In light of changes that occurred to the consumer’s behavior regarding consumption of mass media in all types within a whole year of COVID-19 pandemic, “CMOs” magazine spoke with number of marketing and digital media experts to discuss their expectations of the volume of advertising expenditure on Digital media within the current month of Ramadan, synchronizing with COVID-19 pandemic for the second year respectively, and whether the bounce that Digital media had made within a whole year of the pandemic, will overshadow the current season, and to what extent the television, the most important player in Ramadan Advertising Marathon, will be affected by those shifts and other questions that occupy the minds of Marketers and brand managers during Ramadan.
“TV still remains the highest Reach medium; however digital is expected to take up a larger portion of the pie, Mai Ashour

“Since Covid-19 hit, we have seen a great jump in user behavior on social media and e commerce. It allowed for new platforms to emerge with vengeance such as TikTok. People have become more accustomed to adapting a more mobile/digital environment. With Ramadan coming up and the huge line up of content we are expecting to see a huge spark in the world of VOD such Watch It and Shahid. This will in turn reflect a boost in digital spending on VOD in support of social media including Facebook and YouTube.” said Mai Ashour, Digital Media Manager at Magna.
She pointed out that we are not just talking about huge Telco operators, real-estate and charity but even smaller media investors as well. Digital media is proving to be a window for brands with more moderate budgets as it would provide them with strong reach at much more efficient & measurable costs compared to TV and massive clutter it faces during Ramadan.
Ashour added: “TV still remains the highest Reach medium despite the spark we are witnessing on digital. She pointed out that it is still a very efficient medium for Reach based brands with mass targets and/or older target groups. We will still see heavy TV spending this Ramadan especially from heavy spenders betting on the huge line up of content; however digital is expected to take up a larger portion of the pie compared to previous years especially that the Egyptian youth are now strongly shifting to a more digitalized consumption behavior.”
She explained that the biggest challenge remains the cost digital holds upon consumers from Data costs and VOD subscriptions. That being said, we are seeing great efforts from both telecom operators and VODs to make things more affordable for users for a more seamless experience with different tailored offers and packages.
Ashour noted: “We really need to understand why users choose to shift to digital for their content consumption and the answer is quite simple, it’s all about convenience. This shift in viewership is derived by the cluttered environment on the TV which makes indulging in the content virtually impossible.
It has become a trend in Egypt to have multiple ad breaks during TV airing that can average at 30 minutes long which is probably not the case anywhere else in the world. This pushes users to choose to explore more convenient options such as Social Media and other Platforms where they can watch content at their own time with significantly fewer interruptions.”
She continued: “Brands have always seen great effectiveness from TV advertising during Ramadan which explains the huge investments they make simply because users have more tolerance to accept content including advertising especially during the beginning of Ramadan. It is important to note that people are not just anticipating new series in Ramadan but also advertisements, partially from the Ramadan regulars.
However, given the great clutter the challenge for brands becomes how to stand out. The creative element plays a huge role during the holy month. In fact we often advise brands with average creative ad copies to simply skip Ramadan all together because no matter how big the investment is, if you are unable to generate word of mouth and true stand out it becomes highly inefficient.”
“The TV expected share of total advertising is 40% against 60% for other mass media”, Noureldin Reda

“The amount of digital advertising expenditure reached about $712 million in Egypt within 2020 subject to a report issued from “we Are Social””, Brand Bourne MENA’s general manager Dr. Noureldin Reda said, describing the number as terrifying, and he expected that this number shall rise to 50% by the end of 2021 so as to reach $1billion.
He explained that this increase shall take place with the support of certain industries, like fast foods and delivery platforms such as “Talabat” and ecommerce platforms like “Souq” and others, in case if the governmental measures continue to prevent or reduce gatherings under the continuance of Corona pandemic, referring that the products that are usually commercially displayed and publicized in television ads, will change its pattern and direction to advertise on “google” and “YouTube” as well, that is closest to TV culture.
Reda expected that the amount of digital advertisements expenditure shall reach $300 million within the month of Ramadan; particularly that most of advertisers have rationalized their expenditure since January up to date awaiting Ramadan that followed directly by the summer season, therefore, all preferred to concentrate expenditure within this important period of time.
Reda attributed this optimistic overview about Ramadan, to the success of the experiment of focusing on digital-only within 2020 season, amidst the outbreak of corona pandemic and the precautionary measures in such a manner that pushes many brands that succeeded to survive under the tough economic crisis to repeat the same experiment this year.
Nour believes that the digital media will possess a big share of TV this year under the audience’s culture orientation towards on-demand watching platforms like “Watch it” and “Netflix”, as well as the dominating trend of some people to watch TV series without ads on “Telegram”, which means that the television directed-advertising budgets will be less this season.
Reda supported his expectations by the reports issued last year that encouraged the advertisers to use digital ads, particularly that they possess the targeting advantage and can change the message content at any time, if the advertiser finds out the audience non-response thereto, as well as, the possibility of direct communication with audience and dealing with their reactions whether negative or positive, unlike television and outdoor ads that their role is limited to deliver the message only.
He emphasized that there are constants that will remain when talking about advertising media, as Radio and Television and outdoor will continue and remain existent, but there is a difference that will occur to the method of budgets distribution through these means, meaning if television only possessed, 60% of the budget in the past, now this ratio will be reduced to 40%, and the remaining 60% to be distributed among the rest of mediums.
“Total Expected Advertising expenditure on T.V. is EGP 3 billion, compared to 700 million for digital”, Gohar Nabil

