With almost 20 years of experience, Nabil Sleiman leads the marketing communications division at Almarai, championing future-forward strategies that emphasise storytelling.
If you grew up in the 80s or 90s, you know the thrill of a snack run (and I mean run) during a commercial break. While those snack-break dashes may be less frequent these days, television remains a prime space for brands vying for attention during Ramadan in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
For years, our marketing team at Almarai has strategised the best way to effectively market our dozens of food products to millions across the MENA region during this special month. With 57% of residents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) UAE and Saudi increasing their grocery spending during Ramadan, and competition at its peak, we knew a traditional approach wouldn't cut through. We were hungry for a new approach that stepped beyond the typical TV advertising blitz. We wanted to find a more meaningful way to engage our audience, leveraging the impact of prime-time sponsorship without leaving our audience feeling like they'd just consumed a reheated ad campaign.
The “non-sponsored sponsorship” of video content
While other food brands were investing heavily in traditional TV spots, we cooked up a different approach on YouTube. We developed a unique strategy we call the “non-sponsored sponsorship”.
This strategy positions our ads alongside high-quality, long-form video content that people crave during Ramadan — similar to traditional TV sponsorships — making it feel like we were supporting the shows themselves.
Instead of regular TV, Connected TV (CTV) caught our eye. With YouTube viewership on CTV surging — reaching over 2.5 million in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 12 million in Saudi Arabia, and more than half a million in Qatar in May 2024 alone — we knew we could tap into a significant audience.
Our focus became placing our ads within specific shows and channels popular during Ramadan — think comedy and cooking. This would help us maximise our reach on big screens across the region with chef's-kiss precision.
Content context is king: Matching the perfect product with the perfect video
We already knew exactly which 15 products we wanted to market during Ramadan. But we didn’t just want cookie-cutter ads telling people to buy them. We wanted ads relevant to what our customers were watching. If we knew what kind of content people were really into, we could get our ads in front of them while they were already engaged and more likely to notice us.
We worked with Google to explore online search trends during Ramadan. We also tapped into the power of Google Analytics to understand what our audiences were into. Specifically, we analysed affinity categories to discover broader interests based on online searches, such as "sports fans" or "food and dining enthusiasts" and explored other categories to take a closer look at those interests. We also used in-market segments to identify people actively searching for products like ours.
We weren’t surprised to see that cooking and baking are huge during Ramadan. However, we also saw a high amount of interest around sports, shopping, news, gaming, movies, beauty tips, specific shows, even YouTube playlists. Basically, a little bit of everything. These interests became our content categories.
The power of AI: 25 base videos, 1200 ads
With products and content categories decided, our agency manually designed 25 base ads that featured fixed elements, for example music, our logo, and products.
We fed these ads into AI-powered Ads Creative Studio, which automatically designed over 1,200 creatives in a time- and cost-efficient way. These ads featured a series of contextual messages for each of the 15 products we wanted to market, relevant to the content people were watching.
For example, this dairy cream ad was designed to surface ahead of a Ramadan prank show hosted by Egyptian actor Ramez Galal. The message says “ مثل خلط رامز للضيف” (“like Ramez mixing up the guest”), referencing Ramez pranking the wrong person, which he sometimes does:
And this laban drink ad — designed to surface ahead of sporting shows — says يروق أعصابك إذا فريقك رفع ضغطك (“calm your nerves if your sports team gets your blood pressure up”):
There are several reasons we designed over 1,000 ads for this campaign:
- We really wanted to avoid ad fatigue, especially since people watch a huge amount of content during Ramadan.
- It allowed us to be super relevant, pairing specific products with the most appropriate content.
- A large library of ads let us segment our audience, ensuring everyone saw something relevant to their interests.
And we’re happy to say that we did in fact use all of the ads we designed!
Placement is key: Getting ads in front of the right content at the right time
With our ads ready to go, the next question was: how do we get our ads in front of the right content at the right time?
We leveraged video reach campaigns and video view campaigns to help us:
- Fine-tune our campaigns: We used specific keywords related to both our products and the types of videos we wanted our ads to appear alongside, like "Ramadan recipes," or "dessert ideas".
- Broaden our reach: If someone was a baking enthusiast, we also chose the "food and drink" topic, or got even more specific with the wider "desserts" term. This way we reached viewers already interested in that general area.
- Hone in on the details: Specific placements helped us choose individual YouTube channels and videos where we wanted our ads to appear.
- Stay relevant: YouTube's AI understands video content, so even if we didn't specifically select a video, our ads could still appear there if it was relevant.
Our strategy also combined what people were searching for with when they were searching. With custom intent, if someone searched for "laban yogurt" on Google Search, they might see an Almarai laban yogurt ad the next time they went on YouTube. Meanwhile, day and time targeting — a pay-per-click advertising tactic — let us schedule ads for specific times of the week. Interestingly, we found that ads seen just around and after iftar were the most viewed.
Creative marketing + the speed of AI: A recipe for success
Because our ads were shown alongside content that was super relevant to what people were watching, we reached 29.4 million people in the Middle East and North Africa over Ramadan, with 56.8% of people actually watching our ads to the very end.
This campaign really shows how important it is to get to know your audience and what they love to watch, especially during the holy month. And mixing smart, creative marketing with the speed of AI? That's a recipe for success, for sure.
For future campaigns, we're exploring how generative AI can enhance our creatives even further. We're particularly interested in its potential to personalise our messaging and streamline creative development.
