DUKE’s YPO Africa campaign drives membership on African continent

YPO is the premier leadership organisation for chief executives in the world. With over 25, 000 members in over 130 countries across all industries and businesses, it is a global network that creates powerful connections to foster business and personal growth. Reserved for the highest performers, these chief executives must be leaders of businesses with over R150m in revenue and be individuals of high caliber.

When tasked with helping to increase the YPO membership on the African continent five-fold within the next three years, DUKE devised their “Lead As One” campaign – an exclusive, targeted campaign that speaks to those visionary business leaders who will ultimately foster the YPO objectives in Africa.

“We believe that joining YPO is about harnessing the knowledge, influence and trust of the world’s most influential and innovative business leaders to inspire business, personal, family and community impact. Our goal is to connect successful, far-sighted business leaders to help facilitate good business across Africa” says DUKE Executive Creative Director, Mike Beukes.In order to connect with this difficult-to-reach group of individuals, part of the campaign leverages the network of existing YPO members to share a unique and intriguing gift with prospective members. The gift drives them into a simple digital experience (designed and developed by Platinum Seed), which gives the prospect an opportunity to understand YPO Africa’s vision for Africa, as well as an indication as to what they stand to gain from membership to the organisation.

The YPO vision is delivered through a video, which creates a unique perspective of the YPO future for Africa, all told visually through a world created through the YPO triangle logo. With animation and visual effects created by Motif VFX, the story talks to the potential in Africa and the opportunity for a prospective new member to be part of that visionary process.

The campaign also includes a rigorously targeted LinkedIn campaign (developed in partnership with the platform itself) which blends content with grooming and targeted communications.“YPO is such an influential organisation with such selective membership criteria that our campaign had to be very discerning in both its medium and delivery. We are talking to the very top business leaders on the continent – we had to find a way in which to engage that grabbed their attention and, most importantly, provided them with a story of potential they couldn’t ignore,” ends Beukes.

Adds YPO Africa Regional Chair Craig Kiggen, “The value of connection with peer leaders continues to drive YPO’s diverse membership. At our core is one simple, extraordinary idea and mission: Better Leaders through Lifelong Learning and Idea Exchange^TM. DUKE’s campaign demonstrates a thorough understanding of this powerful network and it’s potential throughout Africa. The initiative has already been well received amongst our members and we are confident that we are going to see impressive results.”