Comparative Case Study: Marketing Campaigns in UAE - Subway, Carrefour

This case study analyzes two marketing campaigns in the UAE: Subway's and Carrefour's. Subway's campaign, featuring a Western girl, was criticized for disregarding local culture and proved ineffective. Carrefour's campaign, promoting organic and healthy foods, resonated well with the target audience, focusing on lifestyle and values. The study emphasizes the importance of understanding the target audience and aligning marketing strategies with cultural and social norms. It recommends that Subway create campaigns more in sync with UAE culture to enhance product appeal, highlighting the critical factors for effective marketing campaigns.

Running head: MARKETING CAMPAIGN
Marketing Campaign
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1MARKETING CAMPAIGN
Marketing campaigns have become a norm of the business world and the various
business enterprises are increasingly taking the help of this particular strategy for the
promotion of the products as well as the services provided by them to the customers (Kuo and
Rice 2015). Furthermore, these marketing campaigns also help the concerned enterprises not
only to reach out to a larger customer base by making the customers aware of the products as
well as the services offered by them but at the same time try to enhance the sale of the
products or the services offered by them (Montaguti, Neslin and Valentini 2015). This paper
will discuss about two marketing campaigns, namely the marketing campaign of Subway in
UAE and Organic & Health food, Carrefour UAE.
The global food chain enterprise Subway recently launched a marketing campaign in
the nation of UAE which showed a girl dressed in western outfits trying to promote the food
items offered by the enterprise (Subway UAE 2018). This particular campaign sought to
market the food items sold by the enterprise and the target customer base of this particular
campaign was the people of the nation who belonged to the age group of 20-40 years of age
and belonged to the working class (Subway UAE 2018). Furthermore, this particular
campaign failed to appeal to psychographic attributes of the people like their opinions, views,
lifestyle and others factors. However, this campaign was much repudiated by the citizens of
the nation on the basis of the fact that this campaign sought to demean the culture of the
nation by showing the girl in that particular outfit. The organic retail chain Carrefour UAE,
on the other hand, took the help of a marketing campaign which promoted the organic as well
as the healthy food products offered by them and it was much appreciated by the people
(Carrefouruae.com. 2018). The intended customer base of this particular marketing campaign
was the people of the nation who were in the age group of 25-50 years of age and the
demographics of the customers was not much of a factor for the campaign as products by the
company were consumed by all kinds of people (Carrefouruae.com. 2018). Furthermore, the

2MARKETING CAMPAIGN
campaign appealed in a significant manner to the values, lifestyle, attitude and the opinion of
the people. It is significant to note that both of these marketing campaigns were directed at
enhancing the sale of the food products offered by them. However, one campaign was
successful whereas the other one was not.
I have selected these marketing campaigns as they give a clear indication of the
factors which needs to be taken into effective consideration by the business enterprises during
the process of the creation of the marketing campaigns. Furthermore, these campaigns also
provide insightful information about the factors which contribute towards the effectiveness of
a particular marketing campaign and which do not.
It is essential to have a clear idea about the intended customer base for the purpose of
the creation of a marketing campaign since the concerned enterprise needs to create the
campaign in such a manner which is likely to enhance the appeal of the product or the service
provided by the enterprise among the target base (Montaguti, Neslin and Valentini 2015).
Furthermore, an idea about the target base is likely to help the concerned enterprise to focus
on the requirements of the concerned group and design their products or services as per their
requirements.
The marketing campaign of Carrefour UAE was an effective one as it took into
consideration the culture as well as social requirements of the people of the nation.
Furthermore, the campaign specifically focused on the needs of the intended customer base of
the enterprise. The marketing campaign of the enterprise, Subway was an ineffective one as it
did not take into consideration the cultural as well as the social requirement of the citizens of
the people. The major mistake which the campaign did was to take a help of a western girl in
western outfits to sell their products in a country which is culturally very conservative.

3MARKETING CAMPAIGN
I would personally recommend Subway to create marketing campaigns which are in
synchronization with the culture as well as the social background of the people of UAE. This
is likely to enhance the appeal of the food products sold by them among the people of the
nation.
References
Carrefouruae.com. 2018. Majid Al Futtaim Carrefour & Society - Carrefour UAE. [online]
Available at: https://www.carrefouruae.com/carrefourandsociety [Accessed 8 Jun. 2018].
Kuo, A. and Rice, D.H., 2015. The impact of perceptual congruence on the effectiveness of
cause-related marketing campaigns. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(1), pp.78-88.
Montaguti, E., Neslin, S.A. and Valentini, S., 2015. Can marketing campaigns induce
multichannel buying and more profitable customers? A field experiment. Marketing
science, 35(2), pp.201-217.
Subway UAE 2018. Subway UAE [online] Available at: http://www.subway.com/en-AE
[Accessed 8 Jun. 2018].