UAE: Meeting with Ed Sheeran, meals for 1 cent; how top marketers build brand loyalty

With digital noise at an all-time high, marketers are turning to emotions and experiences to build loyalty and retain customers.

In fast food giant Burger King’s Whopper Detour campaign, customers who visited a fast food rival was identified through mobile geofencing. This means that people who went within 600 feet of the rival company were delivered a mobile notification by Burger King, offering a Whopper for one cent.

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The campaign was organised by the Braze marketing agency. “With minimal investment, they got an additional $1.5 million in app downloads and a good increase in revenue. They managed to increase the number of users, retention and upsell as well,” said Haris Naeem, Senior Account Executive of Scale at Braze.

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He was speaking at TRIBE – The CMO Connect 2025 event by Khaleej Times as part of a panel highlighting how to hold consumer attention. The event which brought together marketers from all over the country addressed several topics including artificial intelligence, building brand credibility and engaging with influencers.

Spotify created “emotional bonds” with their users, said Marwen Ben Messaoud, director of growth – MEA and South Asia at Spotify. “A couple of months ago, we had a few premium subscribers for a meet and greet with Ed Sheeran and other artists,” he said. “We also make sure that our superfans get rewarded, so they have the opportunity to interact with artists. We have what we call listening parties where they can exchange ideas and discuss with your favorite artist.”

Meanwhile, Mark Hansen, Senior Product Manager at Branch highlighted that it was important to focus on “customer lifetime value” as a really valuable metric. 

Community building

For some companies, the best way to stay connected with their consumers was to build a community. “We feel that loyalty is a by-product of our community engagement, and we listen to them,” said Rishi Kishor Gupta, Regional Director - Middle East and Africa at Nothing Tech.  “Last year, we launched a physical product which was designed by the community. Each and every part of that product, including the look, feel, hardware and packaging was designed based on what the community designed. It did really well.”

He added that when the company had to push back the launch of a product after a flaw was noticed in it, they openly communicated it with their customers. “We got a lot of appreciation from the community for being so transparent with them; we are telling them not only about our success but also sharing our failures with them.”

Challenges

Despite the opportunities, some speakers admitted that there were challenges. Mitin Chakraborty, Head of Marketing at Babyshop explained how the brand was struggling to connect with one of their markets – children between the ages of six and eight.

“We're trying to figure out how we better address that better,” he said. “It's driving your mindset from being a marketer that was catering to parents to now addressing a completely new set of consumers who think very differently. AI is helping us tremendously on the execution of these strategies.”

With people’s shrinking attention span, it had become increasingly difficult to “hook” the consumer and stand out from others, said Gaurav Sinha, international marketing director for Asia, ME, Africa and Turkey, at Domino's. “If you're a food brand, how you market differently is the biggest challenge,” he said. “It would be the way you speak and communicate, but it also means the products you launch are going to connect with your audience.”

• Dubai

Nasreen Abdulla

nasreen@khaleejtimes.com

Nasreen Abdulla is a Special Correspondent covering food, tech and human interest stories. When not challenged by deadlines, you’ll find her pulling off submissions on the jiu jitsu mats.