Emotion, Branding and Distinctiveness Tips to Create Ads that Resonate in Egypt this Ramadan, By Kantar's Nermeen Bedeir

While Ramadan has always had a strong spiritual and social aspect, smart marketers have realised that they can enhance their advertising creative over Ramadan 2022 by mirroring the resurgence of quality connections and the magnified blessings that drive all habits in the holy month and beyond….

Telling a good story with engaging music goes a long way towards ensuring your advertising resonates with audiences in Egypt, but there’s more to strong creative than that – in particular, it needs to trigger an emotional response and be distinctive. Especially around Ramadan, where we see an increase in consumption not only of food and drinks, but also of TV and social media. This speaks to the impact of both the creative quality and media effectiveness in getting your message across, as Ramadan is the biggest advertising event in our region. With 75% of Egyptians in front of their screens from sunset to sunrise, they are the perfect audience for your brand communications, provided you touch on the right notes:

Generate an emotional response. As families once again feel free to gather mindfully, consumer buy-in comes from heart-warming and nostalgic scenes of these get-togethers. There’s renewed optimism about engaging in family-centric activities like snacking and gaming while sitting in front of the TV set, so reflect that reality in your ads. It’s all about being relevant to real life, which is easily done with vignettes. But remember that while a rational brand story is vital, stories that tap into the audience’s emotions are equally essential to engaging in the Ramadan context. Emotional ads have been proven to have a higher impact on consumers as well as brand equity in driving more sales, so pack an emotional punch by tapping into the three emotions that repeatedly come out on top in our ad testing: happiness, nostalgia and warmth. Brands with a focus on motivational messages and a strong sense of achievement or patriotism also do well.
Tell a distinctive story. While all things pandemic-related kept the nation’s attention over the past two years, consumers in 2022 are ready for a recalibration of sorts, in making Ramadan feel as festive as it was pre-2020. While the overall themes of Ramadan hold steady – the gathering, iftar feasting, charity and helping others – since Ramadan 2021, we’ve long moved past the COVID-19 advertising to tell a story the audience wants to hear. Keep it exciting and inspirational, as distinctive and interesting stories engage consumers most. This will help your brand stand out among all the Ramadan advertising clutter as it enhances your ability to be noticed and remembered, which correlates highly with involvement and grabbing the audience’s attention. Get this right in your ad’s setting, with celebrities cast as believable characters, against a backdrop of engaging music and including an unexpected element of surprise.
Branding always matters. Imagine coming up with the best quality work, only to have audiences link the outstanding creative linked to a competitor. While this may seem like a marketing nightmare, it’s an unfortunate reality for many, as only a third of viewers who are aware of an ad can accurately link it back to the correct brand. That’s why it’s so important that while Ramadan may be your theme, your brand needs to be the hero of your comms, highlighting how it comes to the rescue for consumers facing the pain points of today. Do so intrinsically by leveraging the strength of your distinctive brand assets like sounds and brand marks, while integrating the brand early in the story rather than leaving it as an end logo, as higher branding scores relate to increased likelihood of in-market sales effects. Distinctiveness is key to your ad being remembered, which is everything in today’s brand-based world.

That said, there’s more brand scrutiny than ever before, so value brands can succeed if priced right as consumers want to feel they are making smarter choices. Make sure you’re ticking all the boxes by making it easy for consumers to link the creative back to the brand. Their primary consideration today is: “Why this brand?” So, dial up both your understanding of the context of Ramadan in 2022 as well as how your brand can make consumers’ lives better.

Get in touch to learn how your Ramadan ad will fare against these new touchpoints and arrange your free demo of Link through Kantar Marketplace, our automated market research platform with ad-testing results in just 6 hours. Also watch our Ramadan advertising webinar on-demand to ensure your brand’s communication plan is ready for Ramadan 2022: Ramadan communications and media learnings