switch case study dubai airports - english

Case Study

Dubai airports

Client: Dubai airports

Communication tool: ConneCtions newspaper,

www.dubaiairportsconnections.com

Frequency: Quarterly

objectives: internal CommuniCations

target audience: employees

Communication tool: www.dubaiairportsconnect.com

Frequency: Quarterly

objectives: external engagement

target audience: b > b

Communication tool: www.dubaiairportsreview.com

Frequency: annual

objectives: internal anD external

CommuniCations / engagement

target audience: b > b

Intelligence

talktoswitch.com ~ 01 ~

Meaningful conversations.

Overview

Our Dubai Airports project has been one of our most exciting. It has proven yet again that the print channel for content is alive and kicking – in this instance because of its real-world utility for so many people who don’t have workplace access to email (and probably never will).

But it has also showcased just how far Switch has come in helping big clients make the big leap from print to digital – and reap substantial rewards from both content platforms.

By being involved with Dubai Airports at the inception of a print project, we have been able to develop a powerful understanding of the communications needs of a huge organisation. This has given us the ability to create meaningful content that can be tailored for audiences as disparate as a customs officer, an airline CEO, through to a baggage handler.

These skills are scalable. They are connected. They engage audiences around the world, turning staff members and the public into brand ambassadors as we go.


A huge operation.

The Challenge

Dubai Airports owns and operates Dubai International – the world’s second busiest airport for international passenger traffic after London Heathrow. In 2012, it handled 57.6 million passengers, a figure that is set to grow to just under 100 million a year by 2020. As if that were not enough, Dubai Airports also owns and runs the behemoth cargo operation, Dubai World Central.

Managing such enormous potential requires careful coordination with Dubai Airports’ thousands of staff, its dozens of industry partners, and the flying public itself. But it wasn’t always like this. In 2011, Switch won a reasonably small, but beautifully formed contract: to take over production of Dubai Airports’ quarterly internal newsletter, Dubai Airports Connections.


We lent a helping hand.

The Solution

First, we changed the name to the more wieldy Connections. We re-designed the inside pages to make them more accessible, with better use of colour, more diverse elements such as fact boxes and pull quotes, and a solid relationship with Dubai Airports’ new internal branding.

While the content continued to be written by Dubai Airports’ in-house marketing team, we provided a little copyediting to ensure each edition was consistent, and provided full Arabic translation.


Then we spread the message further.

The Result

Connections was so well received that in 2012, Dubai Airports asked us to repurpose some of the content for an external audience – but this time online.

The result was dubaiairportsconnect.com, a bilingual news site complete with an HTML email newsletter. Designed and built by Switch, Connect is sent to the group’s key partners, including the police and immigration, customs, and hundreds of cargo companies.


And further still.

Logical Progression

Armed with this as a tester, in 2013, we then took the whole of Connections online so that staff members could access it wherever they were. Dubai Airports understood that many employees have limited or no workplace access to emails, so the printed version remained an important component of their communications strategy. But www.dubaiairportsconnections.com gave Connections’ content a life of its own online, making it accessible to a much wider audience.

Like Connect, the Connections site is accompanied by an HTML email newsletter, and is published in both English and Arabic. Both sites are feature-rich and fully social, including additional content such as image galleries, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin.


We delivered the complete package.

Results

In Connections, Dubai Airports has a complete internal communications package for its roughly 50,000 staff, in print and online – one that can be re-purposed for external communications whenever deemed necessary. It meets the needs of a wildly diverse group of employees from often completely different backgrounds, income levels and positions in the corporate hierarchy. It is inclusive, in the sense that it doesn’t dismiss anyone as either too important or too lowly to receive the clear encouragement and sense of community Connections creates.

The Connect website, on the other hand, exceeded even our wildest expectations. It has so far received more than 40,000 hits from an email database of less than 2,000, and because all Switch sites are fully responsive, more than 10 per cent of Connect readers access it through their smartphones or tablets. It is even being viewed on a Nintendo Wii.


Then we went even further.

The Big Leap Forward

As you’ve probably gathered, being the world’s second busiest airport means Dubai Airports has a lot to talk about. And for years that has been achieved through a printed annual report. But for an organisation wishing to communicate with partners around the world, that presented a huge distribution problem.

So Dubai Airports asked Switch to create a bleeding edge, online-only yearbook; as far as we know, the first of its kind to be deployed in the Gulf.

www.dubaiairportsreview.com is a gorgeous piece of corporate engineering. It can be viewed easily on any device, is in both English and Arabic, and has a host of special functions. This includes some very cool animated graphs to bring its otherwise dry data to life. We even filmed Paul Griffiths, the organisation’s CEO, delivering his welcome message.

We also completely redesigned the terminal maps to make them easier to understand. Then we animated them too. Rather than have one map crowded with information, the site enables people to choose what they view: only restaurants and shops for example.


The results were impressive. And instant.

Results

The contrast between the printed report in 2011 and our online solution was apparent within minutes of the site going live. Instead of a few hundred copies making their way by post to be delivered over a period of days, even weeks, anyone in the world could access the content, in two languages, on any device.

From May 8 2013, when it went live, until the end of August, the site received 5,546 unique visitors, viewing almost 20,000 pages.

Readers came from around the world. Of course the single biggest country was the UAE, but that still only accounted for around a third of views. The UK, Europe and Asia also featured heavily – given that these markets contain significant concentrations of Dubai Airports’ partners this suggested that the target audience was being reached effectively.

There were also healthy numbers of people viewing the site on mobiles (745) and tablets (308). The downloadable pdf version provide popular too, with around 2,000 downloads – approximately one third of those who visited the site.


One of the best strategic decisions we made at Dubai Airports was choosing Switch as our primary partner for the design and production of our corporate publications. Switch is extremely efficient and effective in their work and consistently strives for perfection. We’ve worked with a number of companies over the years but we believe that Switch is the company to lead us into the future of our employee communications with their excellent creativity, editorial skill and digital savvy. I would recommend Switch to any organisation that is looking to take their communication needs to a level of excellence.

Atif ElkadiManager Internal & Customer Service Communications

Marketing & Corporate CommunicationsDubai Airports

Testimonial

~ 10 ~talktoswitch.com

In Numbers

World’S 2nd BuSieSt airport50,000 employees / More than 60 million passengers

3 CoMMuniCation ChannelS digital and print, fully responsive and bilingual

internalnewsletter

ConneCtionS 5,000 printed copies

4 times a year

Microsite

email newsletter

external e-newsletter

ConneCtmicrosite

email newsletter

40,000 hits from an email database

of 2,000

annual Yearbook

revieWthe region’s 1st fully responsive, bilingual, multimedia, online-

only, html5 yearbook

Won major international award

Always talking about you.

If you want your customers in Asia

and the Middle East to talk about you,

you need to talk to us.

talktoswitch.com

Switch Limited

1103A, Business Central TowersDubai Media City

PO Box 24173Dubai, UAE

Office: +971 4435 5711Mobile: +971 55711 8499Email: [email protected]

Switch Communications

48b Amoy StreetSingapore, 069874

Office: +65 6438 1998Mobile: +65 9005 4753

Email: [email protected]

Switch Limited

Al Fardan Office TowerOffice 950, 9th Floor

Al Funduq 61PO Box 31316Doha, Qatar

Direct: +974 4410 1719Mobile: +974 7786 3136

Email: [email protected]