Ramadan has always been an advertising extravaganza, but this year, Pepsi faced budget-cuts that left us with a fraction of past year’s spend; limiting us to a digital campaign targeting youth. We had to find a way to get our Ramadan platform of “togetherness” across to a target that has more screen-interaction than human-interaction; and realized this year we couldn’t create just another ad, we had to create and act - we had to turn their mobile phones into a tool that brings them together. Knowing that Pepsi won’t be able to get youth off their phones, we turned technology from being the barrier of the ‘lama’ (gathering) to the facilitator. And so we created the first-ever mobile content you can’t watch alone!

Our execution was digitally-led, and limited to Facebook & YouTube, since these were the two main mediums to view videos on social media. Our main focus was on Facebook, and pushed viewership through carousel ads. Moreover, our only use of TV was with a 10” bumper teasing consumers with a hint that you can’t watch this year’s ad alone. Moreover, we only had the last two weeks of Ramadan to make an impact, adding to the fact that we were focused on creating a one-of-a-kind act that would create buzz & act as a stunt, rather than just another Ramadan ad that fought to resonate among the thousands of pieces of content.