By adopting an AFP approach (the first ever used within MBC1’s Morning Show), we’ve provided women with real entertainment that’s compelling, original and relevant.
69% of viewers agree they ‘feel closer’ to Persil, compared with 12 months ago whilst associations of Persil as ‘an expert in Abaya fashion’ up 23%.
Each episode reached 500,000 women and online catch-ups garnered 12 months of viewing minutes, which in turn grew Facebook fans by 26%.
Finally, from a business perspective, household penetration rose to 9% (record high), whilst share of specialist black detergents grew by 5% and total liquid-detergents by 4%.
Creative Execution
As with any TV reality format, contestant casting is essential for compelling viewing, particularly when they are amateur Abaya designers. With this in mind, famous Emirati designer Amal Murad hand-picked seven of the regions most talented amateurs from the GCC to compete in a series of grueling challenges based around particular looks or seasons – all designed to push them to their limits.
Monitoring their every move were Swarsovski’s Jeanine Nashef, Sayidaty’s Lina Hourani, TV royalty Loujain Omran and of course Amal Murad.
After 9 weekly episodes, one designer, Matiha Al-Mansour had her life changed forever winning a retail space in luxury store Saks 5th Avenue to market her collection.
In parallel, we recognized industry professionals by creating the ‘Arwa3 Abaya Awards’- acting as the backdrop for the finale.
Multiple initiatives were used to bring the series to life including social media, online display, TVC’s, print, outdoor, mobile and sampling/POS.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea
For three years Persil Abaya Shampoo has conquered the liquid detergent category through ‘Arwa3 Abaya’ – an amateur design initiative for Arabic women to showcase their enthusiasm for Abaya fashion on national TV.
However, as a branded integration, there was little flexibility in influencing content decisions, meaning that although rational product benefits were being communicated, we weren’t making emotional connections.
Research told us Arab-women are fixated with TV reality shows because of the emotive cords struck from watching contestants experience emotional roller-coasters. Therefore, we had to draw inspiration from these programmes and inject elements of melodrama.
Our idea was to go it alone, produce our own programming and move Arwa3 Abaya from ‘Educational Editorial’ to ‘Emotional Entertainment’.