How do you assess whether an idea is brilliant or not? Within Dicomm McCann we use various measures and key amongst them are;
When someone sees or hears about it for the first time, will they immediately say “wow” I wish I was part of the team that conceptualizes such amazing ideas.
How did someone come up with this idea? What do these people eat or drink to be able to think like this?
Does it immediately result in someone saying “aha” this is it?
Does it speak to the brand essence and ethos?
How does this add value to the brand and the consumers?
This is exactly what was in the mind of the Dicomm team as they worked on the proposal to mark the Econet Wireless Zimbabwe 25 year celebrations at the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show. At the back of the team’s mind was to tick all the boxes and Boom – the first drone show in Zimbabwe.
Whilst it is great to have a very imaginative mind, it’s absolutely miraculous to have a client that immediately sees the potential of an idea and becomes eager to bring it to life. The Econet Wireless marketing team is amazing, they immediately latch and build onto ideas that are put on the table. This is what happened here.
What was the goal?
To celebrate with the people of Zimbabwe who have made it possible to achieve the 25 years of being in business milestone whilst doing what had never been done in Zimbabwe.
What did it take?
Careful planning and meticulous execution- some say execution is an art and this is what distinguishes people and institutions. At Dicomm we are obsessed with execution, when it’s time to doing, everyone naturally comes together to help in making it happen. This was complimented by the fact that the client (Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Marketing) is even more obsessed about getting things done, they push and continue to push and will continue to push.
Trust us, the execution of this one was quite hard but because we have always been inspired by our client to believe that “what can’t be done must be done”, we were not taking excuses. We worked closely with client until what seemed to be massive obstacles were all out of the way. Massive shout out to the various very reliable partners that we worked with. This is not the kind of idea that you’ll implement alone.
Of course we did our homework quite well- with the assistance of experienced technical specialists from Rwanda, Singapore, France and of course Zimbabwe, the team ensured the smooth coordination of the drone fleet during the show. Rigorous training and protocols were implemented to guarantee the safety and precision of each drone’s movement.
What was the result?
OMG!!! Whilst we had an idea that this would be big, what we saw afterwards was truly mind-blowing. Social media went ablaze and we’re convinced that those that witnessed this thing were streaming (using Econet data (lol-emoji)) and/or shared the videos with the family and friends. They were excited to have been able to witness the first drone lights show in Zimbabwe.
Comments like;
“Some marketing on steroids from Econet…”
“All corporates should learn from Econet…”
“Talk about leading! Econet becomes the first to do a drone show in Zimbabwe”
So the Econet customers are happy, the client (Econet) is happy, Agency is happy, competitors are happy, everyone is happy (smile emoji). Looking forward to be getting an email from client communicating that agency will get a bonus for assisting in pulling this off as the Return on marketing investment (ROMI) was quite high here!!!
With thousands and thousands of people in the arena, the team diligently executed their plans, as the drones took flight and executed the intricately designed choreography flawlessly. The audience was left mesmerized by the symphony of lights and movements in the night sky. Trust us, this wasn’t easy, it takes courage to do something of this nature, the Dicomm Team and other supporting organisers only celebrated when the last drone touched the ground- we were over-joyed and celebrated with client and Econet customers.
Watch this space, there is more coming…
