The pandemic didn’t just change the auto industry, it changed the advertising landscape.

The auto industry was one of the hardest hit:

• Lockdowns/WFH kept people away from showrooms and reduced the need for a car

• With business layoffs and reduced income and job insecurity, car purchases declined 30%

• Every auto brand switched to survival mode, honing in on their bottom line at a tough time.

When every month has a special offer, then no month is special:

• In 2020, everything was on sale, all year long.

• As a result, consumer expectations were higher than ever when it came to car prices.

• So, in the lead-up to Ramadan, the usual car buying excitement was gone. It was just more of the same.

After a full year of pandemic-driven tactical offers from reeling car makers, “Ramadan sales” felt dull and no longer special.

If we wanted to make up for this new lack of Ramadan excitement, we’d need to take a different approach to the rest of the category.

We didn’t want to come across as just another car brand trying to sell. Knowing our audience were big into shows (TV & online) during Ramadan, to stand out from the sea of sales offers we wanted our campaign came across less like advertising and more like entertainment. While others were all out to sell, we’d go out to entertain.

“Fawazir Chevrolet” fused Arabic riddles with fantastic savings, injecting a difficult Ramadan 2021 with a much-needed dose of entertainment

The Creative Idea: Chevrolet modernizes a favorite childhood pastime, Fawazir riddles, to transport people back to a time when Ramadan felt like Ramadan.

This Ramadan wasn’t about business as usual. It wasn’t about attracting new buyers and spreading our net wide. We needed to refocus on our core Chevrolet audience – those who knew us and had us in their consideration set.

Audience Insight: With life not yet back to normal, only nostalgia had the power to bring back that exciting Ramadan feeling

To reconnect with our Arab base, we needed an idea that was culturally relevant and as entertaining as the best Ramadan TV shows.

We were past the worst of it, but 2021’s Ramadan still wasn’t going to feel like it should. We wanted to bring that Ramadan feeling back, and nostalgia was the key.

Through entertainment, we wanted to take people back to when Ramadan still felt like Ramadan, and in doing so, remind potential car shoppers that there was no better time to buy a Chevrolet than in Ramadan.

“Fawazir Chevrolet” fused Arabic riddles with fantastic savings, injecting a strained Ramadan 2021 with a much-needed dose of entertainment.

We wanted to bring genuine and nostalgic Ramadan entertainment at a time when people needed it most. We did so with a modern take on an age-old tradition, the Ramadan Fawazir riddle - short 10-minute variety shows in the 80’s/90’s containing dance numbers and sketches leaning into popular Arabic culture.

Keeping with the Fawazir tradition (and consumer habits), we serialized our campaign, creating Fawazir social films for each week of Ramadan. Each film revolved around one riddle and one of our hero vehicles. The shorter format content was the perfect fit for our mobile/social-led strategy.

To truly blend in with the Ramadan entertainment, we didn’t want audiences tuning out at the sight of another hard-sell ad, so we did something unexpected… we didn’t show our cars in our Ramadan campaign.

Chevrolet had a few high-priority segments they wanted us to prioritize in Ramadan. For each of these segments, we had a hero vehicle to feature in our communications. (SUV-C: Captiva | SUV-E: Tahoe | Luxury Sport: Corvette)

At a time when the auto market still hadn’t recovered and with a budget 61% lower than in 2019, Chevrolet saw brand improvement & sales growth exceeding even the pre-pandemic era:

• Chevrolet increased key brand metrics: Brand Consideration +27% (50% higher than before the pandemic)

• Key image attributes also improved with perceptions of Chevrolet as “a brand you can trust” increasing 26%.

• Total Chevrolet sales in UAE increased 31% (over 3 times higher than overall industry growth in the same period)

• Chevrolet sales in key segments:

o SUV-C: Sales +123%

o SUV-E: Sales +34%

o Luxury Sport: Sales +800% - Our best YOY (year-on-year) sales since 2017