Saudi-based soft drink and confectionary firm Aujan Industries is to launch a major advertising and re-branding campaign for its Barbican range of drinks, Campaign can reveal.
And the company has also signed a retainer deal with public relations firm Asda’a — four months after its split with PR agency Promoseven Weber Shandwick.
The first stage of the new pan-Arab campaign will run for the next few weeks in print and on television to communicate the brand’s new bottle design, labelling and packaging.
This will be followed by a further television campaign, which will build on the drink’s ‘This is me’ tagline by focusing on the ‘life-forming’ experiences of Barbican drinkers.
The campaign has been created by Dubai-based advertising agency Face to Face which was behind Barbican’s advertising push last year. Media buying is being carried out by Initiative.
Aujan’s head of marketing, Tolga Sezer, said that the company wanted to “reinvigorate” Barbican’s style of communication, which he said had been imitated by other brands.
“This is a major re-launch because we have massive aspirations for our Barbican brands,” he said.
“Already you can see some brands imitating our style and so we have decided to move things on to the next phase.” Sezer said that Aujan had set up consultations and focus groups with young Barbican drinkers in Dubai, Jeddah, Dammam and Riyadh to find out what they thought the brand could do to develop.
Their feedback formed an integral part of the new-look bottles, packaging and the development of two new flavours — strawberry and pineapple.
Sezer said: “We constantly interact with the youngsters, hanging out with them and listening to them. The insights that we have seen from them were that we needed to change the look and the packaging and re-launch the brand.”
The new campaign is part of Aujan’s “5,5,5” project, which aims to double turnover for its five core brands, including Rani, Hani and Vimto, to US$500 million by 2009.
Sezer said that revenues for Barbican were currently at US$35 million a year and that he wanted to double that figure in two years’ time.
“When you look at the potential for Barbican in the new-age drink segment, the sky is the limit,” he added.
Chris Bell, client services director at Face to Face, said that although Barbican was moving to a new phase of development, the new ads would remain faithful to the brand’s essence.
“We have done this in a way that still clearly communicates the essence of what the brand stands for – reflecting life forming experiences in our consumers lives — but doing this in a way that zooms more closely in on specific occasions,” he said.
“We have also looked to take the treatment, which already was being copied by some of our competitors, and moved it on to the next level with an even more contemporary visual approach.”
On the PR front, Aujan said that it had chosen Asda’a from a total of 10 agencies that pitched for the account.
One of the key factors behind Asda’a winning the account, Aujan said, was for its ability to offer PR support in several different countries in the region.
Asda’a will handle PR activities in the UAE and Saudi Arabia full-time, as well as handling specific country-based projects when required. Aujan said that it would carry out a review of the services provided by Asda’a in six months time.
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