NEOM has a complicated audience matrix that includes B2B, B2C, Global and Local segments. This campaign was designed to appeal across audience groups with specific executions reflecting business conversations and topics with tailored messaging and targeting.

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.

What is NEOM fuels the myths, misperception, 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.

We monitored our brand health tracker, social listening, and commissioned research through IPSOS and Kantar. We analysed keywords in 3rd party content about NEOM and found that although there was plenty high-quality content, there was also a lot that was sceptical or wrong.

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

Behavioural science says that it’s more effective to change people’s actions than their minds. Simply telling people what NEOM is and trying to convince them of our credibility wouldn’t work well. We had to get them to find the facts themselves.

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

This was heart of our strategy to ignite the creative.

What is NEOM launched on the 20th of February and is ongoing. It was conceived as a long-term/ always on programme.

The campaign is live across NEOM owned platforms, social channels, and YouTube with targeted paid media, keyword strategy and SEO driving our audience to 3rd party content around the web as well as NEOM owned channels.

Our target audience comprises B2B, B2C, Global and Local segments.

More than 240 pieces of content have been published to date.

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.

Reach as of end March 2023 is 448 Million.

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