Ramadan is a wonderful month for so many different reasons. One of my favourite nights during the holy month is Gergaoun, which is celebrated in both Kuwait and Bahrain on the 14th of Ramadan (Gergaoun is also celebrated in the UAE but a month beforehand).
I’ve been told by family that Gergaoun’s roots hail back to the birth of the Prophet’s grandson Hassan. The Prophet came bearing sweets to celebrate the occasion (if there’s other reasons for Gergaoun, I’d love to hear them).
During Gergaoun children wear traditional dress such as jalabiyas and thobs before rushing out into the streets and knocking on every door in the neighbourhood with their empty Gergaoun bags in their hands. They’re handed chocolates, candies, crisps, pastries, popcorn, juice, pizza etc (you get the picture by now…) and only head back home once their bags are full of goodies and sweets.
During Gergaoun families will often gather together to play games. Older children and some of the adults will dress up as Fraysa or the horseman to wander the neighborhood, sing Gergaoun songs and beat traditional drums.
Enough of me and my poor excuse for an explanation as to how fun Gergaoun is. Have a look at this classic clip from Bahrain TV. The video features popular singer Mohammed Yousef who is belting out the Gergaoun song which all the children recite when going from house to house. The clip also features the Fraysa or horseman. I just love the traditional costumes that the children wear. And believe me, when it comes to collecting sweets not even Halloween tops Gergaoun. These kids are just voracious when it comes to grabbing anything sweet and sugary in their vicinity!
Outrage, anger, and disapproval on today’s UAE Twitter feeds. There are times when you hold your head on your hands and wonder how anyone could have posted this or that online.
The veritable Time Out Dubai got itself into a pickle today with the below article which was published online.
The offending article on Time Out Dubai’s website today. The 5 to try: bars in Ramadan piece was pulled down earlier today
While Dubai does have its fair share of bars, the timing of the article wasn’t in the best possible taste. The holy month of Ramadan began last week. Ramadan is a time for reflection, abstinence and fasting for Muslims. While alcohol is not consumed by practicing Muslims it is freely available in Dubai. Places that serve alcohol during Ramadan do little to promote themselves during this month, and it’s beyond me why this article was even commissioned. Putting bar in the same sentence as Ramadan is bound to cause trouble and/or offense.
I don’t know for how long the article has been online but the tweets were rolling in thick and fast last evening and this morning. Here’s a couple of them below.
While there has been an angry reaction from many people online, there’s also been a good deal of messages defending Time Out Dubai (maybe not so much for the article per se, but for other reasons). Here’s a couple of examples.
#stoptimeoutdubai people need to relax.the country is trying to cater to non muslims and other nationalities.
I must give kudos to Time Out Dubai for their actions today. The magazine editors have taken down the offending article and they’ve apologized online and through social media. They moved quickly to undo the damage, promise that the incident won’t be repeated in the future and, most importantly, say sorry.
We would like to apologise for any offence caused by our recent article on the subject of nightlife during (cont) http://t.co/3zCSnKzi
The only question now is, with this so much energy going into a campaign to preserving the sanctity of Ramadan will we see people online start rallying for other worthy causes? Famine in Yemen perhaps? Civil war in Syria? Let’s hope so.
We’re coming round once again to Ramadan, and I wanted to take the chance to write about one case study from last year’s holy month which underlines how much the media landscape is changing.
AlSayegh Media is a UAE-based agency headed by Abdullatif Al Sayegh, the former CEO of Dubai Media Incorporated. While AlSayegh Media is only a couple of years old some of its campaigns have, for me, been groundbreaking in terms of their use of content and social media to reach out to diverse audiences and build communities.
One of the hardest demographics out there to crack for any company in the Middle East is traditional/conservative/religious individuals. Firstly, because there’s a possibility that they may be more sensitive to marketing due to their beliefs. Secondly, there are relatively few religious media channels through which to communicate effectively and which may be receptive to conveying a message on behalf of a company when compared to more mainstream media. Even if a company has a message that they’d like to promote and which would appeal to this target audience, how do they reach this demographic?
