Despite nearly one-in-two chocolate purchased in KSA coming from the Mars portfolio, there is one month when consumption of bars & small packs doesn’t reflect the consumer love for the individual brands. That month is Ramadan.

Although Muslims are fasting during Ramadan, we actually see an increase in food/drink consumption due to more family meals and social togetherness. The problem though is that increase doesn’t include chocolate bars. In fact, three-quarters of Saudi Mums admit to eating less chocolate during the month. Why? Half of them simply ‘don’t believe it to be relevant or suitable for the season’. The real winners are Arabic Sweets and Desserts such as Kunafa and Kollag, which 85% of our audience claim to eat more of during Ramadan.

Therefore, we needed to get Saudi mums buying Chocolate bars more often throughout Ramadan by making Mars brands more relevant during the Holy Month.

Voilà. Manal stepped up to the challenge, prsenting us with a completely innovative take on classic’s such as ‘Kunafa’ (Galaxy), ‘Qatayef’ (Bounty) and ‘Mahalebeya’ (Twix). To ensure no-one missed out on these modern-day masterpieces, Manal fronted a series of ‘how to’ films for Mums to replicate at home.

High-traffic channels such as YouTube and Facebook were used to keep Mars front-of-mind throughout the holy month. In addition, we utilized Manal’s own social channels and her +3m fans/subscribers to not only distribute the content further but also promote our dedicated hub –DessertMoments.com

One of Manal’s great strength is her ability to make complex recipes very user-friendly and easy to replicate. This not only helped provide a strong motivation for people to share the content but also purchase the ingredients and try for themselves. Therefore, Manal’s social strategy was very much geared around audience involvement and encouraging fans to share their interpretations.