For years, Ramadan campaigns have relied on the familiar motifs of lanterns, crescent moons, family gatherings, nostalgic soundtracks and celebrity-driven films. While on the surface, the elements seem like ideal representations of Ramadan, in reality they’re quite often far off from what really resonates and reflects the realities of their audience.
As Ramadan moves into the cooler months – with shorter days and longer nights – timing isn’t the only thing changing. Audiences are maturing and shifting with a greater demand from younger generations for more authenticity and relatability.
Multiple layers of Ramadan
One consistent theme that has emerged this year is that Ramadan is no longer singular. It is layered, fragmented and experienced differently across communities, professions and younger generations.
“It’s no longer just a month of serenity and reflection; it’s layered with economic pressure, social obligation, late-night work cycles and digital overload,” says Martino O’Brien, Creative Director and Managing Partner at YouExperience. Emotionally, people oscillate between gratitude and fatigue.”
While Ramadan is spiritually grounding, it is also physically exhausting. “It’s calm and chaos at the same time,” says Curtis Schmidt, CEO, RAPP MENA.
He adds, “For Muslims, it is about reflection, family time, late nights, work pressure, scrolling, generosity … all layered together. For the non-Muslim community, it’s more about dealing with daily changes in the rhythm of life.”
Even Ramadan experiences are not restricted to Iftar table celebrations any more. “Culturally, Ramadan is no longer one shared moment – it is many varied experiences happening simultaneously,” says Ahmed Abdel-Karim Hussein, Executive Vice President, Integrated Marketing and Communications, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) at Mastercard.
Hussein explains that there are two sides to every Ramadan experience. There are people who are gathering to connect in person after a while, and then there are people such as delivery drivers and retail workers who are missing their Iftar to enable someone else’s.
Changing expectations
Marketers also share that the values of Ramadan don’t need to be constantly recycled, as most of its audience live through them in their daily lives.
“The industry underestimates how tired people are of being sold their own faith back to them,” says Ahmed Ali El-Shorty, Business Director at Zenith. “Muslims don’t need brands to explain what Ramadan means. They live it. What they notice is when brands treat the month as a seasonal marketing opportunity rather than a moment that demands genuine respect and restraint.”
“People don’t want empty emotional messaging; they want brands that understand their reality and connect with the culture,” says Sally Adib, Associate Director, Carat MENA. She adds that brands that show real empathy for how people live Ramadan are the ones that truly resonate.
In the region, audiences respond best to relevancy and practical value. “Sometimes marketing treats it like a single sentimental moment, but people are just trying to get through the day a bit easier,” says Schmidt. “They don’t need brands to constantly move them emotionally; they need brands to understand the situation
they’re in.”
Brands are now moving from creating work that just performs emotional storytelling to work that shows andreflects situational awareness. “Our ambition is to address the practical challenges our customers face throughout the entire period – from pre-Ramadan preparations to Eid celebrations,” says Sherin Yassin, Chief Growth Officer, Majid Al Futtaim Retail, referring to the brand’s latest campaign that focuses on tangible benefits such as services and affordable pricing.
Consumers are also seeking stronger alignment between their values and the brands they choose to spend time with. “They seek meaning alongside convenience and security,” says Mastercard’s Hussein. “Brands that acknowledge the richness and complexity of the season – rather than idealising perfection – tend to resonate more deeply.”
The Ramadan patterns have not only changed on a social and cultural front, but the season has also become more commercially sophisticated, as Karim Farid, Head of Protein, Beverages & Butter at Arla Foods – MENA, notes.
“Convenience is trumping tradition; it’s no longer a linear, single-screen moment. People stream while scrolling, cook while consuming content, and navigate the month through layered media habits. Planning, inspiration and decision-making are fluid,” Farid says.
Trading excess for restraint
Brands are adapting to the new changes, implementing campaigns that reflect this new reality this year.
Marketers have expanded into research and localisation for different markets and included a move from quantity and numbers to a focus on quality and emotion. They’re trading in mass short-term promotions for fewer, larger scale brand-focused campaigns.
“Rather than asking, ‘How loud can we be during this season?’, we are asking, ‘How relevant and resonant can we be?’ This has led us to prioritise ideas grounded in community, recognition, and shared humanity, which is culturally rooted in trust and engagement, not just short-term offers,” says Mastercard’s Hussein. “Equally important is what we are choosing not to do. We are conscious of over-commercialisation – the instinct to flood Ramadan with promotions simply because spending peaks. That means not treating Ramadan as just 
another sales moment but thoughtfully weaving in the cultural nuances of the month.”
Majid Al Futtaim Retail’s Sherin Yassin, says that the brand is trading short-term promotions for more impactful campaigns that resonate deeply across key seasonal and cultural moments. “This approach enables us to build cohesive, brand-led storytelling that connects seamlessly across all customer touchpoints, ensuring a consistent and meaningful brand experience,” she says.
