Web Summit Qatar 2025: Creative Activations That Captured the MENA Market
Corporate events
Client events
Tasks
We had three key assets:
a 2×2 meter booth,
a partner listing on the summit's website,
and a bold goal: to grab visitors’ attention – by all reasonable means.
1. Introduce ourselves to the MENA region: We wanted to tell the Arab world about an independent event agency, and to show our clients that we’re ready and open for international projects.
2. Understand the market: We were curious – how do companies in the region handle corporate events? Are their events meaningful? If so, how? If not, why not? What cultural and creative codes do they use? The only way to find out was through direct, human networking – Google wouldn’t cut it.
3. Gain new clients and partners: We personally spoke to everyone who stopped by our booth. We identified business needs and exchanged contacts only when there was a real or potential request for an event. That’s why the contacts we collected weren’t just warm – they were hot. The chance that these people will actually work with us is way higher than if we had just emailed them cold.
a 2×2 meter booth,
a partner listing on the summit's website,
and a bold goal: to grab visitors’ attention – by all reasonable means.
1. Introduce ourselves to the MENA region: We wanted to tell the Arab world about an independent event agency, and to show our clients that we’re ready and open for international projects.
2. Understand the market: We were curious – how do companies in the region handle corporate events? Are their events meaningful? If so, how? If not, why not? What cultural and creative codes do they use? The only way to find out was through direct, human networking – Google wouldn’t cut it.
3. Gain new clients and partners: We personally spoke to everyone who stopped by our booth. We identified business needs and exchanged contacts only when there was a real or potential request for an event. That’s why the contacts we collected weren’t just warm – they were hot. The chance that these people will actually work with us is way higher than if we had just emailed them cold.
What we did
Booth Setup:
1. Our booth was small, but it drew a lot of attention – for two key reasons:
2. Our offline activations and design stood out,
We lucked out with a high-traffic location.
1. Our booth was small, but it drew a lot of attention – for two key reasons:
2. Our offline activations and design stood out,
We lucked out with a high-traffic location.
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While everything around us was ultra-digital – AI, screens, VR – we took a different approach. At our booth, people played... Jenga. With fox paws.
We designed custom branded Jenga blocks and 3D-printed fox paws (based on the cursor paw from our website!)
We played a looping showreel of our events on a mounted screen
We developed a custom online game just for Web Summit: https://fox-uae-game.memketing.com – a Flappy Bird-style browser game called Flappy Fox. To start, users entered their email. A link was sent to their inbox, and the highest scorer won a plush fox – which became a total hit. Everyone wanted one.
Since we’re MandarinFox, we also had a box of real mandarins – with logo stickers. Even weeks after the event, we got emails from potential international partners that started with:
“By the way, the tangerines were delicious!”
Fun fact: we spent €300 on 4 kg of mandarins because... it’s off-season for citrus in Qatar. But it was worth every cent.
For giveaways, we created custom luggage tags with our key visual – people received them in exchange for a contact, and we also gave them out while walking the floor to expand reach.
Our team wore custom uniforms, designed with respect to cultural norms in the Arab world: shirts with a MandarinFox-branded ribbon and enamel pins that echoed our booth style – to create a strong visual match in visitors’ minds.
People were a) surprised, b) delighted – like kids discovering something unexpected.
Result
We knew it might not work. We went into this as a calculated risk – and decided to give it our all.
In the end, we packed everything that worked into just 4 square meters:
an offline game, eye-catching design, playful elements, branded mandarins, giant plush foxes, luggage tags, and a screen showing our showreel.
This case is a big deal for us. We’re proud we took the leap – and it paid off.
We created a micro-event for every single visitor to our booth. Every activation – online and offline – gave guests a unique experience of MandarinFox.
It’s about brand, pride, new perspectives and new doors.
It’s an investment that’s already paying off – if only because of how different we now feel about ourselves and our future.
Team:
Concept Development: Ekaterina Liseycheva, Nadezhda Zubareva
Project Manager: Polina Novikova
Creative Team: Ekaterina Aleksashina, Angelina Dontsova
Design Team: Sobol Olga , Baktybek Suban
In the end, we packed everything that worked into just 4 square meters:
an offline game, eye-catching design, playful elements, branded mandarins, giant plush foxes, luggage tags, and a screen showing our showreel.
This case is a big deal for us. We’re proud we took the leap – and it paid off.
We created a micro-event for every single visitor to our booth. Every activation – online and offline – gave guests a unique experience of MandarinFox.
It’s about brand, pride, new perspectives and new doors.
It’s an investment that’s already paying off – if only because of how different we now feel about ourselves and our future.
Team:
Concept Development: Ekaterina Liseycheva, Nadezhda Zubareva
Project Manager: Polina Novikova
Creative Team: Ekaterina Aleksashina, Angelina Dontsova
Design Team: Sobol Olga , Baktybek Suban
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