Spoilt for Choice: Navigating The Competitive Food & Beverage Industry Of The UAE

The UAE boasts of a thriving and eclectic Food and Beverage industry that has shown remarkable growth, in recent years. According to the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, the first nine months of 2021 showed steady growth in Food and Beverage trade reaching over $20 Billion. The industry was also largely impacted by the recent pandemic, which changed many aspects of how consumers engage with the F&B industry. In such a diverse and highly competitive market, it is key to find new and innovative ways to keep up.

The UAE is a unique market for the F&B industry as the country’s population is multi-cultural in nature. This is one of the reasons why the F&B industry in the UAE has expanded to its current stature. There’s a vast variety of stakeholders who are from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds, which shapes their preferences and pushes the industry to find different and unique ways of catering to them. It then becomes challenging to set individual brands apart in such a competitive and fast-changing landscape, which is where the right PR campaign, Social Media campaign, and utilizing Influencer Marketing can position a business in the most optimal way for consumers.

PR Campaigns:

The right PR campaign tailored to an individual business concept can majorly influence how well it can perform and fulfill business objectives. An approach that may work for a fast-food restaurant may not work with fine dining concepts and so on. In an F&B Market like the UAE, replete with fresh concepts daily, putting together the right PR campaign is crucial to ensure that the individual brand can set itself apart and attract consumers and subsequently, maximize profits.

Securing apt coverage early on, or utilizing opportunities for media gifting or ‘first looks’ can help generate brand awareness and buzz even before being fully operational. Once operations commence, the focus can be on regularly showcasing different brand offerings and reiterating their Unique Selling Points (USPs) to ensure it remains fresh in consumers’ minds. For established brands looking to increase brand awareness, the starting point would be to promote their USPs and offerings through traditional media, as well as social media. Furthermore, periodically analyzing the effectiveness of different campaigns through data-driven methods can help understand areas for improvement.

Social Media Campaigns:

Social Media today has evolved into an important point of information for most consumers and businesses. It, therefore, becomes important to build and maintain a robust social media presence. Partaking in relevant social media trends, utilizing ads and user-generated content can all be powerful tools to build a strong presence that can act as a deciding factor for consumers. Today, a good social media presence, especially for an F&B business can showcase more credibility in the eyes of consumers. Furthermore, social media also offers businesses an opportunity to directly interact with consumers and thus build stronger relationships. Additionally, the collaborative nature of social media can be harnessed to put out interesting, unique, and creative collaborations with other brands, media outlets, and influencers which would set the business apart from its competition.

Influencer Marketing:

Influencer Marketing has also emerged as a surefire way to grow a business, as a by-product of the increasing prominence of social media. Today, influencers are hailed by many as key tastemakers in many areas like dining, fashion, travel, and culture, among others. Therefore, maintaining strong influencer relations can help increase brand awareness and engagement. Through gifting, paid and barter collaborations, and coordinating giveaways, there can be increased brand exposure, which is ultimately highly beneficial. There is a plethora of niches amongst influencers itself, depending on the type of perception the business ultimately wants to generate and the nature of their target audience. For example, if a brand’s key offering is vegan food, vegan influencers can help in promoting the same.

POP Success Stories:

POP Communications has worked with a range of varied F&B clients who seek to fulfill different objectives. Using tailor-made, multi-faceted strategies, we were able to deliver impressive and timely results to clients.

Take the example of SABA Kombucha, being the first brand of locally fermented tea with healthy ingredients to launch in the country, aimed to increase brand awareness. Within a period of 6 months, with the help of a diverse approach encompassing traditional media, influencers, and collaborations, our campaign was able to generate a PR value of over $ 5 million, working to secure coverage from relevant media as well as over 300 influencers. In addition to this, by coming up with social media campaigns for occasions like Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, we were able to garner impressions of over $1 Million.

Yet another look into our ongoing strategy for Indian eatery Bombay Borough, which sought to increase brand awareness, industry recognition, and bookings. We then crafted targeted campaigns for seasonal celebrations and new launches, spanning timely press releases media alerts, and listings, as well coordinating influencer collaborations and event management for new launches. In the past 6 months, the gained PR value spanning both media and influencer coverage was roughly $1.7 Million, and we were able to reach an audience of about 138.5 million.

Working with an established B2B and B2C brand like NRTC Fresh, and boosting their brand awareness whilst supporting their brand marketing objectives, meant that we had to also build a social media presence for the brand. With a strategy targeting media relations, influencer engagement, and social media, collective, 360 campaigns were planned, in addition to targeted campaigns for families and for vegan consumers, to name a few. With robust media coverage and influencer placements alongside a social media profile growth consisting of an increase in 17,500 followers, generating over 50,000 likes, and impressions exceeding approximately $4.2 million.

Through conscious and continuous collaboration with a variety of media, influencers, and businesses in supporting our clients and helping them achieve their goals, we were able to be featured on Caterer Middle East’s F&B PR firms Power List for 2022, which we consider an absolute honor. In a highly competitive and diverse F&B Market, having the right medium and approach to convey your brand message to consumers is key. Our successful campaigns are a testament to the fact that using a diverse and unique approach can in fact make the market sit up and take note of your business.