Gohar Nabil, the founder and CEO of the “ Cairo Media Solutions” predicted that the existence of digital advertising will be stronger this year than ever before after corona crisis caused a boom in using the digital means globally not only in Egypt, whether digital watching platforms or e-commerce, which prompted advertisers towards it due to the high return on investment from advertising on it compared to its cost, unlike television which has become threatened by Digital media and the same condition as for Radio and newspapers as well.
Gohar praised the United Media Services Group “UMS”, which early launched the “Watch it” platform to keep pace with the public’s interest in on-demand watching platforms.
He explained that before 2011 the digital advertising expenditure was very weak, as television possessed the biggest share, followed by outdoor, then, Radio, Newspapers and finally, digital media, but nowadays digital media has become on top of mass media due to its ability to achieve the best goals related to direct sales, branding, or building the awareness towards products or brands, plus the most important factor, which that the advertiser can measure the performance of the campaign in a detailed and documentary way, which made it the second or third tool in terms of ranking as for the advertising administration for any company (according to the nature of its work).
Nabil believed the digital media will attract a big share from television this season in continuation of the started ten years ago and under the change of personal behavior of online users and its increased use during Ramadan, especially when some prefer to watch their favorite content on digital platforms to avoid watching commercial breaks on traditional television, emphasizing that this represents a future threat to the television advertising share.
He expected that the total expenditure on television during Ramadan shall range between 2.5 to 3 billion Egyptian pounds, provided that the size of digital expenditure of digital shall range between 20 and 25% of that value, ranging between (500 – 700) million pounds.
He referred that the culture of marketers differed from the past due to the difference of data, this is evidenced that even television programs and series have a strong existence now on social media, which attracted the marketers; owners of medium to lower budgets towards presence via advertising on its official pages, especially after corona crisis.
He pointed out that social media has become a great profit source for satellite channels that early understood the transformations in consumer behavior and are paying attention to their public or dedicated pages to each artwork separately; referring that in the past the success of satellite channels advertising was linked to the number of views only, but now a new factor exists which is the number of followers on social media of those channels as well as the official pages to the series and program itself.
“The advertisers are totally aware of the effect of e-platforms and believe in the necessity of coping with the development”, Mohamed El Mehairy

Mohamed El Mehairy, the CEO of “Connect Ads” said, Ramadan began to recover at the advertising level four years ago; preceded by the trend of number of brands to shrink the size of their expenditure on television until the channels began to realize the importance of digital and began to exist digitally through its pages on YouTube before adding on demand watching platforms thereto e such as “Watch it” and other platforms that become having an existence an presence on smart TVs and Mobile phones of various types such as “Starz Play” and “Netflix”.
He added that those platforms have added weight to the ability to reach Ramadan contents easily; to the extent that some companies such as “Viu Clip” have started to produce content allocated to the month of Ramadan, referring that the progress that started 4 years ago is constantly increasing supported by the clear development in the consumers’ behavior regarding mass media consumption.
Continued: Under this development in the users’ behavior, COVID-19 emerged, that forced people to stay at their homes for a longer time resulting in greater use of the internet that gave bigger incentive to both advertisers and content makers to be present digitally extensively through On-Demand streaming platforms.
He stressed that the television is still present in this digital development, as a big category of audience still do not use digital applications, but the advertiser fully recognizes the digital impact, and believes in the necessity of coping with development.