Campaigns

💄 How MAC Climbed the GCC EMV Charts with Micro Creators

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The Challenge

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The regional team at MAC Cosmetics received global insights highlighting their Earned Media Value (EMV) performance across GCC markets.

While MAC maintained strong brand equity, the data revealed a clear opportunity: scale creator content production to accelerate EMV growth and climb the regional rankings.

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To strengthen its presence on TikTok and compete more aggressively on the EMV charts across the GCC, the objective was to activate a large network of creators across Saudi Arabia and the UAE, ensuring TikTok remained the primary content platform.

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Success would depend on two key outcomes:

  • A significant increase in creator-generated content
  • A measurable improvement in MAC’s regional EMV ranking

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The Strategy

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Instead of approaching this as a traditional product seeding campaign, we designed an always-on creator activation program built for scale and measurable performance.

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The initiative focused on mobilizing a large network of micro-creators across Saudi Arabia and the UAE, prioritizing authentic TikTok content that could scale organically.

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To enable this, we first aligned with MAC’s global team on the EMV measurement framework, ensuring our tracking systems reflected the same calculation methodology.

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We then optimized the creator journey end-to-end:

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Technology-driven outreach:
Traditional email outreach was replaced with WhatsApp-based automations, enabling faster creator responses and significantly improving participation rates.

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Streamlined creator onboarding:
A structured co-creation model allowed creators to participate efficiently while maintaining the authenticity of their content.

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Automated performance tracking:
Custom dashboards monitored content delivery and EMV performance in real time.

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Quality control at scale:
A semi-automated review process ensured brand safety and performance standards while still enabling a high volume of creator output.

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The Results

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The program quickly demonstrated how creator seeding at scale can drive measurable performance when supported by the right infrastructure.

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Within the first month:

  • 150 pieces of creator content were delivered generating a continuous stream of TikTok content as part of the always-on initiative.

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Within three months:

  • 500+ pieces of content were generated
  • 100% creator delivery rate
  • 30% of the content outperformed the creators’ average performance

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Most importantly, the organic creator activity translated into a significant EMV uplift, moving MAC from 6th to 3rd place in the regional EMV rankings, achieved entirely organically.

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This initiative demonstrated how creator seeding, when structured for scale, can evolve from a traditional PR tactic into a powerful performance engine. By combining technology, automation, and a creator-first approach, MAC Cosmetics was able to significantly expand its TikTok presence and strengthen its competitive position in the GCC, all through organic creator advocacy.

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The challenge

Uber Lebanon had entered the market and at the end of 2017 found that rides were very low.
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There were spikes in summer and winter that came with an influx of visitors from abroad – testament to the brand’s international success. However, local Lebanese had not transitioned to using Uber as a primary mode of transportation.

Additionally, public transport is considered low-end with people preferring to use their own cars or car-pool with friends. Furthermore, when seeking alternate transport, Lebanon has no shortage of local and neighborhood taxi services as well as cabs that serve as public transport on the streets. Uber’s own research found that the Lebanese were accustomed to their next-door taxi service or hailing a cab on the street.

The objective

Increase its brand equity to gain a share of the local market. Raise consideration levels towards Uber as a main transportation option among the Lebanese. Generate and execute the entire campaign concept with a focus on digital communication and influencers in specific.
Position Uber as socially aware, local, caring and humane while also, positioning its partner drivers as empathetic with the rider.

The context

Lebanon is not an easy country to live in. At the end of 2017, the country was in a political deadlock, suffering through an on-going trash crisis and lingering civil unrest. This came in addition to daily power cuts due to electricity rationing, low wages, a lack of affordable housing options and few reliable state services – all of which are a mainstay in Lebanese life.

The objective

Based on the above insights on the country’s difficulties – we created a campaign that offered a solution to the hassle that the population goes through on a daily basis, positioning Uber as an ideal place to feel comfortable and vent as well as a higher-end alternate transportation option.

We produced content that empowered both riders and driver partners via an end-to-end campaign with one over-arching message: take it easy and let it go. This formed the campaign hashtag used in Arabic and the message was mirrored across all touch-points, from outdoors to radio and mall communication.

Across social media we created a series of engaging comedy sketches, using comedian influencers to demonstrate Uber as a perfectly funny place to vent about their day-to-day problems to their drivers. We tapped Abbas Jaafar, Hicham Haddad, and Anjo Rihane & How I Take My Coffee – comedic influencers with a strong local following to create and disseminate these sketches that simultaneously and subtly showcased the ease of using Uber and a first person user experience.

The objective

Our eight videos were spread across Facebook and Instagram, with a 34% view rate that delivered 1.6
million total views, 4.7 million impressions and a total of 94.7 thousand in total engagement.

45%
View Rate
1,7M
Total View
23M
Impression
120K
Total Engagement

The campaign capitalized on local behaviors and social interactions using unique identifiers and scenarios that are real and relatable. As a result, this positioned Uber as locally relevant, socially aware and empathetic.This resonated with the population, increasing consideration among riders and expanding the company’s market share.