Batelco

Batelco Infinity
Case Study
 Outline
•  Bahrain country profile
•  Market Overview
•  Batelco
•  Competition
•  Batelco New Identity
•  Batelco Infinity:
!  The TVC
!  The Idea
!  The timeline
!  Production/costs
!  Channels
!  Response/Feedback
!  Notes
!  References
 Bahrain Country Profile

Full name: Kingdom of Bahrain

Population: 1.3 millions
(including expats)
Capital: Manama
Area: 717 sq km (277 sq miles)
Major language: Arabic
Telecom Operators: Batelco,
Zain, Viva (March 2010)
Penetration Rate: 131%
 Market Overview

Market share: 45 %

Market share: 35 %

Market share: 20 %
Batelco was
established in 1981 as
a Bahraini
shareholding company
and has an authorized
share capital of BD100
million (US$265 million).
It was the first mobile
service provider in
Bahrain until Zain
ventured the market in
2003.
Zain started operations
in the Bahrain in
Dec. 2003 as MTC-
Vodafone. Since
its historic introduction
of 3.5G, WIMAX
and ‘One Network’,
Zain has tapped into
a rich seam of
telecommunication
records & acquiring
almost half of the
market.
In March 2009, STC Group attained the 3rd Mobile Operation
license in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This led to the launch of VIVA,
the new telecom company in Bahrain, on March 3rd, 2010. The
company is approaching the market with new a wide range of
products and services including new product launches.
 Batelco New Identity

The threat from an aggressive rival (Zain) and the entrance

of a third operator (VIVA) -which is backed-up by one of
the biggest telecom groups in the Middle East (STC )- put
Batelco under immense pressure to revamp itself. A new
way of thinking had to be introduced along with a new
brand identity.

In their annual report for 2009, Batelco states the following:

Batelco’s stunning new logo celebrates Batelco as a

Bahraini icon, linking Batelco in colour and with the
letter B, to the Kingdom of Bahrain. The powerful,
bilingual B transcends all cultures and will stand as a
symbol that everyone can identify with and recognise
easily.
The logo also resembles an infinity sign, further
communicating Batelco’s omnipresence in Bahrain.2
 Batelco Infinity
In accordance with their new
identity and revamped image,
Batelco came up with a major
advertising campaign based on
a TVC that runs for 3 minutes 20
seconds. The TVC or short video
will showcase in Cinema’s, on TV
stations but most importantly via
social media channels
(Facebook & YouTube)3

Batelco claims that it is the

biggest innovative ad film ever in
the Middle East with a multi-
million dollars budget!
Batelco Infinity - TVC
 Batelco Infinity – The Idea

The film promises to take viewers on "a

journey through people's ideas", signifying
the potential of their ideas and how they
come to life. 4
The whole TVC rotates around the infinity of
ideas. Ideas that seem to be impossible but
can be realized one day. It’s about
imagination and dreams. (dreams that
could be realized when your limits are
infinite)
 Batelco Infinity - The Timeline 4
2009 2010
September October

First trailer
to be
released Release of
on 15th trailer one
September

Sept 3rd Sept 15th Sept 21st

Sept 8th Sept 16th

The work starts First activity on

around Oct- Facebook.
Nov 2009 Status says the No release of
full movie will trailer one yet Release of
be released in trailer two
October
is set for
October
7th
 Batelco Infinity - The Timeline
2010
October November

More updates
saying that the Release of
movie will be the entire
released end 3:20 movie
No release yet of October
of trailer 2
Oct 9th Oct 31st

Oct Nov 1st

Oct 7th Actual

release of
trailer 2. No release of
the full movie/
TVC yet

You can check the timeline of Facebook status on their main page ‘Batelco Infinity’
 Batelco Infinity – Production/Costs
The timeline to produce the TVC was around 1 year as per
Batelco. As for the cost, they only say it is in millions of $. No
exact cost was given.

