Tesco Hones in on the Magic of Eid for This Year’s Ramadan Campaign

This week, Tesco is launching a campaign centred around a busy family excitedly preparing for the Eid celebration, which marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting, prayer, reflection and community. 

Tesco, BBH and EssenceMediaCom worked together to create the campaign, developed in partnership with strategic equity, diversity & inclusion consultancy The Unmistakables. The team also involved the Race and Ethnicity Network at Tesco to ensure the experiences of Ramadan and Eid were represented authentically. We worked with Relish to get deeper insight into the importance and how people observe and celebrate Ramadan and Eid, and System 1 to ensure that the work was received well and emotionally resonant with our primary audience, achieving the highest possible score among the Muslim audience (5.9-Stars) on their IPA-validated effectiveness scale. .

The 'Alia’s ‘worth the wait' Samosas' campaign follows Alia, who is keeping her young son Umar entertained by challenging him to see if he can spot the new moon for himself. Umar knows that once the moon is sighted, Eid will be declared, which means family and friends will join them in feasting and celebration, and they will finally be able to eat one of his Mum’s delicious veggie samosas. The creative is focussed on the yearly tradition of waiting for the moon sighting, a moment that is always a topic of conversation within Muslim families as they await the celebration of Eid al-Fitr. 

Launching in the second half of the holy month of Ramadan as Muslim families enter the holiest ten days and start to plan for their Eid celebrations, Tesco is building on the innovative 'Together this Ramadan' work from 2022 by using the well-loved Food Love Stories campaign to represent the experience of Muslims around the UK as they celebrate Eid. Tesco’s previous comms marking Ramadan included ‘Not quite Auntie’s sumac chicken’, featuring a Muslim family replicating a family favourite dish - Auntie’s sumac chicken, and a digital billboard showing a collection of empty plates during the day. As the sun set, the dishes filled up with food, marking Iftar, the meal eaten by Muslims at the end of each day’s fast during Ramadan.

The campaign will go live across TV, Video on Demand, Online Video Advertising, Social, Out-of-home, Radio and Print on 10th April and run for 10 days in the run up to Eid. 

The TV spot is set to a cover of Rudimental’s 'Feel the love', performed by up-and-coming singer songwriter Leo Kalyan. Kalyan brought the song to life in their own style, switching back and forth between English and Urdu to highlight the South Asian heritage of the family in the ad. 

Throughout the creation of the campaign, all aspects of production were considered from the perspectives of people who celebrate Ramadan and Eid. For the AV shoot, BBH and Tesco worked with Muslim director Sasha Nathwani, who brought together key production partners to ensure all elements of production were approached with authenticity. This included everything from casting those who have lived experience of celebrating Eid, to wardrobe, food styling and ensuring all food on set was halal. 

This year our media strategy centred around the insight that Muslim media consumption changes dramatically during the holy month of Ramadan. Our aim was to sensitively speak to the UK’s Muslim population with the most relevant messaging at the right moments whilst driving awareness amongst the wider population across all channels. During the Ramadan period, in daylight hours the assets across all media channels focus on the story of the family coming together, while food-focused assets will only be featured at night-time to be respectful to those who are fasting. We have upweighted our radio and OOH to regions with high Muslim population density with bespoke assets delivered in rotation during daylight and night hours, supported by Ramadan and Eid comms instore at Tesco, on Tesco.com and through Tesco magazine. Our insights showed that our Muslim audience is more prevalent on social and online video, so we have upweighted investment behind those channels - which also informed our brand partnership over the Eid period with Amaliah, a social-first Muslim-owned media owner, creating Eid dishes that capture Food Love Stories aimed at modern Muslim women using Tesco ingredients that are authentic to the audience and celebrates their cultures.

To further ensure we reach our core target audience, we have partnerships with Ethnocast news publishers and Marketair ethnic radio stations with bespoke host reads. We have sponsored Ramadan content from Buzzfeed on Twitter, and over the Eid weekend we have OOH sites in proximity to mosques. We also have a media-first in running a custom line up on YouTube, targeting specific diverse content curated for an ethnic audience which indexes highly to Muslim viewers. 

In addition, an ITV Brand partnership will go live over the EID weekend - using footage from the TV spot in idents with bespoke celebratory messaging. The details of the partnership will be confirmed at a later date.

Sasha Nathwani, director said, “This was a really heart-warming project. There are four million British Muslims in the UK who rarely see themselves represented in British advertising, so it was special to dive into my own childhood memories of Eid to bring Chloe and Ciara's lovely script to the screen for BBH and Tesco’s Food Love Stories.

“We wanted our heads-of-department to also draw on their own experiences of Eid or SouthAsian cultures, and collaboratively bring those influences into the project. That's particularly relevant to Ranya El Rafaey's charming art-direction for the Haq household, and to Neesha Champaneria's vibrant styling for the family. I can't recall being on-set with so many Middle-Eastern and South-Asian cast and crew, there was something really special about that, and I think the warmth of the inviting on-set atmosphere is really apparent in the film.”

BBH and Tesco once again teamed up with Khalil Musa, a photographer and a practising Muslim who shot last year’s Ramadan work. He brought his experience to the story telling world of Food Love Stories.

Alessandra Bellini, chief customer officer at Tesco said, “Tesco Food Love Stories is all about how great food brings people together. For so many Muslims, Ramadan and Eid are important moments in their calendar - with food at the heart of celebrations. We developed this campaign to share the stories of these communities at this special time and are proud to help them feel seen, heard and understood.” 

George Rivers, head of campaigns at Tesco said, “It was really important to us to tell this story in an authentic way, so at every step of the journey we made sure to listen to, involve and consult with people with lived experience. This gave us the confidence that what we were doing would be a positive and meaningful portrayal of this special time of year whilst raising awareness and understanding of Eid amongst a wider audience. We’re really excited about sharing it.”

Christine Turner, CD, BBH said, Food is at the heart of so many celebrations and it couldn’t be more prominent during Ramadan and Eid. For many Muslim households, they become a hive of activity when Eid is announced, with the whole family coming round to help prepare for the celebrations ahead. Working closely with our director Sasha, The Unmistakables and our photographer Khalil, meant we were able to create a truly authentic campaign and continue to build on the success of last year's work.

Asad Dhunna founder and chief executive officer of The Unmistakables, said, "It's been wonderful to continue this partnership with BBH and Tesco and further our mission to accelerate inclusion. There was definitely a sense of 'second album syndrome' this year following the widespread accolade and praise for last year's campaign. 

“As we enter the last 10 days, the holiest of the month, the excitement of Eid is slowly starting to build. This advert will be seen in so many different ways given the diversity of the Muslim community itself, which will be reflective of the various insights we’ve uncovered throughout this process. 

Our hope is that people will see this and feel seen by a major British brand showcasing an inside out approach to inclusion once again, inshallah”