The UAE telecoms operator Du decided to be different last year. The telco turned to AlSayegh Media to come up with a unique and original campaign for Ramadan that would by association promote Du and its services.
Rather than me saying how they did it, I’ll let AlSayegh Media’s own write up speak for itself.
15,000+ unique Facebook fans in just 4 weeks for a Ramadan campaign with Sheikh Dr Mohammed al Oraifi and Du. Now that is impressive.
As if that wasn’t enough here’s some more stats for you. Over 500 participants took part in the accompanying Khatim Al Qur’an competition. Over 9,600 calls were made to Sheikh Dr Mohammed al Oraifi. And there was an increase of 300% plus in fan engagement on Du’s Facebook page.
AlSayegh Media developed a series of Tabs for Du’s Facebook site which facilitated interaction with the intended demographic (these tabs aren’t live at the moment, but I’m assuming they’ll come back online next week for the start of Ramadan). However, here’s a clip of how the tabs looked last year below.
What to me is more impressive than anything else is the success that AlSayegh Media achieved for Du despite all of the noise during Ramadan. The Holy Month is a communications nightmare due to all of the religious programming that is aired over the four weeks. That AlSayegh Media was able to cut through the chatter and connect with such a hard-to-reach audience (this campaign was only UAE-focused, and aimed at Arabic and English speaking Muslims) speaks volumes about the agency’s strategy, Du’s activation marketing, and the impact of social media.
And the best thing? It was achieved at a fraction of what the same concept would have cost if televised. I’ve been told that even Du didn’t expect the volume of callers that the campaign attracted. Low cost, high return on investment, and community engagement? What’s better than that?
Let’s hope that AlSayegh Media’s Du Ramadan campaign this year will outdo 2011. According to the firm’s CEO Sheikh Dr Mohammed al Oraifi has agreed to the concept once again, and that they’re looking to expand the scope by which Muslims can reach out to the Sheikh. I’d love to see his question and answer sessions being streamed live and then posted onto Youtube, as well as a live Twitter Q&A session which would also help generate discussion between Du and the Muslim community in the UAE.
If you’re curious about Sheikh Dr Mohammed al Oraifi you can follow him on Twitter at @MohamadAlarefe or here for Facebook. The good Sheikh has almost three million followers on Twitter and 13,578 likes on Facebook and is one example of how Islamic scholars are taking to social media to communicate with their followers (I’ll blog more about this soon as well as the amount of fake accounts set up in his name).
And in case you’re curious to hear more about the founder of the company Abdullatif Al Sayegh here’s a clip of him talking at Tedx Ajman last year.
Yin and Yang, Sweet and Sour, and now MBC on social media. It seems that the Middle East’s largest free-to-air satellite station had its hands full last week. The station’s most popular talent show, Arabs Got Talent, broadcast the season finale live. The show, which has attracted millions of viewers, has trended worldwide with the hashtag #arabsgottalent over the past couple of months.
Meanwhile, another hashtag was making the rounds last week. #قناة_الفتنة translates as the channel of chaos from the Arabic to English. This less accommodating hashtag was doing the rounds in Saudi. After doing a little digging (what time will allow), it seems that the hashtag is aimed at MBC’s Ramadan schedule, and is designed to make the point that rather than portraying the spiritual side of the holiest month in the Islamic calendar MBC is more concerned with advertising revenues. Have a look at the below graphic. While you may not understand the Arabic, the picture itself speaks a thousand words (on the left is MBC, on the right is the devil).
And incidentally, who won Arabs Got Talent? A group of thirteen young men named Khawater al-Zalam who perform stunts and dance sequences with ultraviolet props and costumes set against a black background. They’re from Saudi Arabia. Check out Khawater al-Zalam’s routine during the show here.
Let’s hope that MBC’s social media team enjoy their sweet and sour as much as the rest of us.
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