2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Branded content as a discipline is still new to the region, but gaining in popularity. It may have initially been used as a “cost-effective” solution for brands with small budgets, but now bigger brands have understood the advantage of using the right content to connect to people through real and honest story telling. The approach of many brands to branded content tends to be rather contrived. They cannot easily test their content and tread cautiously, going with safe material. For many, branded content is considered supporting material to traditional media that cannot stand on its own. In the region certain topics (sensuality, religion, and politics) are considered inappropriate and are quickly censored according to the regulations of each country, leading to restrictions on what can be aired on TV.

Results

Women in the Middle East rule in their kitchens, but at the same time feel trapped inside them. As a trusted brand that has always been supportive of women, MAGGI understood that they long for new ways to expand their horizons, particularly in the Middle East, where avenues for self-expression are limited. MAGGI took on the mission of inspiring women with a new approach, one not based on traditional media, and with storytelling at its core. Women’s real-life experiences took precedence over the product. The idea came to life in The MAGGI Diaries, a series of webisodes, in which MAGGI takes four housewives on a journey of cultural and culinary discovery to Morocco, Jordan, Oman and the UAE. Women in the Middle East followed their travels with growing interest, discovering the richness that new experiences can add to their life. MAGGI Diaries was released on a customized YouTube channel as a series of webisodes narrating the travels and personal journeys of 4 women. As main content it was supported by an integrated campaign including: • PR: a cooking session for journalists and food bloggers to get to know the ambassadors more personally. • ATL support to drive brand visibility, with a trailer for TV and outdoor communication introducing the ambassadors. • Online media campaign: to drive viewership to the episodes, engage with viewers and initiate conversation. • Additional content was developed to create even more engagement through: o Sides stories: a closer look at the interesting stories of the people the ambassadors met on the journey o The ambassadors’ personal reflections o 24 step-by-step videos of the recipes that the ambassadors discovered along the way • On-ground integration: events such as Taste of Dubai and Hawa World, during which the ambassadors shared their recipes and experiences

The campaign was mainly social, using the brand’s owned platforms to create a log of unique & inspirational experiences. - Facebook, through paid media, was used to push the webisodes and highlight individual discoveries through weekly posts. - Twitter was used to spark conversation between brand and audience with additional content. - The PR event was promoted live through our Twitter page and our ambassadors’ personal accounts. - Takeovers & impactful formats as well as traditional media like TV and PR was also used to pique interest & drive consumers to follow MAGGI Diaries on YouTube.

MAGGI Diaries was an immediate success. Many women even asked to participate in the journey. Our YouTube channel was propelled to the 2nd fastest-growing FMCG channel in MENA with almost 11 million views and 11,500 new subscribers (worth about 27.5 years of streaming time). We had a view-through rate of 39%. Facebook had a category-leading 21% engagement rate while the brand saw a 400% growth on Instagram since launch. Twitter had an engagement of 9% and 14,959 new followers. Finally, we had an outstanding 7% and 6% market share growth in KSA and UAE respectively.