Summary

Ramadan is a time of togetherness, optimism and spiritual refreshment, yet the majority of season’s communications are either sales promotions or clichéd preaching and bored consumers are tuning them out. Brands compete aggressively to be noticed during this most significant of seasons, but have made Ramadan a battle of budgets rather than connection – he who shouts loudest, wins.

As a challenger brand in the region, Coke doesn’t have the budgets to compete in the shouting game. They needed to create a genuine connection with people, one they would take notice of voluntarily rather than through sheer force of presence.

In order to do this, we needed a different perspective on Ramadan. So we asked questions that no one in the region had ever asked. In fact, we asked questions that no one in the region had ever dared to ask, from which we developed a campaign that our audience had never seen before.

It inspired them to think about Ramadan in a different way and in turn, resulted in Coke enjoying its most successful Ramadan season ever. In fact, it was Coke’s most successful campaign in the region ever. And it all started with two simple words: Open Up.

Open upIt’s Ramadan

Ramadan is a season of positive change

Like Christmas, Ramadan is the holiest time of year in the Muslim world. It’s a time of unity and spiritual reflection. They fast during daylight hours to demonstrate solidarity with society’s less privileged and to better understand their situations. They refrain from negative behaviours like gossip, envy and profanity in order to refresh themselves spiritually. It’s a time of year when Muslims are most open to behavioural change, making a conscious effort to eradicate bad habits and establish positive ones.

A tremendous amount of Ramadan is centred around fellowship. Strengthening ties with those that are close to you, reconnecting with those that you’ve lost touch with and being hospitable to complete strangers. Ramadan activities are built around togetherness – group prayers, fast-breaking (Iftar) tables laden with food, and endless visits to family, friends and acquaintances.

On the other hand, brands find change unnecessary

Also like Christmas, Ramadan is a time of increased consumption. Media spends increase by around %20 (The Online Project 2013 Study) as brands compete for a spot on the Iftar table. Over the years, brands have split themselves into two camps in their jostle for position.

The first concentrate on sales, offering bigger packs, BOGOFs and prizes (and Happy Ramadan, by the way). While this method may result in increased sales, our research shows the increased consumption during this period may account for this naturally. But it does nothing for the brand.

The second concentrate on creating an emotional bond. They talk generically about Ramadan values like charity, generosity and togetherness. Our research showed that over time, this method actually irritates more than it engages. People find the messages preachy and condescending, saying that they don’t need some detergent brand to tell them they should be kinder and more generous.

These camps have turned Ramadan communication into wallpaper. But instead of revising their approaches, brands simply turn Ramadan into a battle of budgets to make sure theirs is the only wallpaper the consumer sees.

Inertia was not an option for Coke

We needed to be the change we wanted

In the Middle East, Coke is a distant second to Pepsi and doesn’t have the kind of budgets to be contenders in the wallpaper war. We needed to people to pay attention to our message, not just bombard them into submission.

The good news was Coca-Cola’s brand values of togetherness, generosity and kindness are perfectly aligned with Ramadan’s. The bad news was this also makes it easy for us to fall into the preachy/condescending camp, something we wanted to avoid.

After analyzing the situation we had a better idea of what we didn’t want to do than what we did. So we went back to planning basics.

We conducted groups around Ramadan, what it means to people and what they did during it. We heard nothing we didn’t expect. The importance of the season has made it the subject of countless studies, all of which centered around Ramadan’s values, associations, routines, traditions and ultimately what people liked about it. All their findings were virtually identical and we discovered nothing new this time either. If we were going to do something in Ramadan that hadn’t been done before, we were going to have to ask questions that had never been asked before too.

So we asked them what they didn’t like about it.

We asked them about the difficulties and challenges they faced during Ramadan. We asked them what irritated them about it. We asked them about how Ramadan could be better.

We were met by an uneasy silence. The possibility that Ramadan could have some negative associations was not something they’d ever spoken about before, privately or publicly. It was simply unheard of in the conservative and deeply religious Saudi society. We’d anticipated this reaction and made sure our moderator was also Saudi. He prompted the groups with some of his thoughts, giving them the social permission they needed to do the same. Slowly they started opening up. They spoke about the difficulties of fasting and the constant temptations, and about the difficulties of abstaining from other negative behaviours. They spoke about occasional cheating. And they spoke about the pressures to exhibit the Ramadan qualities they know they should.

