We had previously established a robust internal brand and identity system to allow for rapid expansion of divisions and creation of new ‘business as usual’ activities. Digital offerings such as this were generally aimed at a younger 18-30 audience (by no means Al Jazeera’s core market) who responded well to small, independent brands but were also reassured by the hands-off support of a larger, established organisation. So the challenge was to create a unique standalone brand ready for the division’s first major event.
Canvas identity development
The goal for the hackathon was to create an environment for experimentation, collaboration, long-term relationships, and hopefully, a few world-changing ideas to come out. We sought to de-emphasise prizes and competition to incentivise collaboration. All projects were submitted under open-source licensing. A full suite of visual branding and communications work was created to support this.
Alongside the visual and communications work, the media activity consisted of two planned phases:
Phase 1
- Create awareness of the challenge within the target audience.
- Ask for submissions from desirable candidates. (reduced from a minimum 1000 entries to 150 – 200 to take part in the event)
- Individual sites targeted through networks.
Phase 1 tactics focused on:
- Search Marketing
- Social Media – Paid Promotion
- Web and Mobile Networks – Contextual and topic based targeting.
- Specific Websites
Phase 2
- Create hype during the event and beyond.
Target Audience: 18 to 30. No gender bias. Engineers, Developers, Journalists. Interested in technology and science. Avid social media users. Use multiple platforms to consume news. Inventors.
Target Markets
• US • UK • Canada • Singapore • India • Turkey • Germany • MENA with focus on Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon.
The environment design of the event itself was closely tied to the work that entrants and followers would have already seen in the digital comms campaign. It was hugely important to maintain this consistency and brand this as a premium event. The past experiences of Hackathons has always been a casual and “thrown together affair”. To attract people to travel from all over the world to Qatar we had to make this something out of the ordinary.
Central to the branding challenge was the existing strength of the Al Jazeera brand. Apart from the core Al Jazeera audience being quite different to the one we wished to reach, the brand itself has a very powerful image, both as an international news broadcaster and as a governement institution. The image of Qatar and Gulf coutries also had to be overcome to attract entrants.
The hackathon brought 86 people from 37 countries to Doha to hack at challenges centred on better contextualising media. Among the groups were a Pulitzer Prize winner, members of an R&D team at another large media organisation, and also several young developers and journalists still in college. Diversity has always been part of Al Jazeera’s Code of Ethics and was an important goal in the identity design and campaign. We were particularly excited by the fact that 40% of the participants were women. One (male) participant noted, “I never thought I would be the only guy on the team at a hackathon.”
Art Direction, Brand development, Presentation, Team Coordination, Project Management, Budget Control, Product development.