Insight
With the rise of technology, social media and constant human connectivity consumer’s lives/habits continue to change drastically making cultural traditions a thing of the past. Ramadan has 2 very visible characteristics. On the one hand, at a spiritual level, it is a month of fasting and spiritual cleansing. On a social and cultural level, the month is associated with family gatherings at Iftar (breaking of the fast). These iftars have become deprioritised with the ever changing fast paced lifestyle that we all lead, especially with the younger generations as friends become their true virtual family.
PepsiCo in Ramadan 2013 wanted to remind consumers of those traditional values and bring back the authentic essence of Ramadan. Children used to spend Ramadan with their families gathered around their television sets watching iconic TV shows that only ran year after year during the holy month. Characters from these TV shows were specifically Nelly, Ammo Fouad, Fatouta and the children’s show Boggie & Tam Tam. These characters had transformed from television personalities to pop culture idols. Pepsi & Lay’s decided to create a short film bringing back these characters to remind consumers about the true spirit of Ramadan: Family.
Strategy
As social media and content have become the main ingredients for any successful campaign over the past couple of years, OMD knew that it had to be at the core of the Ramadan strategy. With everything focused around the film, the agency wanted to use social media to elevate the campaign and played on the audience's sense of nostalgia by constantly talking about their favourite childhood moments from Ramadan and their favourite moments watching the Ramadan characters.
Consumption of video content was no longer on TV only and social media has become more and more on the go so another element needed for success was to ensure that we had the right multi-screen approach. Rolling out the campaign was also going to make it or break it, so it also made sure that all screens were synchronised across the vast MENA region. Along with the above the agency knew that there had to be an engagement factor to the campaign to keep a two way conversation with fans. To do that it wanted to entice consumers to show what their Ramadan looked like. What made it so special?
Execution
The campaign was rolled out at the beginning of Ramadan with great success. Starting off with shorter teaser versions of the film for the first five days across all mediums and platforms and directly followed by the three minute film on primetime television and YouTube.
Once consumers were exposed to the film and started sharing, liking, commenting and posting the engagement aspect of the campaign was launched on social media asking consumers to show their Ramadan. The campaign by no means stopped here as consumers were given many opportunities to create their own content with these iconic characters in the form of profile pictures/cover photos.
This succeeded to an extent where fans would then create their own “PepsiCo Ramadan Power of One” content; such as videos, memes and photos. Towards the end of the campaign all the UGC clips of the fans were collated and edited to produce one regional film that was posted on the Pepsi and Lay’s digital ecosystems and then further shared by users on their own personal social platforms.
Results
The Ramadan film is now the most watched video clip on YouTube in the Arab World – collectively 12 million views generated in less than four weeks. A feat recognised by Google. The viewership of the video was further snowballed (22% of the total) when a number of YouTube Stars and content creators endorsed it and pushed across their circle of followers.
The film exceeded all engagement benchmarks in the Arab world:
+43,000 shares on Facebook and YouTube
+766,000 interactions on the Pepsi & Lay’s Facebook pages
+159,000 mentions on Twitter.
In addition to this, PepsiCo received over 500 submissions of UGC video content that were submitted via a mobile app.