Pepsi recently embarked on the most extravagant example of celebrity marketing yet seen in the Middle East, splashing out “several million dollars” on the production of an Arabic-language feature film, Bahr Al Nujoom (“Sea of Stars”). The film stars Lebanese celebs Haifa Wehbe, Wael Kfoury, Carole Samaha and Ahmad Al Sherif (winner of the first series of LBC’s Star Academy) and UAE singer Ruweida Al Mahrooqi.
Pepsi has hired Hollywood-based script writer Declan O’Brien and Portugese director Diamantino Ferreira to work on the project. “We were aware there was a risk in trying to deliver a great quality movie, given that this was outside our current area of expertise,” says Rima Chammas, regional marketing director of Pepsi Co., in an e-mail to Communicate. “Hence a lot of effort and expense was undertaken to ensure we hired experts in the field.” The movie will be released on satellite television towards the end of the year.
The project is perhaps the biggest Arab project to date in the field of branded content, a relatively new form of marketing that blurs the line between traditional entertainment and advertising.
“The celebrities that we’ve chosen are all either at the height of their career or just getting started in the business,” Chammas says. “Haifa, Wael and Carol are all very successful and well respected artists with a very large fan base in the Arab world. Ahmad Al Sherif is just starting to gain popularity; with the release of his first single he is quickly becoming a star.
“Ruwaida is also rising at the moment. She found fame after participating in Studio Al Fan and has also released a single that is proving to be very successful.”
The mix of established and new stars, she says, is vital to the success of the project. The more famous names will attract many fans anyway, while Al Mahrooqi and Al Sherif “bring a fresh, exciting angle to the project as fans are keen to get to know them better.”
Of course, as with all branded entertainment, there is the possibility that the project will be perceived as a 90-minute Pepsi commercial, something few people are likely to want to watch. But Chammas says the company has made efforts to ensure the branding is not so conspicuous that it will spoil the entertainment factor.
“This is a movie brought to you by Pepsi in the same way as MGM or Paramount would finance and produce a movie. We have not tried to hide that fact, but we have also been very careful in not oversaturating it with branding, as that may affect consumers negatively and reduce the enjoyment of the movie,” she says. “The script is written in a way that the brand being present makes sense and contributes to the story line and plot of the movie.”
No details of the actual storyline have yet been released. But if we had to guess, we’d say there’s some singing involved – and that can be thirsty work. Hopefully, some of that “several million dollars” covers dental insurance.
Print
E-mail
RSS Feeds
Add Comment
No Comments So Far
Post new comment