The Siemens Fabric campaign used over 50 sources of data on Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi. We used one of Africa’s oldest communication mediums with a high tech twist to tell the story of each location and reveal how data could help shape Africa’s future.

Siemens is widely known as a global engineering and technology company, but what is less known is that they are a world leader in digital transformation. Siemens is pioneering cutting-edge digital solutions specifically for the African continent in infrastructure, energy, transport and manufacturing

We were tasked to ignite a conversation primarily in three key African cities about how digital technology could help Africa's development and transformation.

A broader objective of giving governments and industry a topic to engage with Siemens on was desired, but no KPIs were set as Siemens had never undertaken a project of this nature.

Africa is the fastest urbanising continent in the world. By 2050, over 1.4 billion Africans will have migrated to a city. But within this problem lies an opportunity that the rest of the world has never had.

Beneath the surface chaos of an African city lie patterns which can be revealed by data.

So how did we ignite this opportunity in a way that all Africans could understand?

We used data from African cities to create unique patterns and used fabric, a communication tool that’s been used in Africa for millennia, to tell a story about how Siemens can help African cities overcome the problems of rapid urbanisation in a way that the rest of the world has never been able to.

Our primary audience were Siemens’ clients and prospective institutional customers, including governments, big businesses and decision makers in infrastructure development primarily in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, but also across the African continent

The secondary audience focused on industry experts and thought leaders, who shape and drive the narrative of digitalisation and technological impact in Southern Africa, and to demonstrate Siemens own thought leadership and innovation in the sector

The tertiary audience was the African general public primarily situated in Johannesburg, Lagos and Nigeria, who are not aware of the dynamic role Siemens plays in the fabric of their daily lives

Our approach was to demonstrate how Siemens is a technological leader in the conversation of growth & urbanisation in Africa, and how important data-driven decisions are for that sustained growth. The campaign needed to bring that hidden data to reality by demonstrating to consumers in an easy to understand and relatable manner, how data can be generated, captured and analysed. We also needed to demonstrate how decision making and planning, using Siemens technology and infrastructure, could help drive African growth and development.

An independent research and data collection expert sourced and identified existing data sets of Lagos, Nairobi and Johannesburg. These were then mapped and overlaid over the actual topography of the city.

We then brought the ebb and flow of the city to life with iconic visualisations of each data set and focused on specific areas of public and commercial interest.

The fabrics were then printed on a variety of high-end fabrics. Zizi Cardow, John Kaveke and Palesa Mokubung, top fashion designers from Lagos, Nairobi and Johannesburg were sent their city fabrics, and tasked to create a cutting-edge fashion collection for their city. 12 garments were produced, each reflecting the future aspirations of each city.

Siemens Fabric Launched on the 23rd of August 2018 with a spectacular fashion event, live coverage on Facebook, Twitter moments, Instagram stories, an online film and a section on the Siemens website.

Over 27 million impressions

Over 2,7 million reach

1:5 PR Return on Investment

35+ Multi-Million Dollar new business leads for Siemens in Africa.

15 New Jobs for disadvantaged women in Johannesburg. In December 2018, Siemens launched a fourth fabric from the township of Alexandra in Johannesburg and partnered with a 100 percent black-owned women enterprise, Legae Larona Sewing Co-operative, to create proudly South Africa merchandise using a data visualisation pattern of Alexandra.

Siemens has been contracted to consult to a municipality in Accra, Ghana based off of interest from this campaign.

Siemens has entered into a Digital Mining Incubator partnership with Wits University and Tshmilogong to advance the mining sector.

South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa was exposed to the campaign at the Berlin G20 Summit and subsequently mentioned the campaign on the official PresidencyZA twitter account.

50 631 website visits in a six week period, making it the most successful campaign Siemens has run globally.