With the advent of digital advertising, marketers were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve their environmental performance. Unlike print advertising, your digital advertising does not require any raw materials. Among many things, your halal ads do not necessitate cutting down trees to create paper or pumping hydrocarbons from the earth’s crust to make the ink. However, as the saying goes, too much of a good thing is poison. As the digital advertising industry matures, we are starting to understand its environmental costs. According to a study, digital advertising contributes 3.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with this figure increasing by 6% year on year.

Islam and the Environment

One of the most important things in a Muslim’s life is not going about business as usual while being ignorant of his or her Creator’s rules and regulations. This is true for all his or her actions, including the business they run, and that would include how he or she advertises and promotes his or her products or services.

Source: “What You Must Know About Islamic Advertising Principles”

The Concept of Israaf

While the world is waking up today to the concept of reducing waste and saving the environment, Islam advocated this concept thousands of years ago by telling us to use only what we need and not to consume wastefully.

But waste not by excess: for Allah loveth not the wasters.

Source: Quran 6:141

When it comes to the idea of waste (Israaf), which is frequently mentioned in the Quran, there are no ambiguities. We are exhorted to use only what we require, to abstain from gluttony, and to care for our home. That much is obvious: it is always unacceptable. Even when resources are abundant.

Abdullah ibn Amr (a companion of the Prophet Muhammad [Peace Be Upon Him]) reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace, and blessings be upon him, passed by Sa’d while he was performing ablution. The Prophet said, “What is this extravagance?” Sa’d said, “Is there extravagance with water in ablution?” The Prophet said, “Yes, even if you were on the banks of a flowing river.”

Source: Musnad Aḥmad 7065

The Concept of Khalafah

According to Islamic law, the fundamental elements of nature—land, water, fire, forest, and light—belong to all living things, not just humans. The Quran and Hadith serve as a beacon for promoting global sustainable development. Humans must refrain from causing havoc and wasting resources because these actions are harmful to the environment. 

Mankind was given the right to exploit natural resources under guardianship (khalafah), which means being granted the right to use someone else’s property with the understanding that it will not be harmed or destroyed.

This shows how our responsibilities as Muslims and inhabitants of this beautiful planet are very clear. However, not all waste ends up in the rotting trash can. A wasteful lifestyle can increase the number of resources we consume in all aspects of our lives, such as eating, dressing, traveling, and, as a halal brand, our digital advertising footprint.

He raised the heaven and established the balance so that you would not transgress the balance. Give just weight – do not skimp in the balance. He laid out the earth for all living creatures.

Source: Quran 55: 7-10

The Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change

The Islamic world issued a historic declaration in order to pave the way for a comprehensive treaty in Paris, in 2015. The declaration calls on the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims to contribute to the reduction of harmful greenhouse gas emissions and the adoption of renewable energy sources. A section of the declaration among many other things states:

…we affirm that our responsibility as Muslims is to act according to the example of the Prophet Muhammad (God’s peace and blessings be upon him) who – Established protected areas (himas) for the conservation and sustainable use of rangelands, plant cover, and wildlife…Renewed and recycled his meager possessions by repairing or giving them away…

Source: “The Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change”

Digital Advertising Carbon Emissions 

A typical digital ad campaign for one advertiser generates 323 tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of 160 round-trip flights between Paris and New York, according to a recent estimate from the marketing company Fifty-Five. This campaign typically involves shooting, editing, serving, and measuring video, social, display, and search ads. Thousands of servers start operating as a result, using electricity to power each ad call.

In a study conducted by investment analysis firm Ebiquity and emissions measurement company Scope3 in 2022, the cost of excessive supply chain waste in digital advertising and its effects on the environment were revealed.

The study examined more than $US375 million in digital advertising spend from 43 brand advertisers across 116 billion display ad impressions. It was concluded that 15.3% of advertising spend is wasted on inventory that has no value while emitting excessive amounts of CO2.

The Carbon Dioxide Miscible Flooding Predictive Model (CO2PM) provides information on the sustainability of the media plan and shows the emissions caused per 1000 contacts in kilograms. CO2PM can be used as a sustainable media KPI to help the communications industry achieve climate neutrality.

“We believe CO2PM should be adopted immediately as a core metric to influence decision-making and lead technology and media partners to optimize for sustainability.” – Nick Waters, Group CEO at Ebiquity Plc

Some of the key findings of the study include:

• Carbon emissions of websites vary dramatically with CO2PM per website. 
• The global weighted average of digital ad emissions is 670g CO2PM per 116 billion ad impressions, which is equivalent to flying 1.35 million passengers from London to Paris.
• Made for Advertising (MFA) websites’ wastage is 26.4% higher than other websites.

