TikTok Helped UNICEF Gather Funds of $200,000 for the Welfare of Children –
Key Insights:
- The global leader in short mobile videos inspired its community to raise awareness and funds for UNICEF in the latest challenge #JoyOfGiving.
- According to UNICEF analysis, 99% of children and young people under 18 are vulnerable and support disproportionately.
- The challenge was run during the holy month of Ramadan and received an overwhelming response with over 2.3 million views and achieving the donation goal of $200,000.
- TikTok hosted a number of celebrities and regional content creators in 17 thought-provoking live sessions.
- The funds will be utilized by UNICEF to deliver crucial resources and relief to children across the MENA region.
In recent times, TikTok has partnered with UNICEF MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) to help the community gather information about COVID-19 and its preventive measures.
Background
UNICEF is on frontlines worldwide with responders in this pandemic and provides them information and resources to keep children healthy and safe from sickness and violence. TikTok, a pioneer in short mobile videos with its latest challenge #JoyOfGiving is raising awareness and funds for UNICEF’s mission.
Be Smart: According to UNICEF analysis, the children and young people are vulnerable to coronavirus and urgent action can ensure that children don’t feel the impact of the COVID-19 crisis in the decades to come.
Details: The challenge #JoyOfGiving ran during Ramadan, the month of giving, invited TikTok’s community of content creators to help in the donation drive by participating in 17 thought-provoking Live sessions.
The campaign received an overwhelming response with over 2.3 million views, easily achieving the donation goal of raising $200,000. UNICEF will utilize these funds to deliver relief and resources to the children and affected communities across the MENA region.
The intrigue: TikTok hosted several celebrities and regional content creators like Yara (@yara), Balqees Fathi (@balqeesfathi), Khalid, and Salama Al Ameri (@khalidandsalama), Carmen Soliman (@carmensoliman), and Raya Abirached (@rayaofficial) for interactive sessions.
The session focused on UNICEF initiatives to provide essential supplies to children and personal experiences during COVID-19.
Image Credit: Campaign ME
UNICEF Mena hosted live sessions on its TikTok page featuring renowned musician and composer Jad Rahbani and senior nutrition advisor Vilma Taylor.
The bottom line: The #JoyOfGiving challenge is an initiative by TikTok for the MENA region to spread positivity in adverse times and raise awareness of the critical issues.
Read on: Dubizzle Launches Their Own Self-served Advertising Platform
Newspaper Industry Witness Disruption In UAE Due To COVID-19 Crisis.
The current crisis has forced people to stay inside their houses. Several businesses are confronting adverse outcomes due to the circumstances of lock-down across the planet. The familiar lifestyle of people has changed. Human beings are struggling to finish off their daily life work, as there are limited resources available. In these times of adversity, several lines of work are closing or transforming themselves according to the new trends, sustaining, in a new era.
However, the crisis has also provided us with opportunities. Our Earth is healing, the rivers and oceans are cleaning themselves. The air is less polluted, the biggest ozone layer hole is healing by itself. It’s not just the Earth showing good signs of healing and development, many business models have also blossomed. These emerging markets were struggling to survive from old unstoppable human rituals.
Humans are now learning new ways to live. We are learning social isolation, but being a social animal we can’t stop interacting.
Therefore, social networking platforms have seen a sudden increase in their viewers. Even new viewers are joining on a daily bases. The time spent by them on these platforms has increased.
It’s not just limited to the social networking platforms, e-commerce has also seen a high rise in its user database. Hundreds of thousands of new users have changed their purchase habits, now they are shopping online for their needs and will continue to do the same.
Since centuries news has been a crucial part of our everyday life! To satisfy this need newspapers have played a crucial role in delivering the information to us. During the early days, the news was shared among each other verbally. To share news over long distances trained birds were used to deliver handwritten notes over long-distance. Soon, time changed and things developed. Our world became modern, we started using printed sheets of paper to publish news.
The culture of printed newspaper sheets stayed with us like a lifestyle for centuries now. In the digital age and emerging markets, the digital platforms started publishing the news on their digital platform(E-Newspaper). This epidemic has increased the number of viewers and subscribers for these digital platforms.
In today’s world, we must read the news and get updates from authorized sources. The situation has made paper media a less favorable option for everyday usage. People are preferring digital platforms(E-Newspaper) to keep themselves updated with the news.
