From a business perspective, the McDonald’s franchise in the UAE wanted to create brand engagement with fast-food fans, during the month of Ramadan, as a means to get people to resonate more with McDonald’s and buy more from McDonald’s.

Typically, this task has been challenging for McDonald’s in the UAE owing to the competitive food marketing landscape during Ramadan in the country.

To be distinctive, McDonald’s needed to consistently create ideas that give people emotional or functional relevance using social media and reach hearts; as this would translate into word of mouth; which ultimately influences bellies and impact bottom-lines.

Conscious that mouth-watering images of Big Macs and McNuggets would be a serious distraction for people fasting, rather than the usual food images, a big global brand showed respect to the local culture and those fasting by removing its products from its billboard!

The Billboard was designed with recognizable, iconic McDonald’s branding; just without any food images.

While the billboard was created to not distract those fasting, it had the opposite reaction online as it became the most viral billboard in MENA.

Social media feeds starting buzzing with our McDonald’s billboard, not only in the UAE, but across the globe. online influencers and commentators, started talking about how they respected the idea.

We picked up these shares, created content for PR and spent $2560 to seed the idea on leading media websites in the UAE. Leading news and media outlets in the region and worldwide picked up the idea too.