Riyadh Season is a festival that exists to entertain. In the past advertisements, similar to those across the category, look to showcase the specific events and properties on offer. Instead our work sets out to captivate our audience with a film more akin to content than commercial. Without mention of the festival until the end card, the audience is free to indulge in a short film that follows our hero on a psychedelic quest for more action.

Riyadh Season is the entertainment destination in Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia, that runs for 6 months out of the year (October - March), and has something for everyone. From restaurants, to concerts and plays, to sporting events, to shopping.

While Riyadh Season has been around for several years, it has historically been a popular destination for mostly locals and visitors from other Middle Eastern countries.

Everyone’s wildest wishes can come true at Riyadh Season. The task was to develop a campaign that introduced Riyadh Season to the world: to establish mass awareness and unleash the unimaginable magic that Riyadh Season holds.

This year, the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia had big ambitions to increase visitors of Riyadh Season from 7 million people in the 2022-2023 Season, to the 12 million visitors that are expected for the 2023 - 2024 Season. The priority was to bring in visitors from the United States and Canada, Europe, and Asia, which led us to our target audience of families, who are willing to try something new with their vacation time.

Riyadh Season, hosting 8500+ activities over nearly six months, is a treasure trove of experiences. The campaign, spearheaded by "The Wish," unfolds a cautionary tale where Greg's desire for "a little more action" spirals into an extraordinary journey granted by the magical genie, Mike Tyson. Set in a lackluster beach resort, the film transforms mundane wishes into hyperbolic scenes mirroring Riyadh Season's attractions. From a psychedelic rollercoaster to laser-tag shootouts and a surreal boxing match between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou, the genie, played by Mike Tyson, amplifies each wish. The film concludes with a cliffhanger as Greg has two wishes left, urging viewers with a super: "Wish For More," to embrace the excitement at Riyadh Season, breaking free from the mundane.

In 2023, The General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia set big ambitions to boost visitors of the Riyadh Season entertainment festival by 5 million. This ambition was specifically set on families in the U.S, Canada, and Europe, seeking a departure from their routine vacations. With low awareness of the festival and city, we set out to earn recognition of Riyadh as a destination that holds unparalleled, magical experiences for everyone. To achieve this, our creative and media strategy needed to match the same grandeur as the festival itself. Our film “Wish”, led audiences through a cinematic experience, showing them how Riyadh Season transcends their wildest dreams. Through this narrative, we solidified Riyadh Season as one of the world’s top entertainment destinations where extraordinary experiences awaited.

Synchronized with the scale of Riyadh Season, we focused on providing the film with a monumental platform. The cinematic and immersive experience that "Wish" captured aimed to captivate families in engaging and contextually relevant settings. Anticipating a big buzz surrounding the opening night fight between champions Fury and Ngannou in the initial phase of our campaign, we strategically aligned with this momentum in media coverage. Quickly following the fight, we aired "Wish" during a prime time slot—Monday Night Football—ensuring maximum visibility.

Capitalizing on the perfect contextual fit within the sports domain, we continued reinforcing Riyadh Season's promotion through additional TV and Online Video investments. We continued to bolster “Wish” on social media, where we ran paid promotions across multiple platforms. Leveraging the star power of Mike Tyson, the protagonist of our film, we orchestrated a post to his 23.8 million followers, gaining further organic traction and reach.

The film was a viral success, with over 132 million organic views across social channels, and over 1.1 million engagements on owned posts. This level of organic reach equates to an earned media potential of over $950,000.