Saudi Arabia has been facing challenges in establishing itself as a tourist destination, struggling to get itself onto travelers' bucket lists.

The opportunity, however, came with the World Cup, the biggest event in the world, watched by 1.5 billion people during the final. When Saudi Arabia achieved a historic, unexpected win against Argentina—a match reported by Reuters as the "statistically the biggest shock in World Cup history"—we seized the opportunity to capitalize on this moment. Immediately after the game, a Saudi fan jokingly asked a news anchor about Argentina striker Lionel Messi's 'no-show' performance, repeating the question, 'Where's Messi?' The interview became an internet hit and an iconic moment at the World Cup.

Our challenge was to redirect the great attention that our country's team garnered during the World Cup and channel it towards tourism, making Saudi Arabian travel part of the conversation.

I’m in Saudi.

Our idea was quite simple. Given the immense global curiosity about the 'Where's Messi?' meme, we seized the opportunity to answer this burning question and position ourselves at the center of the global conversation. With Messi as our brand ambassador, we orchestrated a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia for him to declare 'I’m in Saudi' to none other than the famous fan behind the viral ‘Where’s Messi’ meme. Simultaneously, this unexpected location update by Messi invited travelers worldwide to follow in his footsteps themselves and come to Saudi, ultimately closing the loop and placing Saudi travel at the forefront of minds and at the top of travelers’ destination bucket lists.

Our idea was executed entirely through PR, where we shared a social video and images of the surprise meeting organically. The social world, including media pages and fans, took care of the rest, ensuring its virality.

Our PR strategy was built on a simple, yet powerful premise that everyone knows: the internet is essentially a playground. Recognizing that big events like the World Cup bring people together like nothing else, forming one giant game that the whole world decides to play, we understood that to win the game, we had to play the game.

The ‘Where’s Messi’ meme became iconic for its simple, playful, surprising, and spontaneous nature, along with its impeccable timing and the celebrity power of the world’s greatest footballer. What we decided to do is use that same playful simplicity and harness that traction to place Saudi travel at the heart of the conversation.

Our message was simple: “Where’s Messi? He’s in Saudi,” with Messi coming to Saudi to have his 'thug-life' moment and responding to the cheeky fan who asked where he is in person after winning the World Cup.

With Messi on our side as Saudi Tourism Authority brand ambassador, we recognized a golden opportunity. Given the viral nature of the ‘Where’s Messi’ meme on social media, we understood the importance of responding to the social world as soon as we could. So, following Messi’s World Cup victory, we extended an invitation for him to meet the cheeky ‘Where’s Messi’ fan in Saudi Arabia, allowing him to address his biggest critic in person with a cup-winning smile.

The campaign aimed for an organic feel, sharing a single video and picture capturing the surprise meet-up between the unexpected duo, which quickly spread across the internet like wildfire.

Recognizing the social world's thirst for feuds, we capitalized on that dynamic by simply sharing the post and allowing the online world to take over, generating incredible organic engagement.

We turned a quick “influencer” location update post into Saudi’s most engaging social campaign. The internet exploded, leading to GOAT results. The football online community and Messi fan pages couldn’t get enough of it, sparking sharing from top social pages such as Celebs Arabic, ET Bil Arabi (Entertainment Tonight), Complex, Wealth, and many others.

This widespread sharing led to:

$15M PR Value

150M Unique media impressions

+1M Interactions

200M social impressions

Leading to improving destination perception in our brand health tracker, including:

+9% YoY Destination Positivity

+4% Locals’ ‘Welcoming’ perception