Finalist 2024
Corporate Influencer
Brand
Masdar
Entered by:
Reuters
Future Energy Talks
Credited:
Reuters Plus
The Challenge
Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s leading clean energy company, wanted to increase brand awareness and favourability, and spotlight its expertise in the same year the Middle East hosted COP28.
The energy transition is such an emotive subject that nuances are often lost amid the noise of debate. Masdar needed a global media partner, embedded in the energy space, experienced in telling complex, corporate stories with impact, and trusted by decision makers worldwide.
How can a green energy leader like Masdar, but with ties to oil and gas, be heard in a credible fashion? How to best highlight investments for a cleaner transition?
The Strategic Solution
Masdar wanted to target global energy experts, foreign direct investors, business decision-makers, governments and NGOs.
The strategic initiative was designed to capitalize on the momentum of the ”Year of Sustainability.” With the objective of advancing climate action priorities ahead of COP28, Reuters devised a campaign aimed to foster business-level engagement regarding sustainable practices and technologies.
The campaign sought to address the challenges of overcoming entrenched interests and scepticism by opening dialogues on sustainability that could influence business and political landscapes. It was specifically targeted at business decision-makers, leveraging Reuters’ credibility to position Masdar as a sustainability and renewables pioneer.
By partnering with Reuters, Masdar could leverage the number one news brand for environmentally conscious consumers* (GWI, 2022) who agree that supporting sustainable brands is a good measure to reduce environmental impact.
As a long-standing participant of the UN SDGs and a member of Covering Climate Now, as well being a major news provider and host at COP28, Reuters offered a partnership that would boost awareness of Masdar and provide it with access to its key audience and global recognition.
Reuters reaches
• 64m BDMs
• 12m C-Suites
(Ipsos)
• 4m government / NGO executives
(Source: GWI Q2 2023)
• Ranks #1 for trustworthiness
(Ipsos Affluent Study 2023)
Recognising that Masdar has an authoritative voice and partners with experts in the space, a video podcast series was identified as a great way to showcase this talent.
Podcasts for Professionals is a highly successful format for Reuters, with 26.2 million Reuters business decisionmakers reached by podcasts (GMI Global 2023).
Riding the growing popularity for business podcasts, this format has proved to highly successful across all major markets. Podcasts for Professionals are designed for industry experts to share their knowledge and thinking with industry peers, potential investors, policymakers and BDMs in related worlds.
The Content Solution
To meet the brand need and creative challenge head-on, Reuters created Future Energy Talks, an authoritative podcast series designed to be able to explore the complex nuances and questions surrounding a clean energy transition.
The eight-part series was presented by Andrew Wilson. Wilson has a 30+ year career in international broadcasting and presenting and ensured a professional and knowledgeable host to help navigate macro themes, including questions around ensuring an equitable transition and how best to tackle water scarcity.
The series also explored specific industry challenges, including the future of aviation and how we can harness AI in the energy transition.
Leveraging Masdar’s trailblazing approach to these green technologies, the eight episodes were filmed at Reuters Plus studios in London, bringing energy experts, analysts, and captains of industry together from a wide range of sectors.
The series culminated at COP28 in Dubai’s Expo City at the end of 2023. This special episode featured a highly topical conversation with Masdar CEO, Mohammed Al Jameel Al Ramahi, one of the key people driving sustainability in the region at a time when it was in the global spotlight.
Future Energy Talks was given a strong, distinctive visual identity with dynamic opening credits and graphics. All created in-house and filmed at Reuters Plus’ Canary Wharf studios with acclaimed international anchor, Andrew Wilson.
The bespoke series launched around Reuters’ unrivalled editorial coverage and unique distribution tactic. A series of seeded social cuts kept it top-of-mind amongst the target audience and drove interest in key markets.
The format provided a dynamic and flexible medium for deep engagement through audio-visual content.
The Media/Content Amplification Solution
A fully immersive campaign across Reuters multimedia portfolio supported the series, with high-impact ads, Reuters.com homepage takeovers and sponsorship, newsletter sponsorships, content-driven avalanche units above the fold, as well as paid, targeted amplification across X/Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Future Energy Talks was promoted to Reuters users wherever they touched our product.
The campaign also benefitted from a 100% share of voice on the Reuters World News podcast and the World News pages on Reuters.com. Over 1m audio impressions on the World News Podcast Sponsorship (the largest reach of any Reuters campaign to date) helped reach senior audiences on the go.
The Homepage takeover delivered more than 1.4m impressions with the video unit saw a strong CTR of 1.70%, with 100% SOV ensuring dominance, cutting through the noise of a busy news cycle, the target audience was sure to be reached in their key markets.
All the content was contained within a custom content hub designed with a unique look and feel specifically for this campaign.
The Result
Future Energy Talks became a much talked about series in driving brand awareness of Masdar.
The primary KPIs for this series, which ran over a sustained period of four months, were: Engagements, Reach, and Brand Lift.
Based on these metrics this campaign was a huge success., A comprehensive brand study revealed ket perceptions shifts:
This all resulted in an increase in positive attitudes towards Masdar and doing business with them:
• 313% increase in awareness of Masdar
• 136% uplift in favourability of the brand (internal brand study)
• 111% increase in the likelihood those touched by the campaign would invest or partner with Masdar.
An externally run brand study showed favorability increased 230% amongst those who saw the campaign.
Making an impact:
• 38.5m impressions – over-delivering by nearly 300%
• 4.0 million + video views
• 2.2 million social clicks
Outperformed benchmarks by 286%, the final episode, filmed at COP28, saw more than 28,000 engagements.
And this strong performance was echoed across the campaign:
• 1.5 million newsletter opens
• 2.4m+ impressions and a strong CTR of 0.10%
• 143,000 vodcast engagements – 169% over the series goal
• Every episode surpassed engagement goals by at least 134%
“Our partnership with Reuters Plus was outstanding, from ideation to creation and production, the process exceeded our expectations and the content output was exceptional. We look forward to our next opportunity to work together!” – Elie Jihad Karam, Marketing Manager, Masdar