How Your Halal Advertising Can Improve Its Carbon Footprint 

Measure and Consider

The first step is to begin the measurement process. Use a measurement tool that can identify the situations that cause high carbon emissions. 

The next step is to look at which publisher properties that you work with emit the most carbon emissions. A website with a large number of ads or an MFA website that has a slow load time will almost certainly leave a larger carbon footprint. 

For your halal advertising, you can begin to consider the carbon footprint when making decisions and placing bids, and you can begin bidding less when the supplier has a high carbon footprint.

AI and Programmatic

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help you reduce ad campaign ‘wastage’ by not serving digital ads to people who are unlikely to convert. AI is advantageous because it constantly adapts to avoid irrelevant targets and reallocates budgets in real-time to achieve waste-free campaigns. It is estimated that around 40% of programmatic ad spend in the UK is driven by algorithmic decision-making or artificial intelligence.

Here is how AI and programmatic can help you reduce ad wastage for your halal brand according to Adext AI:

• Using the programmatic advertising and AI combination, you can quickly learn the price that all ad networks are willing to pay for an impression. You can be certain that you’re always getting the best deal and managing your money wisely.
• You can see the probability that an impression will lead to a conversion. The choice to wager on that likelihood is then entirely up to you.

Short and Light

• Reduce travel-related carbon emissions by localizing ad production closer to the team’s location.
• Produce short video ads rather than long ones. In general, the shorter the video, the lighter the file, and the less server load required for delivery and streaming.
• Reduce the size of image ads. Similarly to video ads, the lighter the image file, the fewer CO2 emissions it emits.
• Repurpose existing media creatives by tweaking old video and image ads rather than always creating new ones.
• Schedule your halal ads to run during off-peak hours to balance off-peak server load, which usually necessitates more power consumption and higher CO2 emissions.
• Work with experts in the field of halal advertising to make sure your ads reach Muslim consumers efficiently.

Conclusion

Initiative is extremely important. There aren’t many global benchmarks and standards for marketers to follow when it comes to reducing the carbon footprint of your halal brand’s digital advertising, so it is up to you to ensure this forms a key part of your marketing ethos. 

True change may require industry-wide collaboration, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t start to do your bit. By evaluating your advertising channels and the marketing strategies behind your halal brand’s digital campaigns, you can start to measure your carbon footprint and start to allocate your media spending in a more eco-friendly way.

By adopting more sustainable practices and technologies, you can make the progress your business needs to contribute to the bigger picture of effective carbon footprint reduction.

The post Why Your Halal Business Should Care About Digital Advertising Carbon Footprint appeared first on Muslim Ad Network.

With 2023 on its way, remember that preparation is key to success and the lack thereof is a tell-tale sign that you could fail. There are many articles you will come across from now until January 2023 that will tell you what the marketing trends are for next year and what to do.

However, the most important trend to follow for your halal brand is the one that you discover by looking at your own data and seeing what has worked for you and what has not. Everything else is just complimentary to that.

There are, however, three 2023 marketing trends that halal brands must consider very seriously:

• Martech Trends 
• Attention Metrics
• Influencer Marketing 

Keep reading to find out why and how.

Top Martech Trends for Your Halal Brand in 2023

The halal industry, like many others, is adaptable and ever-changing. If your halal brand misses out on the latest Martech (marketing technology, marketing software, and platforms) trends you can fall behind in terms of competitive advantage and revenue. There will be no change in this regard in 2023.

To adapt to the ever-increasing consumer dependence on technology, halal brands will need to use technological solutions in their marketing efforts. In fact, your business will need to adapt to the challenges of measuring and reacting to changes in consumer behavior across multiple communication channels. And, as cookies become obsolete, your Muslim business will require more technological tools than ever before to target Muslim consumers.

Here are the top 2023 Martech trends that every halal brand should be following and implementing next year:

Use Martech to Hyper-personalize

Identify micro-moments and short-term selling opportunities. This ability to recognize and respond to such opportunities, combined with personalized approaches, should be prioritized in your halal marketing.

For example, when you arrive in a new city, and receive a notification with halal restaurants or Muslim-friendly hotel recommendations from halalbooking.com.

Integrate with Wearables

Wearable Martech integration provides your halal brand with an excellent opportunity to engage and connect with your Muslim audience. You can, for example, collaborate with smartwatch brands to deliver highly targeted advertising. 

A Muslim consumer, for example, may receive a notification from East Essence when passing by one of its retailers.

