Together This Ramadan

Read the campaign story

Tesco’s April 2022 Ramadan campaign used digital billboards showing empty plates during fasting hours. Food appeared as the sun went down, connecting the display to Iftar. BBH created the work with media and technology partners and inclusion consultancy The Unmistakables. Contemporary reporting describes Muslim creative contributors and Tesco colleagues participating in development, alongside social recipes and relevant in-store activity.

D&AD’s archive documents the central execution, but lists a 2023 awards year. The campaign year here follows the April 2022 launch reporting. Neither source provides an independently verified incremental sales result. The evidence supports how the work was built and distributed, rather than a claim that culturally responsive outdoor automatically improves commercial performance.

Editorial reading: Timing became part of the message. A normal grocery advertisement makes the product visible whenever the space is available. This design temporarily withheld the product in response to the audience’s lived routine. The absence therefore did communicative work. It suggested that the advertiser had considered when and how its imagery would be encountered, not simply which holiday to mention.

The more useful lesson is operational empathy. Cultural understanding changed the media behaviour, the production process and the supporting content. That gives an inclusion claim several observable expressions. A generic greeting cannot offer the same evidence because it leaves the underlying advertising system untouched. The strongest adaptations tend to alter a real rule: when an offer appears, who can use it or what assistance accompanies it.

A small team can begin with a single local placement and a single community-approved change. The creative brief should name the relevant routine and explain why the adaptation helps. Test the experience with people who actually observe that routine before buying distribution. Precision matters more than scale, particularly when a brand is borrowing meaning from a religious or cultural practice.

Change a behaviour, not only a greeting

Ask what the audience’s routine should change about your timing, service or presentation. Implement one visible adjustment.

Include people before production

Give relevant community members a real role in shaping the idea and correcting assumptions, with suitable compensation.

Keep every touchpoint consistent

Check that social scheduling, store displays and landing pages respect the same idea as the headline placement.

A small test for another brief

Adapt one local event display to a routine identified by the participating community.

Ask participants whether the adaptation is accurate and useful; record relevant visits rather than impressions alone.

Stop immediately for inaccurate timing or community feedback that the treatment misrepresents the practice.

• Consult three relevant community contributors.
• Create two display states with verified local timing.
• Test the full experience privately before a one-week run.