They spoke about unresolved tensions with people they’re close to, how these prevented them from being generous, patient, tolerant and empathetic. Many related to this and told us stories of their own. A disagreement with a cousin, disapproval from an uncle or being ordered to do something they didn’t want to by a parent. And in conservative Arab society, open discussions about personal tensions and emotions are still taboo to most. At best, they are ignored. At worst, they just fester. And the highly positive and social atmosphere of Ramadan only amplified them.

A survey verified the extent of the issue. %90 said an important relationship had suffered because of unresolved tensions. %80 said restoring that relationship would add value to their lives. %84 said these tensions were felt most during Ramadan. %76 said they wanted reconciliation. And when we asked what was preventing that reconciliation, %45 mentioned the tension again.

These tensions were preventing people from behaving how they wanted to during Ramadan. They were preventing them from demonstrating the values other brands were preaching. We needed to get to the root. As in our groups, we needed to talk about the things no one else would. We needed to encourage people to address these tensions and Ramadan was the perfect time to do so.

We needed to influence change in othersOur strategy was to identify tensions that our audience could relate to, demonstrate the benefits of resolving them and encourage them to do so. Our rallying cry became “Open Up. It’s Ramadan.” Some of these tensions proved too controversial for us to talk about just yet, such as Saudi men marrying Western women. There were two, however, that we felt more comfortable with, one safer (divisions created by technology) and one edgier (young adults being pressured by their families to follow certain career paths, usually the same as their parents).

We created TVCs encouraging people to address them. But these were real tensions experienced by real people, so we teamed up with two bloggers, Ascia Akf from Kuwait (https://youtu.be/Dhhgb_Fs77Q) and Chef Badr Fayez from Saudi (https://youtu.be/jVr_OiFt020) who’d experienced them first hand. We produced online videos where they told their stories and ultimately, gained resolution. This element of the campaign not only gave us authenticity, but with social media usage during Ramadan increasing by around %30 (The Online Project 2013 Study), also gave us greater reachand engagement.

We seeded our films on Coke’s YouTube and Facebook pages and our bloggers posted them on their own channels. We complemented this with special packaging, including a label on the 250ml glass bottle that could be turned into a ribbon in one easy pull, making every bottle a gift for those you wanted to open up to – the perfect ice-breaker.

We influenced positive change in a number of places

“Open Up” was Coke’s most successful campaign in the region ever. Brand Love Score rose by %42, the highest single campaign increase we’d ever seen. Our last %42 increase had taken us 11 months and five campaigns to achieve. In Ramadan we did it in one of each.

We narrowed the market share gap with Pepsi from a ratio of 4.6:1 in Ramadan 2013 to 3.8:1 in Ramadan 2014, despite substantial volume decreases in their two biggest markets, Iraq and Palestine, due to ongoing unrest in both.

Sales increased across all other markets, many in double-digits: • Lebanon by %115.4. • Bahrain by %15.4. • Saudi by %17.5. • UAE by %15.7.

The campaign achieved over 1,000,000 online views, 589,145 social interactions, 8,163,550 total social media impressions and over 700,000$ of free media coverage.

But most importantly, it struck a chord with our audience (https://youtu.be/ZOgbHVL4d4E). At 4am the morning after Ascia’s video was posted, Ascia called us, barely able to speak through her tears. We were worried, but Ascia quickly reassured us – she’d received more than 22,000 likes and 3,000 comments on her video just 24 hours after posting it, all showering her with support and encouragement, leaving her overcome with emotion.

Other comments on social media echoed this. They talked about how it was unlike the Ramadan campaigns they’d come to expect and suggested ways people could continue opening up to each other. One even declared he was going to change his major at university.

By looking beyond the obvious and venturing into territory others had been wary of, we connected with our audience in a way that was unexpected, engaging and very, very real. We explored the negative side of Ramadan to try and help make it truly positive. We encouraged our audience to “Open Up” to each other and in turn, they opened up to us as well.

Word Count: 1,483