Recognising that reading a newspaper often goes hand in hand with drinking coffee, Y&R Dubai adapted coffee chain Tim Hortons’ coffee cup sleeves into an advertising medium for Gulf News.

Gulf News is a daily newspaper published in Dubai with a circulation of over 115,000 copies. The online edition of the newspaper is reported to be the number one among the English-language newspapers in the Middle East, North Africa and in the UAE.

Advertising agency Y&R Dubai was hired by Gulf News to help it gain subscribers and increase web traffic. Recognising that reading a newspaper often goes hand in hand with drinking coffee, the agency tapped global coffee chain Tim Hortons (another of its clients in the UAE) and adapted the company’s coffee cup sleeve into an advertising medium.

The resulting “Headline News Cup Sleeve” is now printed using a special printer at the Tim Hortons point of sale that pulls tweets from the Gulf News Twitter account.

Every cup sold in the UAE now bears the newspaper’s current top headline on the coffee sleeve it comes with, with updates made every hour. Also included on the sleeve are a short URL and QR code directing customers to the Gulf News website for the full story. The video below explains the campaign in further detail:

Close to 3,000 new Gulf News Twitter followers signed up within the first two weeks of the campaign’s launch, and traffic on the Gulf News website grew by 41 percent, Y&R says. Subscriptions, meanwhile, are up by 2.8 percent so far.

Another fantastic project by Y&R Dubai who have won this week’s Agency of the Week Award.

Congratulations from the Traffic LIVE team!

‘Agency of the week’ is a weekly award from Traffic LIVE to give praise to design agencies who really are – ‘Doing Different’.The award could celebrate the companies career or a specific project. This award is bound by new rules and is awarded to those companies who shine in their industry for their skill, hard work and spirit.
Think you got what it takes? Email awards@trafficlive.com