Covid changed every home. Home schooling changed consumption habits. Packed school lunches with juice boxes evolved into kitchen lunch time with family size beverages being shared. Therefore, boxed juices, drivers of the long-life juice category, lost relevance (-41%). Simultaneously, costs soared from 50% tax on added-sugar formulations & 15% VAT, all while families faced covid induced economic pressures.

Almarai “Joosy-Life” boxed juices were hardest hit in the Almarai juice portfolio, not benefiting the Almarai brand halo – a brand which has been an integral part of households for decades.

Almarai took immediate action to drive brand love and create market differentiation:

• Rebranded to “Almarai” to leverage that 2 of 3 kids consume same juice brand as parents

• 100% natural juice to eliminate the sugar-tax

• Reduced pricing to SAR 1.00

Communication needed to be bold and double the brand volume stagnant base by driving awareness and increase purchase.

More time at home meant increased screen time, especially YouTube (+24Mn users in Saudi). With engagement on the rise, the power of content influencers evolved. Spacetoon was set to bring a new social program to engage young families. We seized on the influence of this new content platform to co-create the 13 episode “Moshaya Family” animation series for YouTube.

The Moshaya Family became the biggest family animation influencer content creator on YouTube in MENA. Through co-created healthy and clean content for kids & parents, we were able to showcase family fun between Moshaya and his children in small moments of everyday life and Almarai juices. Integrated across episodes, we showcased day-to-day role of Almarai in the lives of the Moshaya Family, seeding increased in-home juice consumption with the script highlighting that Almarai Long Life Juices have no added sugar and 100% natural fruits.

Kids prefer long-life juices, since they have been spending more time at home than ever before and like to refresh themselves with juice whenever they are bored; Parents buy small portion sizes.

Almarai parent brand resonates strongly with mothers; yet there is a need to strike equally strong chords with kids by getting them much more interested in trying long-life Juices. Recruitment of young kids is necessary via new 100% Natural Juice to convert them to future loyalists for the brand.

Kids are alienated if advertised on mainstream TV that traditionally targets mothers/families; On the other hand, GCC regulations prohibit brands to communicate directly to kids using digital media.

Covid. No school. No fun gatherings. Category losing relevance. Fewer consumer exposure points, Almarai took this as an opportunity and created entertaining and meaningful content to address brand challenges by depicting real life family moments, appealing to both kids and parents.

With +21 million subscribers, +15 billion views and +7 million average views per video, Moshaya Family videos showcased family fun of daily life. Across each episode, Almarai was seamlessly integrated in everyday scenarios, including:

• Product usage: Different in-home consumption occasions were shown such as consumption during breakfast, lunch, dinner, study, gaming to create relevancy & increase in-home consumption during lockdowns.

• Product placements: Products were strategically placed on Dinning table, Coffee table, Study desk etc to further reinforce in-home consumption

• Brand pointers: Key brand pointers which appeals to parents in particular such as no added sugar & 100% natural fruits were highlighted in scripts to position Almarai as a healthy drink.

The series ran on were Moshaya & Spacetoon YouTube channels and SpaceToon VOD & TV to leverage their subscribers base, while Instagram accounts of Moshaya and Spacetoon were used for promoting episodes.

Our Moshaya family and Almarai juices engaged with 42.2+ million organic views across 13 episodes on YouTube and 5+million views on SpaceToon GO VOD platform. Promotional content on social delivered 165,901+ reactions/likes and 9,158+ comments.

Almarai co-created series delivered significant business gains:

- Brand volume +3.2 pp, from 4% to 7.2%

- Overall awareness +4pp post campaign, from 72% to 76%

- Repeat purchase +14pp, 35% to 49% while repertoire also increase by 9 pp, 20% to 29%

And surpassed previous brand health measures:

- Tastes better than other brands : +12

- Has the most attractive packaging : +8

- Makes advertisements that appeal to me : +9

- Appeals to the younger generation : +11

- Is my preferred brand of Juice : +10

- Best juice for every occasion : +13

- Is Natural (no added sugar) : +10