In late September a historic royal decree granted women the right to drive in Saudi Arabia. The Royal Decree was met with mixed reactions in Saudi Arabia.

Nissan Saudi Arabia seized the opportunity by creating a campaign that generated locally relevant, reactive and share-worthy content that not only mobilised the majority of open-minded Saudi men but also, challenged the highly vocal conservative minority, who were reluctant to give their support. The end goal is to drive top-of-mind awareness, salience, and ultimately market share for Nissan throughout 2019.

Our objective was to normalise the idea of women driving to all men in KSA, and in so doing, give women the confidence to get behind the wheel. The idea was brought to life by dramatising the reactions of real women when the influential male members of their family – fathers, uncles, husbands and brothers – played a supportive and encouraging role as their first driving instructor.

News of The Royal Decree broke at 11:30pm. An hour later, the "2018-GRL" Tweet was developed followed by three videos in the following weeks. The content generated was enjoyed across YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. There was very little paid media support, but the reaction to the content was clear – views, view-through rate, likes, comments and shares were well beyond anything the brand had seen in Saudi Arabia before.

Over the course of ten weeks, the content film from the driving lesson activation delivered unprecedented results. It cost $20,000 to produce in total and received paid media support of $17,500 - $11,000 on YouTube, $4,000 on Facebook, $3,000 on Instagram and $500 on Twitter.

Generate Earned Media

Impressions

“GRL 2018” Number Plate - *Over 562,000 organic impressions (+125% over Nissan benchmarks)

Online Driving Lesson Film – **4 million impressions (+19% over Nissan benchmarks)

Online Drivign Lesson Film – **2.3 million views (+96% over Nissan benchmarks)

Earned Media & PR Impressions

Coverage on TV and online including Reuters, CNN, Al Arabiya and BBC Worldwide has been valued at 2.1M

Drive Engagement

Time spent with campaign film– **1.9M minutes watched (+48% over Nissan benchmarks)

Viewer retention rate - 70% viewer retention rate (+40% over YouTubes benchmark for excellence)

Engagement rate (likes, shares and comments) – 10% engagement rate (+100% over YouTubes benchmark for excellent engagement with content

“GRL 2018” Engagement – 8.8% engagement rate (+252% over Twitters benchmark for excellence)

Drive Positive Brand Sentiment

Overall positive sentiment on social media, despite the political and polarizing nature of the campaign. Positive sentiment – 68%. Negative sentiment – 13%

#shedrives, the official campaign hashtag, was adopted leading up to the actual date, women were given the opportunity to drive legally. Female influencers, real women, news outlets and even other brands used the hashtag we created, symbolising the influence our campaign has had on this hugely significant moment in Saudi culture. The result was a fundamental shift in the attitudes and behaviours of men and women in KSA around the hot topic of women driving.