THE MINISTRY OF INVESTMENT EGYPT

Lead Agency

EYE ON EGYPT "EXAMINING AN ECONOMIC RECOVERY"

The Challenge

‘Changing Perceptions of Egypt’
The investment climate in Egypt has witnessed major legislative and institutional reforms over the past year. While the country boasts a diversified economy, flexible monetary management and a booming stock market, many potential investors are unaware of all it has to offer.

The campaign challenge was therefore to promote the benefits Egypt has to offer investors and organisations of all sizes, by raising awareness of the advantages of investing and conducting business in this thriving Economy.
The target audience were policy influencers and business decision makers in Europe and East Coast of the United States.

The Strategy

The Egyptian Ministry of Investment selected The Wall Street Journal as the ideal partner to help showcase Egypt’s reform and growth story. The decision was based on the publishers’ powerful reach and its proven ability to deliver the highest quality in custom content.

The campaign strategy was to deliver a detailed investment overview of multiple sectors in Egypt, as well as to provide insight & commentary from the CEO’s of leading global companies that have successfully invested in Egypt. This would be done using commentary about their specific fields of business, to help resonate with the target audience of business leaders.

Multiple advertising sponsors from Egypt & beyond were selected to further bolster the message that Egypt is ideal for organisations of all sizes and across multiple industries. Validators from the US and Europe were approached to comment on the state of affairs in Egypt in the various fields.

Some of the topics explored included: Scene-setter: Featuring interviews with government figures in the U.S. and Europe – What is behind Egypt’s successful
economic recovery, and its estimated 4.2% economic growth for 2015. From which key sectors most of that growth will emerge and where the strongest investment potential is.

Financial reforms success: CEOs at leading multinationals share insight, as do experts from the U.S., Europe and other Middle Eastern nations – Since the election of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, how new legislation has helped shape a more business friendly environment in Egypt, and where the benefits most visible to foreign investors/businesses considering Egypt as a prospect are.
Sector updates: Information and analysis for investors in banking, retail, tourism, transport, construction, manufacturing, technology and ICT, real estate, energy and petro-chemicals. How improvements to Egypt’s health care, education and infrastructure have brought about a better quality of life and stronger business prospects for all.

Ways to nurture new companies in Egypt – including investment ventures that provide seed funding and train start-up teams, as well as the creation of The GrEEK Campus Technology and Innovation park, all of which are helping to make Cairo attractive as a new international hub for tech entrepreneurs.

The Implementation

WSJ Custom Studios created ‘Eye on Egypt’, a visually stunning 12-page print special advertising feature that explored the topics above. Beginning with an introduction featuring an interview with Egypt’s president Abel
Fattah el-Sisi about creating a more prosperous future, it was a positive and informative piece that explored how Egypt’s vision had been responsible for its growth recovery -creating many opportunities. Written by expert editors in each of the fields, the piece included professional photography and compelling infographics to really bring the content to life.

It was strategically published within The Wall Street Journal daily newspaper on the 25th September – the opening day of the United National General Summit meeting in New York (Sept. 25-28). ‘Eye on Egypt’ ran within the Washington/Baltimore, Greater New York & Europe editions of the paper reaching over 1 million WSJ readers and maximising awareness at a time when policy influencers and decision makers in each of the key regions were actively engaged.

Exposure to Eye on Egypt, especially among America’s policy makers and opinion leaders was further enhanced through The Wall Street Journal Capitol Hill Program. Eye on Egypt was delivered to all 435 members of the House of Representatives, and additional copies were delivered to all 100 members of the US Senate – placing the content in the hands of those who drive legislative decisions.

The piece also featured advertising from 10 sponsors from multiple business sectors, all of which were introduced to WSJ by Ambassador Yasser El-Nagger, Principal Deputy Minister of Investment.

In addition to the print piece, targeted messages which included ‘Invest in Egypt….Now is the time’ were placed on the Dow Jones Zipper. This is the digital display that encompasses the building on One Times Square New York, reaching over 1 million passers-by each day. The Eye on Egypt feature also ran within ‘Today’s Paper’ – a digital version of the daily print edition of The Wall Street Journal which is placed on wsj.com. It can be read on any device by our subscribers.

On the hour, every hour, for the 4 days of the New York United National General Summit, messages also ran from selected section sponsors and the Ministry of Investment Egypt (see supporting slides for visuals).

The Result

Eye on Egypt was successful in showcasing all that Egypt has to offer using a huge range of long-form articles with commentary from industry experts, stunning photography and informative infographics.

The content had high levels of reach across both key regions (see below).

Total Circulation (Greater New York, Washington and Europe): 315,451
Total Readership (Greater New York, Washington and Europe): 902,000
This was further bolstered by the highly targeted distribution at Capitol Hill.

The campaign not only received positive feedback from advertising partners but was so effective in raising the profile of Egypt that another campaign has been commissioned for launch in 2016