In UAE leading news platforms ALBAYAN.AE and EMARATALYOUM.COM have reported an enormous amount of audience shifting onto their digital platforms during this period of crisis. They have experienced a huge increase in their unique users as well as a massive increase in daily viewers of their E-Newspaper.
Nearly 6 out of 10 people are reading news on online platforms. According to the reports, around 46% of people spend time reading news via online platforms.
Image credits – Campaignme.
ALBAYAN.AE
ALBAYAN.AE is one of the most preferred newspaper in the UAE. Even in this time of crisis, it stayed as the most prominent and trusted source for people to gather information. However, the only thing that has changed is the source of ALBAYAN.AE. Earlier people preferred a printed copy of the newspaper, but now most of its audience has shifted to its digital platform(E-Newspaper).
In 2019 March, ALBAYAN.AE had 867k unique users on its digital platform. Whereas in March 2020, its unique user database has increased to 1.7 million. It’s an increase of +94% in the digital user database. Next month in April 2020, this number further increased from 1.7 million to 3 million which is a +77% increase in unique user data.
Also, the page views of AL BAYAN in March 2019 were 4.1 million. In March 2020, the views increased to 13.8 million(+231%) which was a record-breaking increase viewership. It is still increasing, as per April 2020, the total number of views was 15.3 million, which was another +12% increase in total viewers
.
Image Credit – Campaignme.
From last year, this year Ramadan has shown a significant increase in unique users. The growth rate is +87%, the numbers add up to 1,335,460 unique users. Viewership has increased +177% since last year, the numbers add up to 9,349,310. These are the data of the first three weeks of Ramadan ie. from 24th April to 12th May 2020.
Image Credit -Campaignme.
EMARATAL YOUM
EMARATAL YOUM is a wonderful reference for people staying in UAE. It helps them to stay updated with the news, and laws that are being introduced, or old ones that are updated.
The digital user base of EMARATAL YOUM has increased tremendously. In the year 2019, March the total number of unique users that EMARTAL YOUM had was just 804K.
In March 2020, this number increased to 2 million showing an increase of +149%, and another +55% in the month of April making the number of users rise to 3 million.
The viewership of EMARATAL YOUM in March 2019 was 5.1 million. The numbers skyrocketed to 17.5 million(+238%) in March 2020. In April 2020 it is setting a benchmark for the number of viewers at 18 million(+3%).
Image Credit -Campaignme.
In the month of Ramadan, the unique user base has shown an increase of +76% (1,283,908), and the viewership increased to +141%(10,031,460).
Image Credit – Campaignme.
This huge increase in numbers is an indication of the digital boom in the UAE. Hence, brands should make sure that they connect to their consumers as several portals of opportunities are opening. Also, they can advertise their products or do promotions as time is most opportune.
Some of the other famous newspaper of UAE which is receiving a hugely positive response on their e-platforms are listed below:
- Khaleej Times
To increase the viewership, Khaleej Times is providing free E-Newspaper for its users. The viewership of the newspaper has also increased at a huge pace.
- National.ae
- Gulf Business news
- Sport360
- YOUM7
- Al-Masry al-Youm.
Project Agora Partners With Taboola For A New Native Content Solution- ‘Explore More’
Publishers have a new tool in their monetization kitty with the launch of Project Agora’s new Native Content Solution, Explore More.
Over 15,000 websites use Project Agora’s Native Content feature in partnership with Taboola to drive revenue, increase engagement and page views, and acquire new customers.
What is Explore More?
‘Explore More’ is designed to make mobile users, who are visiting the publisher’s site directly from social media and apps to stay longer and re-engaging them before they exit with the relevant content recommendation.
Explore More serves organic and sponsored content. However, they feature 70% organic content which increases organic re-circulation and improves revenue.
How Beneficial is it?
Explore More has impressive results on smartphones and Tablets.
On Smartphones, it brings 60% uplift in RPM (Revenue per Thousand Pageviews) and 100% uplift in Organic CTR whereas, on Tablets, it brings a 45% uplift in RPM and 30% uplift in Organic CTR.
How to Use it?
