Cultural context: Saudi’s ambition is outpacing its culture as old habits and perceptions, especially when it comes to women, are hard to shift.

Client challenge: Linkedin’s value was underestimated in Saudi Arabia. It's English-first platform was perceived as aloof and out of touch.

Qualitative research showed it was perceived as a global brand, distant from Saudi Arabia, which didn’t understand the needs of the local market, and offered no noticeable contribution to the job market.

This perception placed LinkedIn at a massive disadvantage compared to local and regional Arabic-first competitors.

It wasn’t the first choice for either hiring or professional brand positioning in the country, and it had a slower increase in sign-ups than its competitors.

It was vital to address this brand perception issue if Linkedin was going to have a chance at increasing their footprint in the marketplace.

Objectives:

• Increase platform sign-ups

• Elevate brand perception

Our idea was to use LinkedIn data to rectify the subjective narrative, and tell real stories, from real professional women affirming their potential and given a voice by LinkedIn.

First, we conducted an in-depth research which exposed some fascinating contradictions relating to female employment:

Using this data, we created the “Hear it from me” ( ?????? ??? ) campaign, turning LinkedIn into a platform that amplified the voices of Saudi career women, making them visible to recruiters and public, via online film, social media, interview and more.

We also delivered training to women and employers, giving people the tools to take action in the real world, enabling real change.

The campaign encouraged companies in Saudi to re-evaluate their hiring practices and well as inspiring widespread conversation on earned, owned, social and mainstream media.

In 2017, the Saudi government announced their ambition of increasing the participation of Saudi women in the workforce from 22% to 30% by 2030.

50% of Saudi University students are women but workforce representation is only 22% and 1/3 of recruiters believe there’s a lack of female talent.

Saudi Arabian women don’t lack the skills or the desire to work…they lacked a community. They were effectively invisible.

LinkedIn’s mission is to match talent with opportunity and there was a great need to do EXACTLY that in Saudi.

The plan was to channel & align LinkedIn’s efforts with their human capital ambitions by getting professional Saudi women to sign up to LinkedIn & understand how the platform supports their careers & professional needs.

We leveraged this insight: Saudi women reject the negative narrative deeming them unavailable or unready & seize every opportunity to voice their opinion and show their capabilities.

The in-depth preliminary research study was the vital first step of the campaign activation.

It afforded us a unique insight in to the REAL challenges facing women (vs. assumptions), and allowed us to design a campaign specifically targeted to approaching those issues in a practical, meaningful way.

Key findings informed the following activations:

• Social media data cards sparking conversation on Facebook and Twitter

• LinkedIn’s first Saudi female employee as campaign spokesperson, Blogging and vlogging (Trusted local voice to help break the aloof global brand image).

• Traditional media press release and media interviews with AlArabiya News Channel's PrimeTime Morning show.

• Tangible tools for employers to place Saudi female Talent:

- A Playbook guiding companies on using LinkedIn to place talent

- 8 workshops educating 400+ Saudi women on building their professional brands and getting noticed by prospective employers (In collaboration with Ministry of Labor & Saudi universities).