With no detailed data or monitoring of Branded Entertainment within the Middle-East, forecasting or providing an accurate summary of the market is somewhat difficult. However, from our own research (both brand & audiences) and of course BE campaigns, we’ve seen that there is a real appetite for creating and consuming content in the region.

In terms of the restrictions, the rules around what can and can’t be done by brands vary significantly around the region such as KSA, but in many markets there is a lack of regulation (or governing body) that means a brand's presence can be easily placed, associated or integrated within a piece of content.

However, topics, themes and even situations must be taken into consideration when planning and producing any piece of Branded Content. These include:

• The clothing and appearance of females

• The proximity between female & male presenters

• The treatment of culturally sensitive topics such as marriage and national dress

• The use and discussion of Religion

• The exclusion of any subject matter relating to sex & alcohol in KSA

When you look at Hollywood, all great love stories start with putting pen to paper. Therefore, we wanted to give our amateur storytellers the ultimate accolade by turning their romantic words into film.

We tasked the regions most-talented film director, Emirati Nayla Al Khaja to bring to life the Captivating Tales of women in 5 min short-films.

Nayla, along Sayidati magazine and NIVEA read through the entries and selected the three most compelling stories. ‘The Wait’, ‘Impressions’ and ‘New Beginning’ were then filmed, produced and given their broadcast debut through a branded integration on the region’s biggest TV channel MBC1, online and aired in cinemas.

Partnering with Nayla, not only could we bring women’s stories to life visually, giving them a huge platform but also capture the cultural nuances of the region.

Numerous touch-points were used to support/push Captivating Tales further, including social-media, brand website, TV integration, magazine editorial and DM.

By converting words to film, we successfully brought out the inner sentiments of Arab women and positively connected them with new NIVEA Sensual Musk.

In just four weeks, we received more than 1,400 stories – totaling over 2m words!

We provided women with entertainment that was both compelling and relevant, boosting purchase intent by 26% and product recommendation by 100%.

In fact, nearly 1 million NIVEA Musk products have been sold- 11% more than targeted.

Finally, NIVEA Musk has not only captured 12% market share from the market leader, but also contributed a 67% growth to the category.

Sources: NIVEA Sensual Musk Captivating Tales Competition, NIVEA Sensual Musk Post-Campaign Analysis, Beiersdorf Stock & Sales Reports, Nielsen Retail Audit Data.