The creative strategy that underpins “What is NEOM” uses a combination of behavioural insights, a distinct, branded call to action and a Media/SEO strategy that directs traffic to third parties instead of owned platforms to increase brand understanding and credibility.

NEOM was announced in 2017 and widely reported on as a “Smart City”. With many cities, regions and sectors planned in NEOM, this is only part of the picture. Announcements of The LINE, Oxagon, Trojena and Sindalah, added to the confusion with many construing NEOM and The LINE as the same thing.

In 2021 NEOM launched “Made to Change” which raised awareness by 20 NPS points, but research in 2022 showed understanding was becoming a bigger challenge with so many awe-inspiring and ambitious chapters being added to the NEOM story.

All these announcements and launches created a new objective for the Masterbrand; A growing need for our B2B and B2C target audiences to clearly understand what NEOM is and that it is a credible opportunity.

We need to bring clarity to NEOM as it grows in ambition and scale.

Throughout 2022, we monitored our brand health tracker, social listening and even commissioned additional research through IPSOS and Kantar. We looked at keywords used in 3rd party content about NEOM and found that although there was a lot of high-quality content, there was also a significant proportion that was sceptical or wrong.

Together, these helped us see the challenge: There was a conversation happening about NEOM, but it was misinformed, sceptical, and we weren’t part of it.

We didn’t need another burst of activity, we needed an ongoing way to communicate with our complicated audience matrix that includes B2B, B2C, Global and Local segments. And this conversation needed to be two-way, not only to solve NEOM’s brand objectives but also to empower people to find the truth themselves.

We wanted them to have a base-level comprehension of what NEOM is and believe it’s credible.

We knew through behavioural science that it’s more effective to change people’s actions than their minds. This made it clear that telling people the answer and trying to convince them of our credibility was not the winning strategy. We had to get them to find the facts themselves.

Exaggerated and negative commentary overwhelms the media and online landscape, drowning out credible information about many topics including NEOM. We needed to bring the truth to the front page. And today’s front page is the Google results page.

This was the heart of our strategy to ignite the creative.

What is NEOM fuels the myths, misperceptions, and confusion about NEOM to spark intrigue and encourage our audience to search for credible answers. Paid media and SEO lead them to content with facts delivered by reputable third parties and NEOM itself.

Searches of “What is NEOM” were 27x higher after the campaign launch.

Those exposed to the campaign are 4x more likely to know what NEOM is.

Positive sentiment towards NEOM increased by 26 points, more than 3x NEOM’s benchmark.

In short, People searched “What is NEOM”, learned what it is, and think it’s more credible than ever before.

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