Dubai’s thrilling sports season is up and running with a stellar line-up of global sporting spectacles from the recently concluded Emirates Dubai 7s to the highly anticipated upcoming Hero Dubai Desert Classic in January 2025, the Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Championships in February 2025, and its crowning glory, the Dubai World Cup in April 2025.
Supporting the strategy and delivery of many of the city’s flagship events is Falcon and Associates, which has been actively involved in marketing these sporting events through an integrated Dubai Sports Season Campaign, including the creation of hero films and dynamic sports spots intended to raise global awareness for Dubai’s international sporting events.
The Dubai Sports Season Campaign was rolled out across broadcast channels such as CNN, as well as digital and social media channels, Emirates’ ICE in-flight entertainment, PR and communications, as well as influencer collaborations.
Conversing exclusively with Campaign Middle East, Erica Smith, Head of Marketing at Falcon and Associates said, “The key objectives of the campaign were to showcase the upcoming Dubai Sports Season and hero sports events; to build further global awareness of Dubai as a longstanding and leading global sports destination with world class sports events that have been running in the city for decades; and to promote the stunning city of Dubai through its global sports events and stunts in iconic places around the city.”
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To meet these sports marketing objectives through the integrated campaign Falcon and Associates focused on the oldest and most established sports events to not only promote Dubai’s rich and diverse sports scene, but also promote the city though unique scenes and stunts at key landmark locations all across the city.
The hero film works its way down from One Za’abeel with Emirates Dubai 7s and its male and female rugby captains on the glass cantilever over Sheikh Zayed Road (SZR), all the way down to the final scene with Rory McIlroy teeing off on the roof from the Atlantis The Royal to the Emirates Golf Club and the Hero Dubai Desert Classic.
“One scene was created for each of the four Dubai crown jewel global sports events in different areas of the city with many of the global sports stars involved,” Smith said. “The campaign is targeted towards international audiences outside of the UAE to promote and create awareness of Dubai as a global sports destination and these hero global sports events.”
Rollout of the integrated sports campaign
The three-month campaign is running from November 2024 to February 2025, focusing on the key markets of the UK, US and Australia. The campaign is also running across MENA through key media partners.
Smith said, “The overall marketing strategy was primarily based around a layered partner amplification plan, with some paid promotion in key markets and strong focus on social media, media partnerships and macro and micro influencers.”
The key channels and marketing partners involved in the rollout include:
- International media partner: CNN – Falcon and Associates produced this campaign in partnership with CNN, which was broadcast and also shared through an extensive digital campaign across the US, UK and MENA markets.
- Social media:
- The main hero film post was a collab post across all featured sports event pages and with the Dubai Calendar.
- Additional posts and reposts by key partners such as Visit Dubai and the sports stars themselves as well as related event partners (e.g. Rory McIlroy, European Tour, SVNS) amplified the message.
- Digital and social media paid plan: A paid media campaign supported the message to international key markets through targeted paid social campaign across Meta and targeted digital banners.
- Local media partner – Dubai Calendar: As the post was promoting four different events – Dubai Calendar produced a landing page with information on all the events for international audiences to click through to be able to find out more about their preferred event and book ticket. Dubai Calendar also shared the hero film as a post.
- Influencers: Falcon and Associates partnered with 20 sports focused influencers across the different sports events within UK and US markets.
- ICE – Emirates entertainment: ICE have included within their media library – a different long-term version was produced without key dates for ICE for longer term use.
- Public relations: Press releases, interviews, and op-eds about the Dubai Sports Season and the events were distributed and covered.
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Key sports events including in the Dubai Sports Season Campaign
Each of the below global sports events had a scene and stunt set in different and iconic areas of Dubai as part of the Dubai Sports Season Campaign. Each included global sports people and stars that have taken part in the event. All of the scenes were filmed in person, with a partner stunt agency, global sports stars, and production team.
Smith said, “Each scene was used to independently promote awareness and ticket sales for each of their different events. Longer versions of each of the individual scenes were created for local and international marketing campaigns,
- Emirates Dubai 7s – November 29 – December 1, 2024: A major stop in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, and the oldest sports event in the Middle East, hosted at The Sevens Stadium with a festival-like atmosphere and with international teams celebrating different sports across Rugby, netball, padel and lots more across the UAE Eid Al Etihad weekend.
- Hero Dubai Desert Classic – January 16-19, 2025: A Rolex series DP World Tour golf tournament held at Emirates Golf Club, Dubai, featuring top global golfers. Hero Dubai Desert Classic is the oldest golf event in the Middle East now in its 36th year.
- Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Championships – February 16 – March 1, 2025: A prestigious ATP 500 and WTA 1000 event at the Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Stadium, drawing the world’s best tennis players.
- Dubai World Cup – April 5, 2025: One of the world’s richest horse races at Meydan Racecourse, a glamorous event combining top-class racing, fashion, and international celebrity attendance.
Individual scenes and launch stunts in the sports campaign
Scene 1:
Event – Emirates Dubai 7s
Dubai Location: One Za’abeel. This was the first-ever shoot on the roof of the glass cantilever over Sheikh Zayed Road.
Featuring: Two scenes were filmed – one with the Female Emirati team rugby captain and the second with all of the captains from all the international SVNS teams – male and female.
Scene 2:
Event – Dubai World Cup
Dubai Location: Za’abeel Stables – a green oasis in the heart of the city – directly across from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC)
Featuring: Some of the world’s top thoroughbred racehorses training for the Dubai World Cup.
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Scene 3:
Event – Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships
Dubai Location: Madinat Jumeirah Amphitheatre – tennis court created.
Featuring: World former Number 1 tennis player – Daniil Medvedev
Scene 4:
Event – Hero Dubai Desert Classic
Dubai Location: Atlantis The Royal, Palm Jumeirah – Rooftop (first shoot in this location) – to the Emirates Golf Club as final shot
Featuring: World number 2 Golfer (Now World number 3) Rory McIlroy
Smith said, “We then combined all the four scenes to create a Dubai Sports Season hero content piece / video for the international audiences and through 360 marketing campaign across broadcast, social, digital, PR and through influencers and on ICE.”
The campaign is still in process, but current results stand at:
- Broadcast on CNN across EMEA and digital campaign in US, UK, and Australia market.
- The current digital and social campaign has delivered more than 12 million impressions in the first 6 weeks.
- Social scenes and posts achieved impressions of more than 20 million.
- Average social engagement level of Rory on Atlantis Royal stand at 51 per cent.
- Reach of all influencers (macro and micro) cumulatively amount to 5 million.
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CREDITS:
Falcon and Associates: Strategy and delivery
Freedom: Dubai based Creative and production partner for all creative development and filming
M&C Saatchi UK: Social and digital media planning / buying.
Prime Productions AMG: Local Stunt partner
MIFU – Micro influencer marketing agency
Four Agency: PR and Communications agency
