More than 90% of the UAE's 250,000 labourers are from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. These men work long, hard hours in difficult conditions. They spend what little free time they have watching, playing and dreaming about cricket.When India made history winning the World Cup on home soil, many of the subcontinent's biggest cricket fans were at work. As migrant labourers in the UAE, they were unable to revel in the excitement and glory enjoyed at home.Labourers from these countries are very familiar with our competitors' products, as Pepsi is the market leader on the subcontinent. We saw a unique opportunity to introduce them to Sprite as a refreshing alternative, while providing them with welcome relief from their hard work and provide them with something they love: Cricket.We created a cricket tournament, modelled on the World Cup, to turn humble construction workers into cricket stars. The series of trials, practices, group stages and playoffs would ultimately run over 6 months in 8 of the biggest labour camps in the UAE, and culminate in finals at the new $100m Dubai International Cricket Stadium, home to the region's Test Matches and ODI's.

The campaign had to be adapted continually to accommodate for the unprecedented demand. Originally the trials were supposed to last less than 1 month, but entries were overwhelming and they ran for 3 months. We could not have anticipated the response. Such is the nature of the labourer's lives, and the hype of India's cricket World Cup win, that the scale of the campaign just grew and grew.Our Tournament Director and his staff worked around the clock at the labour camps to ensure as many people could attend trials as possible. Still, we pushed everything back.Then because of the scale and importance, the location of the Finals changed from the Sharjah Cricket Stadium to the superior Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Ultimately, what was supposed to be a 6 week event ran for 6 months.

Sprite Cricket Stars represented a total of 153,300 labourers. This was the number of eligible players from the 8 participating camps. Of this, there were over 42,000 entrants into the tournament.More than 6,000 fans attended the finals. Each member of the winning team, Al Jaber camp from Abu Dhabi, won air tickets to visit their home, courtesy of Sprite.We received 10 local press clippings with an Ad value of AED 35,740, and PR value of AED 107,222.