Attributing the move to an increase in effectiveness of their campaigns, Yassin says, “This allows us to create significant cultural moments, deliver sustained value, and build stronger brand resonance that truly lasts. This approach guides our planning for all peak periods, ensuring we make a positive impact and remain at the very centre of the conversation with our customers.”
Zenith’s El-Shorty highlights how campaigns should also reflect one of the main sentiments of the month: restraint.
“In a month defined by discipline and mindfulness, the brands that win aren’t the loudest. They’re the ones that understand when to step back, when to listen, and when their role is to support rather than dominate the conversation.” Pointing to an example of a brand that got this right, he says, “KFC Saudi Arabia proved this by halting all advertising during peak Ramadan weeks and instead redirecting that spend toward Iftar meal donations. The silence was louder than any ad. Brand favourability jumped by 18 per cent and same-store sales grew in double digits. That’s true in Ramadan. It’s true the rest of the year. We just forget it when we’re chasing share of voice instead of share of respect.”
Long-term success through Ramadan
With marketers moving away from short-term impact promotions, performance and visibility are no longer the sole indicator of success. Resonance and relevance have taken up the mantle as key KPIs. Across categories, marketers describe a recalibration of what success looks like – from short-term effectiveness to sustained engagement, from one-off emotional films to platforms that build equity over time.
The most relevant campaigns are not the loudest but the ones that understand the emotional beat of the month and show up with consistency throughout the year.
“Success is owning a narrative that deeply resonates, like celebrating the ‘Champions of Ramadan’, showcasing how emotional relevance is a key differentiator,” says Yassin. Attributing localisation for markets to connecting with audiences in an authentic way, “moves beyond mere ‘share of voice’ to ‘share of heart,’ ensuring our brand is seen as a genuine partner and contributor to the community’s wellbeing, building long-term relationships.”
Schmidt adds, “Real success usually shows up after Ramadan ends. We look at signals like people staying subscribed, returning without prompting, trusting the brand more and engaging again later. If the relationship deepens, the month worked.”
With memorability taking precedence over visibility during the month, people remember how a brand behaved rather than how loud it was. “Did the brand solve a real problem? Did it save time or bring people closer together?” asks Adib. “Ramadan is not about instant wins; it’s about building a relationship in the most sacred season of the year. If a brand earns trust here, it carries far beyond the month itself.”
Brands that help, guide or reassure during the season tend to stay ingrained in people’s minds and see results as performance follows afterwards.
O’Brien defines also success as showing up in conversation weeks later when recall is tied to feelings which go long beyond Ramadan. “It’s measured in cultural embedment, not just CPMs. If your Ramadan work strengthens brand equity and reduces price sensitivity post-Eid, you’ve built something sustainable.”
Mastercard’s Hussein shares how the brand identifies this in practice: “A meaningful measure is whether people feel the brand understood them and what the month truly represents. If people say, ‘This brand behaved differently during Ramadan,’ that is a powerful indicator of effectiveness that no click-through rate (CTR) alone can capture.”
While brand sentiment follows into the post-Ramadan season, building habits that can be carried over is equally key. Farid says, “Sales matter, but if all you’ve built is a promotion, you haven’t built a brand.”
He adds, “If your product becomes part of Iftar or Suhour routines, that behaviour doesn’t vanish post Ramadan. Once embedded in habit, it becomes culture. As brand leaders, our responsibility is clarity. You don’t build loyalty by owning every occasion; you build it by anchoring one credible role and repeating it relentlessly.”
While the effect of building brand trust and values lasts long after Ramadan, marketers call for the need for brands to show up throughout the year and not just during the Holy Month. “Ramadan forces brands to engage with values like generosity, community, and sacrifice,” says El-Shorty. “But most treat it as a seasonal activation rather than a test of whether those values are embedded in how the brand operates.”
Brands that win are ones that don’t just show up during Ramadan; they win because of the work they’ve been doing all year long.
Lessons from Ramadan
Often described as the region’s Super Bowl moment, Ramadan functions as the peak spending season for brands – where they spend an estimated 20 per cent of their annual budgets during the month. This leads to a spike in activities, messaging and promotions before all plans and strategies return to the brands’ regular baseline – with performance dipping as well.
“Your Ramadan learnings should inform how you allocate budget the other eleven months,” says El-Shorty, emphasising the need for brands to stop unlearning their findings and continue to use strategies learnt all year round.
He adds, “If you discovered that community-level partnerships drove more authentic engagement than top-down broadcast campaigns, why revert to mass reach strategies post-Ramadan? If localised, culturally rooted storytelling outperformed generic regional creative during Ramadan, that’s not a seasonal insight. That’s a market truth you should be applying year-round.”
The discipline, empathy and behavioural insight required to succeed during Ramadan are now informing a year-round strategy. Marketers are looking at how the lessons in cultural differences, audience segmentation and measured storytelling can extend beyond the Holy Month to build more sustainable engagement long after Eid has passed.
