Visit Dubai: Imagine Dragons - Thunder [music clip]

Credits & Description:

Campaign Name: Imagine Dragons x Dubai Tourism
Advertiser: Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai)
DCTCM (Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing)
Agency: UMGB
Country: United Kingdom

Campaign: Imagine Dragons ' Thunder'
Client: DCTCM (Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing)
Product/Service CITY OF DUBAI
Agency: Havas London
Country: France
Country: United Kingdom
Idea Creation HAVAS Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation 2 UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP & BRANDS London, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Placement HAVAS Paris, FRANCE
Media Placement 2 UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP & BRANDS London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production: INTERSCOPE RECORDS Santa Monica, USA
Global Managing Director: Dominique Delport (Havas Group)
Global Head of Content: Damien Marchi (Havas Media Group)
Global Head Of Entertainment Partnership: Alexandra Ouzilleau (Havas Media Group)
Global Account Director: Firas Wahida (Havas Media Group)
Global Entertainment Partnerships Director: Chris Behrens (Havas Media Group)
Social Media Manager: Anais Mabille de Poncheville (Havas Media Group / Socialyse)
Social Media Trader: Cornellia Alezo (Havas Media Group / Socialyse)
Global Head Of New Business: Olivier Robert-Murphy (Universal Music Group and Brands)
VP, Brand Partnerships: Rob Gorczynski (Universal Music Group and Brands)
Director: Joseph Kahn (Private)
Head of Creative: Michele Ann (Interscope Records)
SVP Marketing, Interscope: Matthew La Motte (Interscope Records)
The Campaign
We selected the band Imagine Dragons as the ideal artists for our collaboration, who had mass global appeal as well as an interest in the city of Dubai. We developed ‘Location Placement’, a product placement where the product is a destination. With this approach we could showcase the city of Dubai as the backdrop for the band’s new single ‘Thunder’ in a creative and authentic way. The ‘Thunder’ music video was directed by one of the most recognised director in the music industry, which ensured the content not only stood out for its sound, but in its creativity, effects and tone. We also captured exclusive behind the scenes content as well as branded content of the band enjoying Dubai. The content showed Imagine Dragons doing a variety of activities that holiday goers could do there if they visited, to portray Dubai as a travel destination for our global audience.
Creative Execution
• Implementation of strategy All content was released without DCTCM (client) branding, by the band on their own channels, to their mass follower base. This allowed the band’s core fans to first engage with, share and promote the content and their friends to then further extend the reach through powerful peer to peer engagement. • Timeline 11/2016: campaign ideation, planning and strategy 02/2017: Imagine Dragons contract finalised and signed 03/2017: Music video, behind the scenes and branded content filmed. Band teaser photo posts from the shoot 05/2017: official music video released 06/2017: celebratory posts from the band about music video 07/2017 (1 week later): branded content posted by band • Placement Music video was hosted on the bands official Youtube channel Branded Content and Behind the Scenes Content was posted natively by the band across their owned social media channels • Scale Global
Our campaign far exceeded expectations, over-delivering on all KPI’s set by the client and achieving our overall target to boost awareness, consideration and appeal of Dubai as a holiday destination. • Reach & Engagement 250 Million video views on music video Over 3 million social engagements • Impact 800% above target $15 million worth of earned media Plus 22% increase in consideration for Dubai as a holiday destination (+24% increase in appeal)
The ‘Imagine Dubai’ campaign saw the city of Dubai being placed into pop-culture: the most consumed content on YouTube, music videos. An innovative approach, ‘location placement’, was used were the city heavily featured in bands new video, Thunder. Leveraging the singles radio & chart impact, we utilized an engaged fandom, who found the content on their own and did not skip. Views of the music video were 100% organic. The video provided longevity far beyond that of a usual campaign. We created behind the scenes and branded content, further leveraging the audience: increasing conversation, appeal & consideration for Dubai.
We aligned our creative and distribution approaches to capitalise on the natural life cycle of a music video and album release, in the most authentic way. We did this through organic alignment with the band’s natural promotional period for their new album, which featured Dubai in their new music video ‘Thunder’. We leveraged Imagine Dragons as impactful Influencers within the global music passion point, with all content being posted by the band, on their channels. Our brand message was present in the initial build-up and excitement prior to the new album and single release, during touring, as well as post campaign, with additional content from the band enjoying Dubai. In this way, Dubai was seen as ‘cool’ and a natural fit, endorsed by the band direct to their followers for further peer-to-peer recommendation. Our strategy ensured our campaign could have reach and longevity far beyond a normal campaign.