Extended Reality

While your halal brand continues to explore marketing and advertising opportunities in the metaverse, you can already use extended reality with technologies such as virtual, augmented, and mixed reality.

If applicable, you can create virtual showrooms and open houses for your halal business with the increasing availability of low-cost VR headsets. If you are a modest fashion brand you can use augmented reality to offer virtual try-on sessions.

Your Halal Brand Needs to Implement Attention Metrics in 2023

With consumers spending hours each day in front of screens and being exposed to thousands of advertisements, it is more difficult than ever for your Muslim brand to capture attention and build connections.

As attention metrics become more widely used in the industry, your halal brand must use them to optimize campaigns and increase returns on investment (ROI).

Impressions

The number of served impressions represents the number of times an ad is displayed on a webpage. Traditionally, advertisers would pay a fee based on the number of served impressions their ad received. However, served impressions only guarantee that an ad was loaded, not that it was ever visible.

Attention Metrics

Attention metrics define how attention can be measured. They invariably revolve around time – that is, how long someone has spent doing something, and more specifically, what actions they took during that time. Attention metrics, as opposed to impressions alone, can provide you with a much more accurate picture of how your Muslim audience interacts with your ads.

Measuring Attention

There are numerous methods for measuring attention depending on the device and platform where the ad is displayed. Obviously, paying attention to an 85-inch connected TV is not the same as paying attention to a six-inch mobile phone.

An example of a very basic way to measure attention is by determining the active views.

The length of time a piece of content or advertisement can be viewed. Cursor position, touch rate, scroll rate, and scroll depth can all be recorded to determine if the user is interacting with the page while the content is displayed. See how Google measures active views.

Use Recession-proof Muslim Influencer Marketing in 2023

According to Jasmine Enberg of Influencer Intelligence:

Influencer marketing certainly isn’t immune to a potential budget pullback. But what we’ve seen so far is that it has been more resilient than other types of digital marketing, and brands have continued to spend on their partnerships, particularly with long-term creator partners, throughout this volatile economic environment.

Below you can see the proof of her statement:

In the same article, she explains that influencers, particularly micro- and nano-influencers, have grown significantly over the past year and have demonstrated their ability to generate real sales, particularly among segments of the consumer population like Gen Z. Given that the Muslim population is very young, this benefits those who market to Muslims consumers very well.

Unlike mainstream influencers, finding the right Muslim influencer can be very tricky. We have highlighted the steps for finding the right Muslim influencer for your brand in an earlier article: “How to Find the Right Influencers for Your Halal Brand”.

Since 2023 is going to take us closer to Web3 marketing we recommend you also read: “Marketing to Muslim Consumers With Meta-influencers”.

Do you want to learn more about the latest advertising trends? Sign up for the MAN weekly newsletter so you can be the first to know.

The post What Your Halal Brand Needs to Do for Success in 2023 appeared first on Muslim Ad Network.

Considering the advertising budget, digital advertising is quite economical compared to advertising channels such as television and radio and is a very efficient marketing method having the power to reach the masses. Therefore, in terms of marketing, digital advertising enables the product, brand or service to be promoted saving both time and money. For these reasons, advertisers began to prefer the internet medium more.  Furthermore, the budget allocated to internet advertisements now surpasses the TV advertising budget.

According to research carried out by IAB and PwC, the market share of internet advertising increased by 21.8% between 2017 and 2018 and reached $107.5 billion in the US market.

In addition, this change in the preferences of advertisers was also reflected in the distribution of advertising revenue according to the type of media, and the internet advertising revenues reached the $28.4 billion limit with a huge increase since 2015. Digital revenue for Q1 2019 estimates rose 18% over Q1 2018 at $23.9 billion and maintain the year-over-year growth trend.

The continued growth of digital advertising spend indicates that it has increasing credibility and the ability to help brands and advertisers reach consumers and build stronger one-to-one customer relationships.

As previously mentioned, digital advertising is able to reach a wider audience with a lower cost compared to traditional advertising channels.  It provides brands with quick and easy promotions to boost brand awareness and desire which creates a rapid balance of demand and sales. Generally, internet advertising is much more advantageous in terms of different features. 

Advantages of Digital Advertising

Measurability

Internet advertising is miles ahead compared to traditional advertising methods in terms of measurability and ease to track conversion rates. There are many analytics tools such as Google Analytics to measure online advertising campaigns’ effectiveness accurately. These tools help get a clear picture regarding who viewed ads, who clicked, the number of leads generated and the amount of money spent so far for internet advertising activities.

Wider Ad Coverage

Online advertising can assist with reaching a much wider target audience and higher global coverage which leads to getting better results through online advertising campaigns. It also gives the ability to specify the range of advertisement coverage with internet advertising, which increases the efficiency of the online advertising campaign.

