2012 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

A massive communication victory, the Saha w Hana community received 45,000 positive comments! The popularity of the channel is seen by some 500 new Facebook likes added each day – currently totaling 150,000. Such was the engagement with our content, that on average each Facebook post received a 1% engagement rate smashing the 0.19% industry average whilst there has been 135,000 minutes of viewing time on our YouTube cooking channel. Arla Foods achieved double digit growth in 12 months, and Lurpak, having recorded close to 0% market share in 2006, is now the category leader with 39% regional market share!

Creative Execution

Saha w Hana, meaning ‘Bon Appetite’, was launched. A social destination for Arab women to look, talk and interact with all things food with help from our content creation. We adopted a dual platform approach, using the respective strength’s of YouTube and Facebook’s to amplify Saha w Hana. For YouTube, we partnered with renowned Chef Osama, creating our very own webseries consisting of 48 short films hosted on our branded cooking channel. On YouTube, the most requested recipes were then cooked and filmed by Chef Osama – using Lurpak and Puck. Facebook is ideal for community outreach and for its multiple engagement options. This included a custom recipe application, weekly polls, competitions, kitchen disaster stories and daily posts on tips & advice. Facebook allowed for 3-way dialogue on open cooking questions, with consumers providing recipe suggestions to other community members as well as receiving advice from our professional nutritionist.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

In 2006, Arla Foods, a 40 year old brand in the Middle East, immediately stopped all communication with their consumers. With record low affinity levels towards Arla’s products Lurpak and Puck, rapidly diminishing market share and aggressive marketing from competitors Al Marai, the objective was simple. To reunite Arla with the Arab consumer, in order to re-grow market share within 12 months. Arab women’s love and pride in cooking for their family – highlighted through the popularity of ‘cooking and recipes’ on Google search, was the starting point for our strategy. With limited online cooking references and fragmented audiences – there was an opportunity to create the 1st dedicated regional food community, brought and supported by Arla’s products. The idea was to create an online food community, unique to the region, creating relevant and local content, becoming the ultimate online reference for Middle Eastern cuisine.