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Embracing Ramadan in lockdown

Every year, we see brands launch Ramadan efforts that reach the product level in store or online, but fail to create a brand moment around the festive month.

So it was great to finally see Tesco embrace Ramadan with their culturally relevant ad Not quite Aunty's sumac chicken. By taking Ramadan to a brand communication level, Tesco showed their four million-plus Muslim customer base that they understand and value them.

The ad was clever and fresh, as it went straight in for the uniqueness of Ramadan in lockdown in a humorous and fun way.

Whether intentional or not, I was impressed with how the ad was written, which pulls away from the laziness that we typically see when brands attempt to engage Muslims.

The fact that the ad didn’t feature samosas or a chicken tikka masala was a win for me! Rather, it reflected the relatable lifestyles of Muslims in the UK without reverting to the stereotypes.

However, this approach needs to live throughout the brand’s Ramadan funnel. From advertising, content, aisle design, down to the promotional product selection, there’s more work to be done to actually have substance and effectively connect to their modern Muslim audience.

At Mud Orange, we rolled out a campaign for MyTenNights, a tech-for-good online platform, which gained a massively positive reception for the representation of Muslims and relevancy to their everyday lives during Ramadan. The campaign has been directly attributed to the doubling of the number of donors to 110,000, raising £9m – which during a time when charities are struggling due to Covid has been a massive success.

By Arif Miah, Creative Strategy Director.