Ramadan Media Investment

Ramadan is the biggest season for media-buying in the MENA region, you must know how to spend your money if you want to have a successful campaign in a very competitive scene. It doesn’t matter what the brand name is, how big the budget is, or even how popular the media selection is. If the overall media strategy is not effective, you are wasting your money.

Ramadan is the best season for Media Planners to showcase their skills in achieving the best outcome with the most effective and efficient media selections and budget allocation on their campaigns. You can still achieve high reach, high brand awareness, and big sales even without advertising on TV prime-time spots.

Here are three important pillars for a successful Ramadan Media Investment strategy:

Planning:

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• The brief: What are you trying to achieve as a business? You are not here to appear on a certain medium, you are not here to save compared to last year, you are not here to appear more frequently than your competitor, you are here to deliver a message and get a result. Get this bit clear and work your way out to get the business results you need. Define your audience on each medium as precisely as possible (Age group, interest, programs/platform type, keywords, hashtags, followers, audience group).
• Schedule your ads for budget efficiency: Ramadan season is all about smart planning. Things can go wrong if you don’t plan your media in the right way, even if you have enough budget and a very creative ad. Without the right planning, your audience would react negatively if the ad were served too many times over a short period. Your ad can go unnoticed if it is scheduled in the wrong place and time. You must know how to distribute your ads in your media selection. Choose the right media, the right time, and the right frequency throughout the month. Of course, TV Prime time is everyone’s favorite, but communication is about continuity, knowing how to choose off-peak times wisely, including the distribution of ads across different media (Digital, TV, OOH, Radio, and even Print).
• Digital focus at the end of Ramadan: Towards the end of Ramadan TV ratings and reach tend to decline, so in your strategy, you should start shifting more toward digital media by the end of Ramadan and be very selective with your TV ads spending. It’s always wise to gradually reduce or increase your ad frequency throughout the month; sudden bursts are very critical and require a lot of strategic work both on the media selection and creative selection.
• Choose relevant TV programs: What works for one brand doesn’t necessarily work for another brand, especially if they are from a different category. Choose the programs that match your brand and audience as much as possible.
• Digital targeting is essential: It is useless to have millions of impressions or views if you are not getting enough action out of them. Look into the performance of these impressions and views and see what Click-Through Rate, Engagement Rate, and Video Through Rates you are getting out of them. Keep optimizing toward the most performing ad copies and platforms; you don’t have to be advertising everywhere.
• Get TV rating reports & insights: These reports will help you understand the TV scene in the first few days of Ramadan; see how many programs are out there, see what brands are doing, and decide on your TV planning for the remaining weeks of the month. There tend to be a bunch of programs that outperform, and it would be wise to include them as the month goes on.
• Consider a frequency cap for each ad copy on TV & Digital Media: You don’t need one group of audience to see your ad 30 times; you need to have 3 groups of audience seeing your ad 10 times. These 10 ads should be served over 7 to 10 days, not in 3 days.
• Amplify your investment and coordinate between your media channels: No matter how big the season is, paid media is still part of the overall communication channels. Make sure that your paid-media campaign is amplified on and coordinated with your own-media channels (website/app, social media, store); communicate your campaign on these platforms to amplify your investment, and be prepared for a significant increase in traffic. Moreover, use the news channels and influencers to promote your campaign; this is a very effective way to distribute your frequency and gain a better result.

Buying:

• Measure the cost of the outcome: Some media change their rate, others remain the same. TV, Radio, and Reserved Digital buy (like a takeover) have a special rate card for Ramadan. OOH rates don’t change in Ramadan, you should get the same deal in Ramadan, so don’t be pressured to overspend on OOH. Consider OOH spots with big gatherings such as Malls, Football stadiums, sports centers, airports, and travel spots. Invest in your creative asset, and make it stand out, you don’t want to be just seen, you want to be liked and engaged with. Think out of the box with your TV & Digital selection, there are so many events happening during Ramadan that attract a lot of viewership and engagement, sports and talk shows are some good examples.
• Don’t buy any ad spots because it is cheap either, buy what is relevant only. What is the point of media saving if you are not getting the right business results? If a spot is costing you 1,000 S.R. and getting you 100 customer actions, that’s 10 S.R. per customer. If a spot is costing you 500 S.R. and getting you 20 customers, that’s 25 S.R. per customer, so it is better to buy the more expensive spot in this case. Always link the cost to the business results.
• Consider tier 2 TV channels if the budget is limited: Reaching a smaller audience with a small budget is usually more effective than reaching a big audience with a small budget. 
• Monitor business feedback: You must link your campaign with a business/brand outcome. If the result is low, then you either change the planning and Creative approach or increase the budget. If the result is achieved as per the media brief requirements, then you don’t need to spend more.  
• Consider integration, sponsorship, and special formats: associate your business closely with the TV & Radio programs/Digital shows and be very creative to grasp the audience’s attention (positively).
• Review the final performance and make an assessment: All these things are a commitment of your media agency to deliver, including getting the brief right. If they don’t deliver, they must be held accountable.

Ad copies/Advertising materials: 

• Don’t use the same creative for 30 days this is not the World Cup.
• Frequency cap each ad copy.
• Be relevant to the TV program content (corporate, commercial, business, fun & engagement), and have multiple ad copies ready to be used.
• Avoid cluttering, overlapping, and repeated ads, this is not an auction.  
• To have a better business response, and to be able to measure these responses more precisely, a wealth of creative assets is essential.

In conclusion Planning in Ramadan is very sophisticated, it starts weeks in advance, and it doesn’t stop until the end of Ramadan. Buying media deals is becoming more challenging as suppliers are eager to get more sales, you will need to do it in a very collective and strategic way to get the best deal possible. If something doesn’t work out, then luckily in Ramadan there are more alternatives, and advertising won’t stop post-Ramadan. As for the creative assets, customization has never been easier and faster, gone are the days when you don’t have time to adjust, it is essential to make this investment when needed.

With the right budget, the right deal, and the right creative assets, it is not enough if you don’t do the right planning, from day one until the last day of your campaign, including the digital targeting tactics. It is a big commitment, to choose the right media agency and let them do all the work for you.