Affordability

One of the most significant advantages of online advertising is affordability when compared with traditional advertising costs. Advertisers can reach a wider range of audiences in different geographical locations with a much lesser cost. Furthermore, it gives more control over digital advertising budget spending for digital advertising strategies.

It is Fast

Internet advertising is faster than any of the traditional advertising tools where one can launch their online campaign whenever. Considering the time spent to initiate online and traditional campaigns to reach any audience, it is clear that online advertising has a time advantage.

Payments are Flexible

Payment flexibility is another important advantage of online advertising. For the traditional methods,  the full amount needs to be paid to the advertising agency to launch the campaign in addition to huge amount of agency fees. However, online advertising has the advantage of flexible payment opportunity to only pay for qualified leads, clicks or impressions. This helps to manage ad budgets in an efficient way.

Messages are More Informative

In internet advertising, the advertiser is able to provide more detailed messages about the product or services to the audience. Most of the online advertising campaigns are composed of a clickable link to a specific landing page, where users get more information about the product mentioned in the ad. Once the visitor reaches the landing page, they will get a clear picture of the product or services and decide whether to purchase it or not.

Hıgher Return on Investment (ROI)

As mentioned above, internet advertising has the main focus on performance-based payment and this provides a higher return on investment (ROI) compared to offline advertising. Since it is easy to track, analyze and adjust the performance of online advertisements, it also improves the ROI. Following the right strategies for online advertising, there is a better ROI.

Easier and Better Audience Engagement

Online advertising enables have easy engagement with the target audience. Online advertisement platforms make it easy for the audience to engage with ads or products. By online advertising, advertisers are able to get more feedback from the audience and thereby improve the quality of their ads going forward. Based on the engagement levels advertisers can take necessary actions and update their online advertising campaigns.

Re-marketing

Today, 87% of consumers search the internet before buying a product. Re-marketing offers the opportunity to reach users who have already entered a site again. Remarketing can be used to promote a specific product or offering, or to achieve a certain conversion goal such as lead generation. In eCommerce, for example, remarketing ads can be used to recover an abandoned cart by displaying the product the user added to the cart but left the site without purchasing which increases the ROI of each online campaign.

All the advantages listed above are also the reasons why advertisers should use online advertising methods to promote their brands. By partnering with an internet advertising platform, such as Muslim Ad Network (MAN), it provides Muslim advertisers an opportunity to reach the highly coveted Muslim online consumer. By working with MAN, you can take advantage of the following features and benefits including:

• Display ads of all standard sizes, including rich media, video, and banners
• Opt-in email advertising
• Maintain control over where your ad gets displayed. Full geotargeting capabilities (by zip code, city, country, or region)
• Complete visibility of publishers in network
• Reach new customers and increase the overall impact of your media dollars
• Quality Reporting. MAN offers full reporting and analysis ensuring optimum return on investment

Go ahead and contact us to reach a wider range of Muslim audiences.

The post The Inevitable Rise of Digital Advertising Continues appeared first on Muslim Ad Network.

One of the issues that has been on the agenda for those who have been interested in green marketing during the last few years is sustainability in fashion. What is sustainability and what are the steps taken by brands in this regard?

Nowadays, terms such as sustainability, environmentalism, and recycling are frequently brought up. But it is clear that people have lost respect and sympathy for nature. As a result of this insensitivity, mankind has become prone to consuming too much and too fast. This situation caused a change in our understanding of fashion. In the past, people used to wear a limited number of clothing made of quality fabrics for years, and fashion did not change so often. In today’s world, almost every day a new fashion trend emerges and nowadays whatever is fashionable, may become outdated tomorrow. The development of the industry, changing fashion trends, the swirl called ‘fast-fashion” and the rapid consumption of ready-made garments, have made us forget to be green.

Then the concept of sustainability emerged. Sustainability has been defined as  “meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In addition to natural resources, we also need social and economic resources. Sustainability is not just environmentalism. Embedded in most definitions of sustainability we also find concerns for social equity and economic development.”

So, can fashion be sustainable?

In order to cope with many environmental problems, fashion sustainability has become very important today. The sustainable fashion concept includes eco-fashion, recycled fashion, or green fashion terms. At a time when respect and care for nature are greatly lost, everything we consume must be obtained through recyclable and sustainable means, including the clothes we wear.

Obviously, the main objective of the sustainability approach is to ensure the supply of environmentally friendly green products with high quality but low production costs. In this way, it will be possible to slow down the fashion industry, which has fueled the rapid consumption frenzy.

