Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF), a Visa sponsorship in its 22nd year, is marketed by Dubai Tourism to reach an increasing global audience, mainly in MENA, South Asia, UK, Russia, CIS and the far-east. As 2016 ended on a low and the new year kicked-in cautiously, economic headwinds had lowered consumer confidence and spending further. Retailers were skeptical of declining footfalls, for the biggest shopping extravaganza of the year and a similar sentiment had hit the issuers (the financial institution that provides payment products) in source markets and UAE.

While Visa's preceding award winning DSF campaign 'Impossible Deals' delivered mass-participation and brand fame, it fell short in influencing results directly.

This year, the focus was to evolve the shopping strategy and create a program to be activated across all 3,000+ participating DSF retailers, engage 150+ issuers and create a platform that is scalable, flexible and directly drives purchase volume

With the 'Visa Explore App' updated with the new campaign mechanic, our task was to seed, embed and amplify Visa's new DSF platform by engaging maximum consumers and driving spend. The campaign was rolled-out across five phases…

1. Source Market: Drive pre-trip and early registrations

2. Teaser: Create interest and drive pre-trip registrations

3. Education: Build awareness on new mechanics

4. In-Market: Build momentum on registrations

5. Tactical: Drive spend and boost redemption