Production 5:
Director: Alex & Steffen
DP: Simon Coull
Line Producer: Peter Oad
Advertising Agency: FP7/BAH, Bahrain
Creative Director: Fadi Yaish
Art Directors: Gautam Wadher, Fadi Yaish
Copywriter: Aunindo Anoop
Senior Acccount Director: Mohammed Sabra
Production House: Spy Films & City Films
Executive Producers: Carlo Trulli, Luc Frappier, Mark Hadif, Joyce
Hadif
 Batelco Infinity – Production/Costs
Production (cont.):
Postproduction: Unexpected GmbH, Stuttgart
VFX Supervisor: Alex & Steffen
Lead 3D Artists: Sebastian Badea, Jörg Häberle, Harun Celebi,
Alexander Kiesl, Marcel Kühn, Stefan Kleindienst, Johannes
Wünsch
Lead 2D Artists: Claus Rudolph, Steffen Hacker
Music by: AOC Paris

Abdulla Abu Idrees

Batelco Executive Marketing Manager

Mohammed Dashti
Batelco Marketing Campaign Manager
 Batelco Infinity – Channels
Basically, Batelco depended on TV spots, Cinema
spots, a micro site: www.batelco.com/infinity and a
dedicated facebook page
www.facebook.com/infinity . Also Batelco was betting
that this TVC could go viral and move from one user to
the second and one site to the other (sort of worked)
Main Site
In the main site you will find icons to click that will enable you to
comment and interact with the site. It will give you behind the
scenes shots along with info about infinity and Batelco
Facebook Page
Photo albums of the shooting sessions along with videos of the making were
shared on Facebook so that people get more immersed in the idea.
 Response/Feedback

Since the initial release of the first trailer,

thousands and thousands of people
worldwide are watching the TVC on
YouTube, Facebook, regional advertising
sites, telecom sites, global advertising
sites… and the comments are mostly
positive and asking for more (the
coming slides will showcase some of the
sites, likes and comments found online)
Facebook
Some of the comments on
the first trailer
Facebook
Some of the comments on
the second trailer & full movie
Youtube
The TVC was
viewed 385,917
times so far with
1,685 likes.
Almost 97.2 % likes
and 2.8% dislikes
Youtube (Statistics)

It is important to
mentioning that a
big number of the
viewers is in Canada,
USA, Brazil, Germany,
France, Spain & Peru.
Main Site
Likes on the main site reached
134,000 so far hundreds of posts that
can appear on facebook as well
Main Site
Though some didn’t get the concept or don’t know what
Batelco is, still they love it!
Gizmodo
High Definite
Coloribus
Adsoftheworld
It’s worth
mentioning that
the TVC took 7.7
out of 10 on ADS
OF THE WORLD
Best Ads on TV
World News
Zawya
Campaign Middle East
Blogs

A sample of a
Kuwaiti blog
embedding the
link of the TVC in
the main page
Notes
"  Though Batelco created a dedicated Facebook page for this campaign, they
missed out on creating a YouTube channel, FLICKR account… all of which are
social media sites that could have helped spreading it more
"  Batelco probably needed more time to launch the movie since they seemed
to have missed out 3 release dates (Trailer 1, trailer 2 and the full version)
"  Batelco created a dedicated account on SoundCloud (a music sharing site)
and have several ringtones and tracks available to download for free. I like
the progressive house one (my favorite music genre). Simply brilliant!
"  Having some of the production done in Canada and
Germany, gave the TVC a strong initial boost in these
countries. I think it is how Gizmodo and other sites knew about
it (maybe doing our TVCs with global production companies
could help spread our TVCs among the advertising world since
the sites of such companies are always visited by graphic
designers, art students and ad people)
"  Before the infinity campaign, Batelco had 5,428 fans who like
their facebook page. When they created a different page just
for the Infinity Campaign, their fan base surged into 133,077!!!
 References:
•  1: http://bit.ly/hdWh6H (good ereader)
•  2 : Batelco Annual Report 2009

•  3 : http://bit.ly/chb0Ke (campaignme)

•  4 : www.facebook.com/infinity

•  5 : http://bit.ly/fqEple (coloribus)

Sites:
•  http://gizmodo.com/5698567/the-city-where-everything-awesome-
happens-all-the-time
•  http://www.thehighdefinite.com/2010/11/batelco-infinity/
•  http://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/ambient/batelco-the-official-infinity-
film-experience-14053805/
•  http://adsoftheworld.com/media/online/
batelco_infinity_the_official_infinity_film_experience
•  http://www.bestadsontv.com/ad/31393/Batelco-INFINITY---Trailer-I
•  http://wn.com/Infinity_%28film%29
•  http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20100830045345/Batelco%20To
%20Release%20Multi-Million%20Dollar%20Film
•  http://campaignme.com/2010/08/29/1840/batelco-to-launch-multi-million-
dollar-film/
Thank You.