Ramadan campaigns in Libya: what to prepare and when

In Libya, the first day of Ramadan is set by an official announcement, so you cannot fix it in a plan months in advance. Plan to the expected start, and treat the earliest day the month could begin as your deadline. Everything that will run in the first week should be produced, approved, and scheduled before that day.

To find the day your work should begin, list the steps in order. For a campaign with a filmed commercial, they are: agree the message, approve the script and designs, shoot, edit the main film and its short versions, give final approval, schedule. Next to each step, note how long it takes in your company, including how long approvals usually take. Subtract the total from your deadline, and the result is the day to begin. If that day has already passed, make fewer pieces rather than rushing the main film.

Because the first day depends on the announcement, keep dates off anything you film or print. A first-day post that says "Ramadan Kareem" works whichever day the month begins; one that names a date may have to be remade.

Before anything is filmed, decide what the season is for. Your campaign can carry an offer (a price, a package, longer opening hours), a brand message (what people should remember about you once the month is over), or a community message (a greeting to your customers and staff, or an initiative).

Choose one to lead. An offer can sit inside a brand campaign, but a campaign that tries to do all three leaves its audience with no clear idea to remember. Then put that message into one sentence, and keep it from the first post to the Eid greeting: the main film states it, and the short versions, offer graphics, and weekly posts repeat it. Our page on strategic communications in Libya describes how we build a campaign as one system around a central narrative.

With the message agreed, list every piece the season needs and approve each one before the first day. If another company produces them for you, agree the delivery dates in writing. A full set for a Ramadan campaign has five parts:

• The main film. A commercial or brand film that carries the season's message. It takes the longest to make, so it decides when the whole plan has to start.

• Short versions, vertical and horizontal. Edits of the main film for each place it will run: vertical for stories and reels, horizontal for screens and video platforms. Plan them before the shoot, so the scenes are framed for both.

• Motion graphics for offers. Short animated pieces that carry prices and terms. Those change more often than a film does, and updating a motion graphic is quicker than a reshoot.

• The weekly posts. Designs and captions for each week of the month, prepared and approved in advance, with room left for a few posts that you write on the day.

• The Eid greeting. Finished before Ramadan starts, not in its last days. Eid al-Fitr, like the first day of Ramadan, is set by an official announcement, so write a greeting that works whichever day it falls on.

Write the Ramadan copy in Arabic from the start, for the audience you are addressing in Libya, rather than translating it from an English brief. Readers notice a translated greeting quickly.

Choose formal Arabic or Libyan dialect by audience. Formal Arabic suits the greeting of an institution or a bank, while a shop's offer can open with a Libyan line, as long as the rest of the text stays clear. If you write in dialect, put it in the choice of words, not in the spelling, so it reads as intended rather than careless. Either way, have an experienced Arabic writer check spelling and grammar before approval: a mistake in a greeting is easy to spot and cannot be taken back once people have shared it.

Keep a greeting a greeting: a "Ramadan Kareem" post with a price on it reads as an offer dressed up as a greeting. Promise only what you can keep for the whole month. If an offer depends on stock, branches, or opening hours, say so in the post itself, not in the replies.

Set a weekly rhythm your team can keep until Eid. It is better to publish fewer posts on schedule than to promise a post a day and miss half of them.

Base your posting times on your own data. Go back to what you published last Ramadan and when: which posts people saw and responded to, and at what hours. General lists of the best times to post in Ramadan are not based on your audience, so start from last year's results on your own page. Without a record from last year, use a simple schedule and adjust it after the first week.

Before the month starts, name who answers comments and messages, who can approve a change to a scheduled post, and how quickly each should happen. Once a week, check the indicators you agreed before launch, and make any change to the plan through that same approver. Our social media management in Libya is built on a platform strategy, a publishing rhythm that holds, and short-form content produced in-house in Arabic and English.

Eid al-Fitr closes the campaign. Its greeting was approved with the rest of the set, so what remains is to publish it on the announced day and, if your offer ends with the month, to say so clearly.

Agree the indicators before the campaign begins, so that after Eid you measure it against goals set in advance, not against whichever figures look good afterwards. Our article on analysis before campaigns in Libya covers how to choose those indicators and read the results.

Hold the review within a few weeks of Eid, while the team still remembers what happened. Write down what you would keep, what you would drop, and which steps took longer than you planned. File those notes with the approved material, so next year's countdown starts from them.

Before, during, and after Ramadan

Pattrix is a strategic communications and PR agency in Tripoli, Libya, with full production capability. For a Ramadan campaign, that means campaign development with one central idea carried across every channel, and Arabic written natively rather than translated. Commercials, reels, and motion graphics are made in-house, as our page on content and video production describes. Paid media buying is not on our published service list, so if your plan includes paid Ramadan ads, agree separately who will run them.

For the full scope of our marketing work, see our page on hiring a marketing agency in Tripoli, Libya.

Two case studies show parts of this work. For Albaraka Insurance, we produced the campaign system: app-launch promotion, QR-driven campaign material, and branded print in the same visual language. Its case study includes a brand commercial shot in 4K and two motion graphics, all in Arabic. For Biout Aleaz, we planned the content of its import, plaster, and Manazel Aleaz brands month by month, designed the posts, and reported on each month.