Careem turns employees into walking billboards for clever inflight advertising

Advertising can be expensive, especially if you’re trying to get noticed on flights. But that was not a problem for UAE-based Careem Pay, as it took a creative and very cost-effective approach this summer to promote its services on flights – by turning its employees into walking billboards.

Capitalising on the Dubai’s peak summer travel season, the brand launched the marketing stunt to boost its brand visibility and promote its remittance services.

Forgoing traditional in-flight advertising, Careem Pay asked its employees to wear branded t-shirts on flights, acting as walking billboards, bound for key remittance markets such as India, Pakistan, the UK, and the Philippines.

Some of the branded t-shirts had QR codes on printed on them, accompanied by a casual and locally-phrased call to action, “Habibi, save on money transfers in Dubai”.  Other t-shirts took a brand awareness approach where the message invited people to chat about Careem Pay, saying, “Bad at small talk. Great at money talk. Let’s chat about Careem Pay.”

These t-shirts were targeted towards travellers directly at the Dubai airport and during the flights. According to the brand, the low-cost and high-impact campaign was seen by “hundreds of thousands of travellers” at Dubai Airport and on flights, sharing the insight that over 260,000 passengers passed through Dubai Airport daily during the peak summer months.

The brand also took into account their target audience – expats who often transfer money back to their respective countries – also fly back to their home during the summer months, effectively engaging with their audience “exactly where they were”.

People travelling at the same time that spotted them also shared the videos and pictures of the stunt on their social media platforms, generating interesting around the topic as well as further amplifying the stunt’s reach beyond the airport and flights.

Conceptualised and executed by Careem’s in-house creative agency, the Creative Studio, the campaign highlights how creativity can work without big advertising budgets.

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