In fact, sustainability can be considered in 3 main dimensions. These dimensions can be classified as ecological dimensions with non-toxic, convertible fashion products; economy dimension with products that add value to consumers and producers, and social dimension with the goal of a better future for new generations.

The goal of sustainable fashion philosophy is to create sustainable systems indefinitely which follow the principles of environmentalism and social responsibility. The main responsibility of fashion companies is to make production, distribution and marketing practices and strategies more sustainable. Sustainable fashion can also be regarded as a subset of the concept of sustainable design. Production in accordance with sustainable design is carried out in such a way that environmental impacts and carbon footprints are calculated and minimized.

According to the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion initiative indicates that the fashion industry, including the production of all clothes which people wear, contributes to around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its long supply chains and energy-intensive production. The industry consumes more energy than the aviation and shipping industry combined.  In addition to its carbon-intensive supply chain and production processes, the fashion industry consumes a great deal of other precious resources. To make one pair of denim jeans, 10,000   of water is required to grow the 1 kilo of cotton needed for that single pair of jeans. In comparison, one person would take 10 years to drink 10,000 liters of water. Cumulatively, the fashion industry produces about 20% of global wastewater. Furthermore, 85% of textiles end up in landfills or are incinerated when most of these materials could be reused.

There is also good news. Recently, one of the major fashion industry entities said they are going carbon neutral. On September 24th, 2019, Kering Group which is a Paris-based conglomerate, which owns the parent company of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, and Alexander McQueen claimed that its entire supply chain of entire group of brands will become carbon neutral within its own operations. Moreover, it was claimed that Kering will “offset the group’s annual greenhouse gas emissions from 2018 on top of all efforts to first avoid and then reduce them.” Going forward, Kering says it “set a science-based target to reduce all its greenhouse gas emissions related to its own operations and supply chain by 50 percent by 2025.”In addition to Kering which is the biggest name to enter into the arena with the aim to do its part to manage the emissions of carbon dioxide which is the main greenhouse gas driving climate change, Gucci, Burberry, and sustainable luxury brand Gabriela Hearst have all recently revealed carbon neutrality endeavors.

Moreover, many designers have now embraced organic fabrics and organic production. Fashion giants, even the pioneers of fast fashion, are focusing on raising awareness with their small collections and investing in our future.. Their goal is to create a better and healthier world for the new generation. Levi’s, H&M, Banana Republic, Stella McCartney Reformation, Reflect, Viktor and Rolf, and Marc Jacobs are among the leading brands that are partially adopting sustainable fashion.

What Should We Do as a Muslim Consumer?

As known, Islam forbids extravagance. The Qur’anic verses and traditions, both, confirm that wasteful expenditure is a Greater sin. The Holy Qur’an says,

“…and eat and drink and be not extravagant; surely He does not love the extravagant.” (Surah al-Ar’āf 7:31)

Also, Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) mentioned extravagance in a hadith:

“…And eat and drink and be not extravagant.”

Thus, Islam does not stop us from spending money on people’s genuine needs. It only restricts individuals from wasteful expenditures that come about by neglecting the rights of the public at-large. Excessive spending on things such as new fashion apparel is an example of extravagance. As Muslim consumers and business owners, we must follow Islamic guidelines while we are consuming. 

Also, Dr.Anna who has revealed valuable works in the field of sustainable fashion created a model called “Green Strategy”, which shows us how we can meet our need for dressing without wasting it in today’s world.

According to Dr. Anna Brismar, who is the founder and owner of Green Strategy and Circularfashion.com, which is the world’s first platform dedicated exclusively to circularity issues in fashion, companies, and consumers should adopt “Green Strategy” while producing and consuming. The figure below indicates seven forms of sustainable fashion from a consumer and producer perspective.

To avoid extravagance and participate in sustainable fashion for our environment, a Muslim manufacturer should produce all garments on-demand or custom-made, in high quality and timeless design,in an environmentally friendly manner and with consideration to various ethical aspects. Thereafter, Muslim consumers should use them long and well through good care, repair and perhaps redesign. When the product is no longer desired, it should be handed into a secondhand shop, donated to charity or handed over to friends, relatives or perhaps a swap-shop, to prolong its active life. When the garment is completely worn out, it should be returned to a collection point for the recycling of the textile material, which can then be reused in the manufacturing of new clothes or other textile products. Ideally, instead of buying newly produced clothes, one should consider renting, borrowing or swapping clothes, or buying secondhand or vintage.

The post Sustainable Modest Fashion and Muslim Consumers appeared first on Muslim Ad Network.