Live the F1 Life.
Qatar Duty Free turned Hamad International Airport into an F1 showroom for the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix, selling the race-weekend lifestyle on more than 180 screens with CGI and an AI-generated cast.
- Brand
- Qatar Duty Free
- Agency
- M&C Saatchi MENA
- Market
- Qatar
- Region
- GCC
- Year
- 2024
The challenge
Qatar Duty Free, part of Qatar Airways group, is a Founding Partner of the Qatar Grand Prix (The Moodie Davitt Report). M&C Saatchi MENA's task was to link that sponsorship to shopping at the airport through what its entry calls 'the glamorous sophistication of the F1 lifestyle'.
The idea
The campaign invited travellers to 'Live the F1 life' across the airport, on more than 180 screens and on social and digital channels, before and during the race, blending the real airport with CGI animation and stills of an AI-generated cast (MUSE entry). The key visual shows a driver in a racing suit and helmet carrying Qatar Duty Free bags past a Dior store. Around it, The Moodie Davitt Report describes a video of a race car zooming through the airport on its screens, a real F1 car near the Lamp Bear, Formula 1 menus in more than ten restaurants and cafés, and influencers in the campaign's tracksuit and helmet handing out gift boxes, from 24 November to 8 December 2024.
Results
- A 'remarkable year-on-year increase' in airport sales over the race weekend compared with the same period a year earlier, Qatar Duty Free said, without giving a figure (The Moodie Davitt Report; M&C Saatchi MENA's MUSE entry)
Case study source: The Moodie Davitt Report Source ↗
Awards
- MUSE Creative Awards 2025Outdoor Advertising - Transit / Airport / KioskPlatinum
- Global Travel Retail Awards 2025: Best Airport Retail Initiative (reported by The Peninsula)
- Frontier Awards 2025: Retail Activation of the Year (reported by QNA)
Credits
- Production
- Resolution Films
- Director, Resolution Films
- Moneer Barakat
- Managing director
- Mark Blackmore
- Creative director
- Sarah Mestarihi
