We knew there was a massive opportunity with the World Cup landing in Qatar - bringing the eyes of the world to our region. We had to make sure we were somehow part of the conversation, and use the huge wave of media & attention to build Careem brand awareness. We simply couldn't miss out.

We wanted to use social media to generate huge reach and earned media with no budget, with a strategy that would kickstart organic attention and engagement.

The problem was - we weren't an official sponsor, so couldn't even say the words 'World Cup', and had no budget to fight the biggest brands and their giant media budgets. We had to find something that could cut through on a shoe string.

On top of awareness, we also had to solve for the incoming supply crunch, getting more captains to sign up.

The creative idea was simple, and based on one the fundamental parts of the Careem identity.

Since our first day of operations, we have refused to call our drivers 'drivers'.

We have always referred to them as 'Captains'.

It is a huge part of who we are, and in a single word encapsulates the way we do business vs others in the category.

We knew this was our way into the World Cup - where every team came with it's own Captain.

So..

We wanted to target super famous football Captains who's teams hadn't qualified for Qatar, and offer them a playful opportunity..

One last chance to still be a Captain at the World Cup.

This was an idea that could only be done across our social channels

It was absolutely dependent on getting users to share it, and capture the attention of the media, as well as football superstars.

We wanted to create a truly holistic campaign, that crossed the different channels at our disposal, and leverage each of them for their strengths.

We started on LinkedIn, and then crossed into Twitter, Instagram, and then our influencer's channels, building the maximum possible reach, and kickstarting the campaign fly wheel with the combined organic following of all channels.

We started on LinkedIn, creating a real job post for a Captain role, with a full description of responsibilities.

Then we starting targeting every well known football Captain who's team hadn't qualified for Qatar - Salah, Zlatan.. no one was off limits.

The tweets generated great organic traction, with users and media engaging with the playful humour, and sharing on their own channels.

When we got our first bite from the Dutch midfield legend Nigel De Jong, we saw the opportunity to take it to the next level.

We sent him a bespoke shirt and goody bag, and managed to get him to accept the job publicly, even creating a LinkedIn account for himself so he could make it official. He created content for his own channels, encouraging followers to join 'his team', while we jumped on the trend of footballer 'joining films' creating his own 'signing' video

The campaign was a sensational success for Careem

Against a shoe string budget, the campaign generated incredible reach, impressions, and earned media:

- Reach: 23 million

- Earned media: +$3 million

- Impressions: 4.8 million

We absolutely delivered on the number one objective to be a massive part of the conversation - cutting through the huge sponsorship, media, and production budgets laid down by some of the world's biggest brands, with an idea that allowed us to punch way above our weight.

On top of the awareness, the interactive nature of the campaign secured a record engagement across our channels:

- Social engagement increase: 312%

And finally, we saw a huge uplift in Captain recruitment and NPS at an absolutely critical time for supply, with 15% uplift in Captain onboarding, to allow our business to continue running seamlessly.