How to Build Organic Conversations During Ramadan Without Hard Selling

The Ramadan Prime Video 2023 campaign shows that brands can increase awareness and engagement without relying on direct product promotions. The strategy used is to present characters from Prime Video content into the public space through offline activations that are relevant to Ramadan habits.

This approach generates organic conversations, user-generated content, and community interactions that naturally expand the campaign's reach.

What are the Brand Communication Challenges During Ramadan?

Ramadan is one of the most competitive communication periods for brands in Indonesia. Most campaigns use similar themes, such as togetherness, sharing and kindness.

In those situations, the main challenge is not just getting exposure, but creating relevance that the audience actually feels.

For Prime Video, the strategic questions that arise are:

How to get people talking about streaming platforms without making promotions that feel like advertising?

Strategy: Bringing Film Characters to the Community

Instead of promoting platform features or content catalogs directly, Prime Video brings characters from various film and series titles to the community in a Ramadan atmosphere.

The principle of the strategy is simple: If the audience doesn't want to see ads, then the brand must present it as an experience. Characters from films such as Qodrat and Autobiography are presented in activities that can be encountered directly by the public in public spaces.

Why is Takjil Hunting an Effective Campaign?

The activity of sharing takjil is part of the Ramadan culture that is familiar to Indonesian people. Prime Video took advantage of this behavior by creating the Takjil Hunting program in various busy spots in Jakarta. However, the success of this activity does not come from the number of takjil distributed. Its main success comes from the fact that participants voluntarily share their experiences via Instagram Story, TikTok and other social media.

Key Insight: offline activations can generate greater digital reach when the experience created has social value to share. In other words, people don't share existing campaigns, they share experiences they've had.

The Role of Communities and Homeless Media

To broaden the conversation, the campaign involves community and homeless media accounts that have a strong affinity with urban audiences. This approach is based on one communication principle: Audiences trust channels that are part of their daily life more than brand-owned channels.

This collaboration helps spread information about activation locations and the characters present in a way that feels more authentic.

Key Insight: Community media can serve as an effective amplifier when brand activities have relevance to their audience's interests.

When the Conversation Starts to Move on its Own

One ​​indicator of a campaign's success is the emergence of a thriving discussion without additional paid media encouragement. Even when some audiences misinterpreted the characters from the film Autobiography as real political figures, the discussions that emerged showed the high level of public attention to this activation.

Important Insight: Campaign success is not only measured by the number of impressions.

Success can also be seen from the ability of an idea to trigger a conversation that develops independently in the audience.

Building Emotional Connections Through Content

In addition to field activations, Prime Video is working with film reviewers and content creators to introduce the Elephant Mother series. Interestingly, most of the conversations that emerged did not address Prime Video as a platform.

Instead, the audience discusses:

• Relationships between characters
• Family dynamics
• Personal experiences relevant to the story
• Important Insights

For streaming services, conversation about the story is often more effective than promotion of product features. Because people subscribe because they are interested in the content, not just because of the features.

Turning Awareness Into a Shared Experience

We also invite Prime Video to collaborate with Podkesmas through ngabuburit and watching together events. The goal is not just to introduce the Watch Party feature, but to create a collective experience that strengthens the relationship between the audience and the brand.

Key Insight: in the digital era, shared experiences have increasing value as audiences not only want to consume content, but also be part of the conversations that emerge from that content.

Conclusion

Prime Video's Ramadan campaign shows that effective communication does not always start with the message the brand wants to convey. Instead, the most effective communication often starts with the experience the audience wants to have.

When brands succeed in being present at relevant moments, the conversations that are created no longer feel like marketing campaigns. The conversation becomes part of a social experience that the audience willingly shares back.

Author: Renita