2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Ramadan being such a cluttered environment, all key players are seen fighting for a piece of the cake and choosing TV as a primary platform. du knew they had to find smarter ways to stand out and be relevant. Smarter meant utilizing both data and innovation to understand the audience behavior during the holy month of Ramadan and create relevant content that leaves them with a memorable experience. Using the right data, trends and tools, we wanted to be able to be part of the audience experience rather than disrupt and bombard with tactical offers as most do during the holy month

Creative Execution

The campaign was executed on YouTube via highly relevant messages using the Vogon tool. More than 150 custom messages were dynamically served based on the top searched for categories and keywords on YouTube. By automating the process, this tool avoided manually inputting the creatives, hence, being cost efficient for the client. By being contextually relevant the messaging auto optimized based on people’s interests and search results. E.g., if a user was consuming cooking related videos and content, they were targeted with a bumper ad that read “ Just a short wait before iftar begins” . These micro moments when consumers seek out particular interests, signify the best periods for our brand to be present and therefore be top of mind. Leveraging the tool’s capabilities, the brand was contextually relevant by serving the audience with clever witty messages tailored towards their interest. Therefore, complementing their experience rather than disrupting it.

• Vogon’s unique execution was 15% more efficient from a CPV perspective and 10% more efficient from a View rate perspective compared to benchmarks • We witnessed a 37.2% uplift in ad recall compared to the 25% world average and a 24.4% lift in brand favourability in comparison to the world average showcasing a 4% lift. • With a total investment of $80K , we achieved 6.9 M views, reaching more than 7.4 M users at an average frequency of 4x and a CPV of $0.01. • By tailoring the messaging, our creatives resonated with specific audiences. Entertainment, Cooking & Religion categories performed best with Entertainment scoring the highest View Rate resulting in 2.3M Views and Religion having the lowest CPV at $0.011.

The du Ramadan Greetings campaign demonstrates a thorough media strategy and a first of a kind execution in the region by pushing boundaries of innovation. During Ramadan, advertisers compete to showcase and differentiate their brand amidst a cluttered landscape. du therefore wanted to stand out by trying a new concept: Vogon. Vogon is a tool that creates multiples of a single video with slight customizations on each version, allowing for a hyper targeted and personalized approach to advertising. Vogon summarizes the essence of intent based marketing as it empowers brands to be relevant in real-time.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Through our partnership with YouTube, we were able to leverage their newly introduced technology by being the first in the region to incorporate their Vogon tool. As du is a technology partner, this puts du at the forefront of leading innovation. We looked at what people are most interested in watching during the previous Ramadan months. The top themes during this period were religion, entertainment, food and cooking, with peaks happening around sohour (starting fast) and iftar (breaking fast) timing. Utilizing the data above along with the tool, we wanted to customize messages relevant to what videos people are searching for in real-time. The idea in essence was to keep it simple. Whenever a user on YouTube was searching for any of the top keywords we had identified and built into the tool, a bumper ad with a relevant message was served before they watched their video.