FP7/MENA
Spiro Malak, General Manager – Business Unit, FP7/DXB
Vicky Kriplani, Account Director & Production, FP7/DXB
Sameer Islam, Senior Strategic Planner, FP7/DXB
Layan El Hafi, Account Manager, FP7/DXB
Erna Redzepagic, Senior Account Executive, FP7/DXB
Sameer Ketkar, Senior Designer, FP7/DXB
Pauline Rady, Media Director, Starcom MediaVest Group
Milad Samia, Senior Media Manager, Starcom MediaVest Group
Oliver Mathews, Media Manager & Execution, Starcom MediaVest Group
Ashraf Muhammadunny, DOP, Cameraman, Editor, Motion Artist
Concept note
Every day, there are many labourers who work across the United Arab Emirates, even during the summer heat. Despite working hours being significantly reduced during the month of fasting - Ramadan (which falls during the hot summer in the UAE) - as a mark of respect to them while they fast, the weather conditions around remain hot and challenging.
During Ramadan 2016, since we couldn’t change the weather conditions around them, we instead enabled them to take those weather conditions on and beat the heat this summer. We introduced The A/C Vests - a meaningful idea for Emirates NBD, a leading banking Group in the Middle East.
The A/C Vests are unique vests specially made with submersible materials, different from the typical safety vests that labourers wear during the summer heat. With cooling mechanisms and refrigeration facilities being virtually non-existent on construction sites, like anywhere else in the world, these A/C vests function based on using something that’s easily available across all camps: Water.
All that needs to be done is to submerge the vests in water. And once the labourers put them on, within minutes they start to feel the effect of the jacket as it reduces the temperature by 5 to 7 degrees.
100s of these specially made vests have been given to workers in Ramadan this year, with many more on the way as the bank’s Business Banking unit is reaching out to business owners across the country within the construction industry, with the video and the idea as direct marketing tools, to encourage implementation of The A/C Vests across their workforce across sites and camps during the summer months. Interested business owners or entrepreneurs are also encouraged to write to Emirates NBD if they’d like to help scale this idea further at businessbanking@emiratesnbd.com.