Emirates NBD is one of the oldest and largest banks in the UAE. More ‘brand’ than bank– it is a homegrown institution that drives the future of the nation, while remaining rooted in its heritage.

Everything it does, is guided by the overarching purpose of “prosperity for all” through equal opportunity and empowerment. It is also the first UAE bank to publicly commit to equal representation of women in its workforce and senior leadership.

ENBD wanted to activate the brand on Emirates NBD with a purposeful idea that celebrated the heritage and traditions of the UAE while paving the way for more female empowerment in the country – with the objective of appealing to Emirati women and earning overall brand love from the community.

The idea was to drive the narrative on true and complete women’s empowerment in the UAE by bravely giving a voice to generations of Emirati women whose basic freedom of artistic self-expression has been silenced for centuries.

On Emirati Women’s Day, we collaborated with renowned Emirati poet and Chairwoman of the UAE Writer’s Union – Al Hanouf Mohammed, to take a bold and inspirational step that was until now, considered unthinkable, despite the potential backlash from traditional Emirati communities.

With a public performance in UAE’s largest mall – she became the first-ever woman to perform traditional Al Azi poetry in front of men, with a poem that acknowledged the historic achievements and contributions of Emirati women that have been completely left out of the over 250-year history of this art form.

Emirati Women’s Day was the perfect occasion to launch the initiative. But to truly get noticed and trigger a conversation, we needed to collaborate with a renowned personality.

Which is why, we approached Al Hanouf Mohammed – a published poet and author, and Chairwoman of the UAE Writer’s Union.

We collaborated with her to write the poem and in it, pay tribute to the most iconic Emirati women in the nation’s history, who have served as inspirational role models for generations of Emirati women everywhere.

Al Hanouf became the face of our PR-led campaign, and following her initial public performance, she took the Al Azi poem to multiple platforms – from local media interviews and public school events to international conferences, literature festivals and special events.

With this, we successfully reached thousands of Emirati girls and women – and inspired them to confidently share their own poetry with the world.

Al Hanouf’s first performance took place in UAE’s largest mall on Emirati Women’s Day and was live streamed on our social media.

She was introduced as ‘The First Emirati Aziya’ – the word aziya being coined by us as a previously non-existent, feminine form of the masculine ‘Azi’.

Following this, we created multiple immersive experiences of her poem in malls over the country – and even released a short film in cinemas across the nation.

The poem itself was released, verse by verse, on social media – each verse highlighting the achievements of different iconic Emirati women.

With the support of a small-budget PR campaign, we even invited local media channels to the live performance, which helped amplify the news story.

The campaign achieved an earned media value of USD 230,000 – and received phenomenal engagement on social media with hundreds of Emirati women sharing their own versions of an Azi poem.

Female Azi performances were organized in more than 800 Emirati schools all over the UAE, and over 415,000 women were engaged in total.

All of which, resulted in a 43% increase in brand respect for Emirates NBD, and a 164% increase of sentiment in favour of supporting Emirati female artists