It is simple to use for publishers already working with Project Agora by just adding the Explore More feature to the website. Project Agora’s expert team will undertake all the processes, and there is no work needed from the publisher to start seeing immediate results.
Project Agora’s Publishers such as protothema.gr, alon.hu, a1.ro, alwatanvoice.com have already upped their game by implementing Explore More on their mobile websites
Dimitris Tsoukalas, Regional Director MEA, Project Agora said,
“More than 19 of Project Agora’s publishers, in the Middle East and Africa, have already upped their game by implementing Explore More on their mobile websites. In their battle to retain users for as long as possible and increase ad-revenues, Explore More is a no-brainer, quick win for publishers.”
Also Read: Project Agora Co-founds the New EMEA Video Advertising Platform- Union
Omnicom Media Group MENA To Provide Complimentary Media Space To Charities
Omnicom Media Group MENA has decided to work together with regional media owners in the Middle East to provide complimentary media space to its long-standing partner charities. This initiative is a part of the company’s COVID-19 relief efforts. This noble act will help Dubai Cares, Gulf for Good, and Médecins Sans Frontières to reach out to a larger audience with their call to action. The COVID-19 campaigns are mainly aimed at education, health, and critical support for people especially children who are in need in the region and beyond.
The response from the media industry is astounding. The media partners currently include Backlite Media, Digital Tree, DMS, Elevision Screens, Eye Media, Future Tech, Group Plus, Maddict, MMP, Reach MENA, and Snap Inc. They have offered free media space to promote various charities and draw support for their causes. Omnicom Media Group MENA also provides creative support.
Omnicom Media Group MENA has shared a long-term relationship with these three non-profit organizations and supported their causes over the years. The latest initiative is a step to ensure to get the means for the mission of these charities towards the community continues when donations are down due to coronavirus crisis.
Mario Stephan, Executive Director MSF UAE said,
“This pandemic is like no other we’ve seen in modern times, impacting our patients, our staff, and our programs. Only together can we muster hope to get through it successfully.”
He further added,
“We’re very grateful for this initiative as it will help drum further support for our patients. It’s important we never lose sight of the less fortunate than ourselves, even now.”
Alanna Turpin, Sustainability Lead at Omnicom Media Group MENA added,
“Our industry has a very powerful talent that’s acutely needed right now. It’s the ability to raise awareness, rally and move people to achieve great things through collective action.”
In this crisis, it’s about saving people from illness and poverty. It’s urgent our charity partners get the resources they need to alleviate the suffering. Media owners with available advertising inventory they wish to commit to this effort can contact us at CSR-MENA@OmnicomMediaGroup.com”.
IAB GCC Report: Ramadan Budgets Shift Towards Performance based Ad Spends
Advertisers are changing their digital ad spend due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis affecting the businesses and the economy. The Dubai based Interactive Agency Bureau(IAB) that empowers GCC based media and marketing industries surveyed the marketing teams of nearly 30 Agencies and Clients between April 6 to April 12, 2020, for the impact of COVID-19 on Advertising.
Here are some main points from the report:
The findings suggest a huge downturn with 48% of respondents expect less than 30% of budget cuts in April and 41% of respondents see a decline in ad-spending or paused post-June.
With the Holy month of Ramadan expected to begin within weeks, there are still 34% of respondents who are yet to take decisions on Ramadan budgets while 51% are unsure about the directions of second-half budgets in this unprecedented period. This suggests that the majority of marketers are in ‘wait-and-see’ mode.
The report also states that 59% of respondents are suggesting that they will significantly increase the ‘Performance-based’ ad spend. This indicates marketers are in favour of Performance media in the second half.
Even though advertisers might be working on leaner budgets but are opportunistic to see 17% growth in Digital display in the second half. They also expect a rise in the audience and programmatic buying.
Lastly, 77% of respondents see COVID-19 will have a significant impact on the MENA advertising market than the 08/09 financial crisis.
Take a look at the pictorial images of findings and methodology from the report.
Image Credit:CampaignMe
Image Credit: CampaignMe
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Image Credit: CampaignMe
There is a wave of optimism about the second half right now and are looking ahead of a post-pandemic world whenever it is possible. Definitely, there is a pendulum swing in the minds of advertisers whether to decrease ad spend or pause it entirely to what we hope for a clear picture very soon.
