Telecom Egypt’s WE finally releases their first real campaign, after their rebranding awareness campaign back in September of last year. Since its creation, WE has only released ad copies for the World Cup qualifiers.

Releasing the telecommunications company’s first card, the ad plays with local themes and sensibilities. This has become a popular recurring theme in many telecommunications brands this year.

Action star Karim Abdel Aziz stars in WE’s newest ad for their new card, Agda3 card. The ad has fun laughing at how Egyptians deal with fighting and superstars amongst themselves.

Within 5 hours, the ad has already gained more than 761k views and 24k positive reactions.

Even though the year has only started, many have already released their own ad copies targeting the very same specific segment of the population. Their weapon of choice? Mostly Mahraganat music and funny culturally-appropriate and appreciated jokes.

But why is there such a strong need to become more localized?

Famous blunders

To learn from our mistakes is an accomplishment, but to learn from others’ mistakes is a cost-effective strategy. Brands that have failed to localize their campaigns have often either ended in hilarious or terrible results.

KFC’s famous blunder in China, where KFC’s tagline “fingerlickin’ good!” was translated to “eat your fingers off!” Or, a local example, Cadbury Egypt’s decision to apply Cadbury’s previous global campaign to Egypt without much research, resulting in a popular and hilarious social media frenzy.

We can see localization pay off with another chocolate brand, TODO, whose popular and very localized content has made it a beloved brand.

Trying to catch up

For a long time now, telecom companies have been trying to reach the largest population segment, the lower and lower middle classes, with not always the best of luck. But, a stroke of genius and viral content thrust a new way to reach them.

Orange’s now viral ad, “Shamar Yalla,” boosted Mahraganat music to the forefront of marketers’ screens. Now, almost all across the telecommunications section has moved into the new year, aiming to reach new heights with the same type of content and the same success.

We see this in ads especially with Vodafone, who seems to have decided to focus all their efforts towards this demographic. With their newest ads, and even dealings with current culturally relevant celebrities such as Abla Fahita.

Orange continued the trend with “La2 La2,” and now we see WE entering the fray with their newest ad.

For a long time, Mobinil (Now Orange) was the only major player who would focus marketing efforts towards the country’s largest class. Its rebranding and new strategy when switching to Orange changed that, leaving a large target segment with no real penetration.

Now Orange is back at it, and all the telecom players are still trying to catch up.

Why to localize your campaigns?

Don’t allow your campaign to be “amazing” to the wrong people, campaigns such as Cadbury’s Aliens may have worked brilliantly in other countries and regions, but simply translating voice-overs won’t save you from this blunder.

Create new content with local staff around your already great concept, and localize!

Social Media Insights and Data Analysis

And don’t just listen to what people are saying about your brand, listen to the conversations on your competitors’ social platforms as well. Keep an eye, and webpage, out for problems, complaints and popular happenings.

Creating your campaigns through collected data will provide you with a great insight to your target audience. There is so much data floating around that one day of research could supply you with a strong idea on how to reach your target, and build a culture-proof campaign around it. So, don’t forget to hug your analysts!