YouTube Middle East and North Africa awarded Abdul Latif Jameel Motors, Saudi Arabia’s automotive distributor of Toyota and Lexus, the third edition of the Lantern Award last week, making the brand the first Saudi organization to win the award. The award aims to recognize and celebrate powerful Ramadan and Eid campaigns by the region’s advertisers and agencies.
Abdul Latif Jameel’s winning campaign is an animated series that follows Khebayyes, a young Toyota owner and Abu Hurrayas, who also owns a Toyota as they navigate everyday life during Ramadan. The series captures and reflects the values and experiences of Abdul Latif Jameel Motors’ guests.
“Ramadan is a pivotal moment for advertisers in our part of the world and we’re delighted to recognize and celebrate campaigns which tap into the blank canvas YouTube as a platform presents to advertisers to experiment with new ideas and formats. Abdul Latif Jameel’s winning campaign is testimony to the growing enthusiasm with which the advertisers are embracing the award. The campaign’s format, a web-series, is in fact a departure from the past years’ winners which were based on music or comedy. We are proud of the success of this campaign and the engagement it garnered on YouTube and we look forward to sharing these learnings with all advertisers in MENA,” said Alex Brunori, head of Google’s Creative Impact Team in the Middle East and North Africa.
Munir Khoja, director of marketing and communications for Abdul Latif Jameel Motors, said: “Abdul Latif Jameel is constantly looking for new and innovative ways to engage our guests and wider audiences. We were delighted by the popularity and success of the Khebbayes and Abu Hurayyes web series, and are honored to be recognized by Google for our Ramadan campaign. We hope to bring more entertaining and award-winning content to our followers soon.”
The campaign is the second season of a web-series Abdul Latif Jameel Motors had launched with the aim of promoting the company’s after-sales vehicle maintenance program in Saudi Arabia. The goal was to encourage the use of Toyota genuine parts and services rather than other independent workshops or service chains. The first season reached 1.8 million people and garnered more than 187 years worth of “watch time” as well as 202,500 new subscriptions to the YouTube channel, making Toyota Service Saudi the leading Toyota channel globally.
Egyptian telecom Orange won last year’s award with its “Nothing Gets Past Mohamed Henedi” campaign, which featured the iconic comedian. Kuwaiti telecom Viva won the first edition of the Lantern in 2016.
