2011 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Historically, Arab women have never trusted washing powders on the delicate silks and fabrics of their Abaya’s – traditional dress wear for Muslim women. However, in 2009 Persil Abaya Shampoo (specialised liquid detergent) made inroads in building trust by launching ‘Arwa3 Abaya’ – an amateur design initiative and the Middle-East’s first piece of branded entertainment that catered for Arab women’s enthusiasm for Abaya fashion. The challenge for 2010 was to keep the momentum going and continue connecting Arab women with Persil Abaya Shampoo.

Success of the Campaign

Maintaining the integration MBC’s ‘Morning Show’ airtime of Arwa3 Abaya Season Two was doubled to 20mins. This time around, we put viewers in charge of elimination by incorporating audience voting, adding more interaction and engagement. Content was extended to include unseen footage, behind the scenes access, profiles and blogs from contestants/judges. Other new additions for Season Two included a branded Youtube channel for all episodes and a Facebook fanpage designed to create dialogue and educate on the benefits of Persil Abaya. Throughout the TV activity, support was given from regular spot advertising, product sampling and PR. Finally, post Arwa Abaya we set up a CSR initiative by auctioning off the most popular Abaya designs on Souq.com and donated the profits to charity ‘UNHCR’ – The UN Refugee Agency.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

Each episode of Arwa3 Abaya reached almost 300,000 Arab women with the microsite alone generating 405,000 unique page visits. TOM awareness rose from 11% to 20%, whilst UBA increased from 33% to 45% by the end of Season Two. Associations of Persil being recognised as ‘an expert in Abaya care’ have increased by 12% to 37%. By the end of Season Two sales volumes of Persil Abaya Shampoo grew from 24% to 33%, whilst market share increased by 15% to 40%. Finally, from being 2nd in the liquid detergents category in 2009, we are now in 1st place!