No Story Too Big

There’s no story too big to tell – including building the World’s largest airport.

This $16 billion project entails building the world’s largest airport in Istanbul, Turkey in just 42 months from the ground up. Phase one is set to be complete in 2018, which requires moving more than two billion cubic meters of material with more than 400 pieces of Caterpillar equipment.

The complex logistics were all in place and construction began – but the real challenge: How do we tell the story to the rest of the world about how Caterpillar is helping make the impossible possible.

What We Did

Simantel partnered with Wordsmith, Advertising Marketing Independent Network (AMIN) member and Istanbul native, to document the trials and tribulations and bring this remarkable story of a mega project to the rest of the world.

In order to resonate with contractors and construction companies, our goal was to obtain authentic shots highlighting the challenges and physicality of the jobsite. To do this:

• A team of 15 cinema professionals captured the story over a period of 20 days.
• Four days of the shoot were devoted to aerial filming with a drone, getting a bird’s-eye-view of this gigantic airport being built on the shores of the Black Sea.
• The documentary featured firsthand interviews with the people working to ensure the success of the project at every level, from executives to engineers to technicians in the field.
• The video was captured in Turkish to remain authentic and then translated with English sub-text, rather than the other way around.

“This is just one example of how powerful the AMIN network can be,” said Susie Ketterer, Principal at Simantel in Peoria, Illinois. “For an agency located in Central Illinois, our membership to the network allows us to have a bigger reach and a lot bigger footprint. We learned of this opportunity from our colleagues at Wordsmith and it didn’t take us long to realize that we needed to move on this. Access to this type of on-the-ground intel from our AMIN partners, proves a critical benefit when it comes to our clients’ global marketing efforts,” she added.

The Outcome

Between the English-subtitled version and the Turkish version, more than 25,000 people have watched — which we think is outstanding for a 15-minute video. Especially in this day in age when attention spans continue to weaken. The video proved to raise awareness for Cat EMSolutions with contractors and construction companies.

In addition to visibility among the target audience, the industry also recognized the innovation and craft of telling this story. The Communicator, an international program that recognizes big ideas in marketing, awarded Simantel and Wordsmith in the category of videography and cinematography.

At Simantel, we pride ourselves on representing brands that build the world. We are so proud to represent Caterpillar and the Turkish Airlines’ plans to nearly double its current number of passengers to more than 120 million people per year. Talk about brands that build the world!