It was during Ramadan last year when a fleet of tiny ‘angels’ appeared in the sky to shower goodwill and gifts upon some of Beirut’s most impoverished people. Meanwhile, around the same time in Mexico, Latino smoothie Enrique Iglesias unintentionally unleashed his own shower, which unfortunately happened to be made of his blood, when a concert stunt went horrifyingly wrong. Two vastly different incidents separated by thousands of miles, but yet linked by the same thing: those tiny flying robots we’ve both fondly and ominously come to know as drones.
Yet the word has been flying around for some time now: they made a big splash at Cannes in 2014 when Twitter launched its @Dronie account and posted airborne selfies of grinning ad-landers and Patrick Stewart no less. Emirates recently jumped on board the bandwagon for its ‘View from above’ campaign of which the word ‘drone’ alone was enough to make them plenty of column inches. And of course there’s the whole Amazon ‘Prime Air’, whereby it will deliver packages in 30 minutes or less via drones (well, eventually). From just a few examples alone, it seems their marketing potential is limitless. Yet despite being nearly two years on from Cannes, why does it still feel as if we are on the edge of a drone storm rather than within its eye?
That, according to Justin Mlynarski, regional digital director of UM MENA, may still lie with the negative connotations surrounding drones, especially given their deployment as weapons within the Middle East. “In this region, there has been quite a negative perception of drones,” he says. “They’re seen very negatively as a human-less, machine targeting people indiscriminately. But it has been really interesting to see what good they have been used for. For example, things like combatting poaching in some parts of Africa – they can cover more ground and kind of film whatever animal is being attacked. And there’s really interesting ideas like firefighting; they can be the first on the scene. So there are all kinds of negative connotations, but I think we’re well past some of them.
“In a marketing context, there are two ways I would approach drones if I was a brand,” Mlynarski continues. “The first is if you think about how brands’ roles these days and being a relevant, valuable part of people’s lives. How you can improve people’s lives. The way in which Amazon can use it to send people’s stuff using drones is just one example.
“The second way I would look at it is especially from a content point of view. For example, now you can broadcast live by linking your phone up to Periscope. But with a drone hooked up to Periscope, you can broadcast even more. You can capture content even more, and not just your own stuff but the stuff your influencers can create on your behalf. So it’s a level up from what your mobile phones can do.” He adds: “Even just by doing something with a drone, you’re putting yourself at the centre of a very hot topic at the moment, so just by doing ‘anything’ with a drone means you’re already having a place in a discussion and capturing a moment and getting in while it is still relatively new. You can imagine where Red Bull will go with it.”
However, amid an uneasy geopolitical climate in the Middle East and drones’ association with weapons and warfare here, you may be able to forgive some brands’ reluctance to get behind the wings just yet.
Nevertheless, others, like Beirut nut retailers Al Rifai were keen to show otherwise with their Ramadan ‘angel drone’ last year. Fadi Mroue, managing director of independent agency Republique, which created the campaign, explained: “It is said that during the month of Ramadan 70,000 angels descend on earth and shower it with God’s blessing. Just like angels, we sent out drones to help families in need during Ramadan. The impact of the drones was massive. Even before we launched our film, the city was abuzz with talk about drones delivering help to the needy. Pictures were being posted on social media and some even mistook them for spy drones. So the campaign had traction even before we launched it and this was mainly due to the fact that we used drones.”
He adds: “Drones have the potential of becoming the future of outdoor advertising, delivering much more than just a message. With drones, outdoor signs are now mobile and can offer targeted sampling to customers. Already Google is testing delivering Internet 40 times faster than 4G by drones. Drones are cheap, effective and have far reach, making it here to stay. I believe this is just the beginning for drones and the industry. With longer battery life and the ability to carry heavier loads, connected drones will be able to change the outdoor landscape. Already film production has made leaps with the help of them. It’s fair to say the sky is the limit.”