Marketing During Ramadan is Not Performance. It's Participation
Ramadan marketing is shifting from campaigns to participation. Leaders from Yango Play, Ooredoo Qatar and Al Jazeera reveal why authenticity now depends on how products adapt to Ramadan’s lived rhythms, not on seasonal storytelling.
Ramadan has always reshaped public life — the cadence of evenings, the tone of conversations, the rhythm of consumption.
But in an era of algorithmic feeds and AI-led campaigns, it now tests something else: Whether brands truly understand the month or merely decorate it.
For companies in entertainment, telecom, publishing and tech, the challenge is no longer about producing a heartfelt commercial before iftar. It is about whether the product itself behaves differently when the sun sets later, when fatigue deepens, when spirituality sharpens, and when community becomes more visible.
“Authenticity during Ramadan isn’t about what you say in your campaigns,” said Tamer Alfons, Head of Marketing at Yango Play. “It’s about how your product behaves throughout the month.”
Across interviews with Tamer Alfons, Head of Marketing at Yango Play; Sameer Mohammed, Official Member of the Forbes Technology Council and Former AI/ML expert at Ooredoo Qatar; and Ahmad Ashour, Manager of AJ+ Arabic at Al Jazeera Media Network, a shared message emerges:
Ramadan marketing, at its best, is not performance. It is participation.
Designing for the Way Ramadan Is Actually Lived
The modern Ramadan experience is fragmented across screens, group chats, late-night streams and quiet commutes before maghrib. And the brands that truly connect are the ones that see these shifts not as numbers on a dashboard, but as real, everyday behaviours.
“Audiences don’t experience Ramadan through ads alone,” said Alfons. “They experience it through how platforms adapt to their daily rhythms.”
On streaming platforms, that means understanding that peak hours move past midnight. It means recommendations that adjust to lower energy levels, interfaces that feel calmer, and content surfaced at the moment it is most needed.
Alfons describes authenticity not as a campaign theme but as a product decision: communication adapted to later peak hours, stories surfaced in context, voice assistants offering iftar reminders or Quran recitations in ways that feel supportive rather than opportunistic.
“Younger audiences experience Ramadan as a content season, not just a religious one,” he noted. Before the month begins, discovery spikes. Watchlists are built. Creators guide choices.
During Ramadan, viewing becomes fluid and social — television with family earlier in the evening, then personal streaming that peaks between midnight and 4 a.m. By Eid, the tone shifts again toward celebration and escapism, with comedy and communal movie-watching rising to the top.
The through line is clear: Ramadan is dynamic. Brands that treat it as a static aesthetic risk becoming irrelevant. True relevance comes from understanding how needs and moods evolve hour by hour, platform by platform.
Ashour agreed with that sentiment from the newsroom perspective. “Ramadan should be approached as a lived experience, not a seasonal aesthetic,” he said.
“We focus on meaning over symbolism — real human stories, authentic values and everyday realities.”
When Data Deepens, Not Diminishes, Storytelling
Behind these adaptations lies a quieter engine: Data. But not the superficial demographic slices that once drove seasonal campaigns.
“Brands should prioritise behavioural, intent-led and cultural data, not surface-level demographics,” said Mohammed.
“Search intent, content engagement, purchase timing, sentiment and first-party interactions reveal how people think, feel and act during Ramadan.”
For many creative teams, data still carries a stigma — as if analytics flatten nuance or constrain imagination. Mohammed sees it differently. “Data uncovers human insight at scale,” he said. “It tells you what emotion matters, what tension exists and what story deserves attention.”
The resistance, he argues, stems from a misconception. “It removes noise, sharpens focus and elevates narrative impact when used as inspiration, not instruction.”
Ashour described a similar balance at AJ+ Arabic. “Storytelling has evolved into a balance between human insight and data intelligence,” he said.
“Data helps us understand audience behaviour, timing and platform nuances while technology enables faster testing and adaptation. However, the core remains unchanged: credibility, context and human impact. Technology supports the story — it never replaces it.”
In Ramadan, where spiritual meaning and commercial opportunity intersect, that distinction becomes critical. Data may reveal that late-night consumption rises. It cannot dictate the tone of reverence. That remains a human judgment.
Beyond Tropes: Toward Honesty and Credibility
If Ramadan marketing has a recurring flaw, it is not insincerity so much as repetition.
The formula is familiar: the family iftar table, the swelling music, the voiceover about togetherness. “It’s not wrong,” Alfons said. “But it’s exhausted.”
The stronger narratives today, he argues, are specific rather than symbolic: the commute home before sunset; the group chat negotiating suhoor plans; the exhaustion that coexists with gratitude. “Originality doesn’t mean being loud,” he said. “It means being honest.”
Honesty also means acknowledging complexity — fatigue, work-life tension, generational differences — alongside spirituality. It means recognising that younger audiences are not necessarily searching for explicitly Ramadan-themed content, but for experiences that match their mood and context.
For leaders inside organisations, Mohammed believes the shift requires cultural change as much as creative change. “Trust is built when data consistently clarifies decisions and delivers results,” he said. “The goal is not to replace intuition, but to strengthen it with evidence.”
And for media platforms like AJ+, credibility remains the final safeguard. “Brands that listen carefully to their audiences and reflect genuine moments will resonate far more than those relying on familiar Ramadan imagery,” Ashour said.
In the end, Ramadan does not demand spectacle. It demands sensitivity — to time, to tone, to tension, to truth. The brands that understand this will not need to proclaim their authenticity. Their platforms and their decisions will quietly reveal it.
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