Ads that fast with you: a Mina Halal digital Ramadan ad campaign
Brand Strategy & Development
Data Analytics
Digital Marketing
Digital Media Planning & Buying
Media Strategy
National Media Planning & Buying
Project Overview
Ads that fast with you is a Mina Halal digital ad campaign for Ramadan, geo-targeting Muslim Canadians in the Greater Toronto Area. Ramadan is a busy time for Muslim Canadians. All the stresses of an immigrant’s life continue unabated even as they abstain from food and water for 12 to 18+ hours a day. (With Canada’s longer daylight hours in late spring and early summer, Muslims here fast longer than in most other parts of the world.) We knew our communications couldn’t just cruelly shove images of food in their faces at a time when their hunger pangs were strongest.
Details
Our Big Idea
A Ramadan campaign that keeps the fast and breaks the fast with you.
The Creative Expression
A brand that fasts with you
We chose to be empathetic. During the hours our consumers were fasting, we showed no food in our ads — empty plates moved through the sky in our ads “rising” and “setting” in sync with the sun and moon.
A brand that feasts with you
Images of platefuls of delicious Mina Halal Chicken were only shown when fasting was done for the day and our consumers gathered for their nightly family feasts.
A brand that follows the sun and moon with you
Our campaign “kept and broke the fast” with Muslim Canadians — the creative in our ads changed in sync with the progress of the sun and moon through the sky.
A brand that feels for you
We couldn’t afford to get the timing wrong — it would result in fasts broken too early. As fasting for Ramadan begins at sunrise and ends at sunset, our campaign needed to adapt to daily changes in sunrise and sunset times for just like our consumers did
Media Solution
We partnered with The Weather Network (TWN) to execute our creative idea. TWN’s weather-based, location-based sunrise and sunset data, combined with real-time user-location data, allowed us to deliver customized messages to Muslim Canadians across the GTA, at sunrise, sunset and during the day, precisely for their specific locations.
In a Canadian (and possibly global) first, we used this to deliver accurate suhoor and iftaar times — real-time clock updates — which were dynamically inserted into the ad headlines based on when and where users viewed the ad.
And we used TWN's 24-hour spatial tracking of the sun and the moon to dynamically update time-matched visuals – an empty plate for suhoor and a full plate for iftaar; a white plate for the moon at nighttime, and a yellow plate for the sun during the day. The campaign ended with a celebratory message that leveraged local moonrise times (see left) to mark Eid, which begins when the new moon is sighted.
To ensure it reached the correct ethnic audience, we/TWN used a combination of Pelmorex data segments (anonymous and aggregated for privacy) and Demostats/Environics.
As even local times vary by several minutes, Muslim Canadians in different GTA locations received customized messages accurate for their specific locations.
Our digital (in-app) strategy leveraged TWN’s ad-serving platform to drive awareness, and engagement and strengthen overall campaign performance, with carefully chosen high-impact ad placements during the 4-week campaign (April 1 to May 2).
Results
We delivered: CTR of 0.22%, exceeding the TWN benchmark (0.11%) by 2X and segment benchmark (0.08%) by 2.8X. The Eid portion of the campaign exceeded the TWN benchmark (0.11%) by 2.45X and the segment benchmark (0.08%) by 3.37X. The campaign increased awareness and consideration for Mina Halal and uncovered insights that will inform strategies for Ramadan 2023. These learnings will allow the brand to be more targeted and efficient for future campaigns.
Despite the small $50,000 budget, the campaign surpassed all expectations. and delivered:
3.3 million impressions, 100% of target 9800+ clicks
CTR: 0.22% exceeded the segment benchmark (0.08%) by 2.8X
TWN benchmark (0.11%) exceeded by 73%
Even the Eid campaign, though short-lived, exceeded the TWN benchmark by 2.45X and the segment benchmark (0.08%) by 3.37X.
Our learning sets up Mina for success for Ramadan 2023 and allows us to hyper-target our media dollars to the top three GTA cities by impressions (Toronto 39.76%, North York 13.44%, Mississauga 10.17%) during the top-performing days (Monday, Wednesday, Sunday).
A Ramadan campaign that keeps the fast and breaks the fast with you.
The Creative Expression
A brand that fasts with you
We chose to be empathetic. During the hours our consumers were fasting, we showed no food in our ads — empty plates moved through the sky in our ads “rising” and “setting” in sync with the sun and moon.
A brand that feasts with you
Images of platefuls of delicious Mina Halal Chicken were only shown when fasting was done for the day and our consumers gathered for their nightly family feasts.
A brand that follows the sun and moon with you
Our campaign “kept and broke the fast” with Muslim Canadians — the creative in our ads changed in sync with the progress of the sun and moon through the sky.
A brand that feels for you
We couldn’t afford to get the timing wrong — it would result in fasts broken too early. As fasting for Ramadan begins at sunrise and ends at sunset, our campaign needed to adapt to daily changes in sunrise and sunset times for just like our consumers did
Media Solution
We partnered with The Weather Network (TWN) to execute our creative idea. TWN’s weather-based, location-based sunrise and sunset data, combined with real-time user-location data, allowed us to deliver customized messages to Muslim Canadians across the GTA, at sunrise, sunset and during the day, precisely for their specific locations.
In a Canadian (and possibly global) first, we used this to deliver accurate suhoor and iftaar times — real-time clock updates — which were dynamically inserted into the ad headlines based on when and where users viewed the ad.
And we used TWN's 24-hour spatial tracking of the sun and the moon to dynamically update time-matched visuals – an empty plate for suhoor and a full plate for iftaar; a white plate for the moon at nighttime, and a yellow plate for the sun during the day. The campaign ended with a celebratory message that leveraged local moonrise times (see left) to mark Eid, which begins when the new moon is sighted.
To ensure it reached the correct ethnic audience, we/TWN used a combination of Pelmorex data segments (anonymous and aggregated for privacy) and Demostats/Environics.
As even local times vary by several minutes, Muslim Canadians in different GTA locations received customized messages accurate for their specific locations.
Our digital (in-app) strategy leveraged TWN’s ad-serving platform to drive awareness, and engagement and strengthen overall campaign performance, with carefully chosen high-impact ad placements during the 4-week campaign (April 1 to May 2).
Results
We delivered: CTR of 0.22%, exceeding the TWN benchmark (0.11%) by 2X and segment benchmark (0.08%) by 2.8X. The Eid portion of the campaign exceeded the TWN benchmark (0.11%) by 2.45X and the segment benchmark (0.08%) by 3.37X. The campaign increased awareness and consideration for Mina Halal and uncovered insights that will inform strategies for Ramadan 2023. These learnings will allow the brand to be more targeted and efficient for future campaigns.
Despite the small $50,000 budget, the campaign surpassed all expectations. and delivered:
3.3 million impressions, 100% of target 9800+ clicks
CTR: 0.22% exceeded the segment benchmark (0.08%) by 2.8X
TWN benchmark (0.11%) exceeded by 73%
Even the Eid campaign, though short-lived, exceeded the TWN benchmark by 2.45X and the segment benchmark (0.08%) by 3.37X.
Our learning sets up Mina for success for Ramadan 2023 and allows us to hyper-target our media dollars to the top three GTA cities by impressions (Toronto 39.76%, North York 13.44%, Mississauga 10.17%) during the top-performing days (Monday, Wednesday, Sunday).
