Katch What Makes a Good PR Campaign in Saudi Arabia

19th October, 2026 | Marketing, Public Relations

by - Paudie Marum

The best PR campaigns are the ones that give people a reason to stop, look, talk, and remember a brand

There is a lot that goes into a good PR campaign. And it’s not just long nights staring at a pitch deck until your eyes have melted into the back of your head.

There is the strategy, the creative idea, the messaging, the media plan, the content, the influencers, the timings, the press office, and, increasingly, the digital channels that can take an idea much further than a traditional media campaign ever could.

But strip all of that away and a successful PR campaign usually comes down to one simple idea. Why should anyone care?

We have previously looked at what PR actually is, as well as the role that digitalisation is playing in everyday life across Saudi Arabia. Both are important when thinking about modern communications in the Kingdom, because PR today does not exist in isolation.

Brands have more ways to reach people than ever before. Audiences are consuming more content, and at a much faster rate. Social media is the lynchpin that can turn a local idea into a global conversation within hours, while the Kingdom’s rapidly evolving cultural and entertainment landscape continues to create new opportunities for brands to become part of the conversation.

And with Q4 in Saudi Arabia always creating particularly intense competition for attention, knowing what makes a campaign work is more important than ever.

So, what does a good PR campaign actually look like?

Start with a strong idea

The best campaigns are usually easy to explain.

That does not mean they are simplistic. It means the central idea is strong enough that someone can understand it quickly, remember it afterwards and, ideally, explain it to somebody else.

This is particularly important in a crowded media environment. Journalists, influencers and audiences are constantly being presented with new stories, announcements and brand messages. A campaign needs a reason to rise above all of that noise.

A good idea can be unexpected. It can be funny, emotional, provocative, ambitious or beautifully simple.

But it needs a point. And, it needs to make sense for the brand behind it.

A campaign should never feel like an agency has come up with an entertaining idea and then searched around for a logo to put on it. The strongest work makes the brand an essential part of the story.

Know who you are talking to

A campaign can be beautifully executed and still fail if it does not understand its audience. That sounds obvious, but it is surprisingly easy to overlook.

Saudi Arabia is home to a young, digitally engaged population, and the way audiences discover, discuss and share content continues to evolve alongside the Kingdom itself. Understanding those audiences means going beyond demographics.

What do they care about? What are they talking about? What makes them laugh? What makes them curious? What cultural references will resonate? What would actually make them stop scrolling?

This is where local knowledge matters.

A campaign created for Saudi Arabia should feel like it understands Saudi Arabia. That does not mean relying on predictable cultural references or simply adding Arabic copy at the end of the process. It means understanding the audience well enough to know what will feel relevant, natural, and interesting.

Give people something to talk about

People love to talk, and PR works best when people have a reason to continue the story themselves.

That might be a surprising announcement, an unusual activation, a spectacular piece of content, a celebrity collaboration, a cultural moment or simply an idea that makes people say, “Have you seen this?”

This is one of the biggest differences between advertising and effective earned PR. You can pay to put a message in front of someone. PR has to give people a reason to pass it on.

The most successful campaigns therefore tend to have something built into them that encourages conversation. They create a headline, an image, a moment or a question that can exist beyond the original press release.

Timing can make or break a campaign

Even a brilliant idea needs the right moment.

Saudi Arabia’s calendar is becoming increasingly important for brands, with major cultural, sporting, entertainment, and business moments creating huge opportunities for communications teams. We explored this in more detail in our look at why Q4 is such an important period for brands in Saudi Arabia, but good timing is sometimes taking the smartest route by finding a quieter moment.

Sometimes it means getting ahead of a major event. Sometimes it means reacting to something already happening. And sometimes the campaign itself creates the moment.

The key is understanding the wider conversation before deciding where your brand should enter it.

Make it culturally relevant

A campaign does not have to be explicitly about Saudi Arabia to feel relevant to a Saudi audience. It could tap into a shared cultural observation, a local habit, a national ambition, a familiar sense of humour or a moment that people across the Kingdom already understand.

This is one reason some of the biggest tourism campaigns in recent years have been so effective.

Visit Saudi’s “Go Beyond What You Think” campaign, for example, challenged established perceptions of the Kingdom and presented a more contemporary picture of what visitors could experience. The campaign featured Lionel Messi and formed part of a wider effort to shift international perceptions of Saudi Arabia as a destination.

Similarly, “This Land Is Calling” positioned Saudi Arabia’s landscapes, culture, and experiences as an invitation to discover the country. Academic research examining Saudi tourism communications identifies both campaigns as examples of how the Kingdom’s tourism narrative has been shaped around cultural representation and changing perceptions.

The lesson is that relevance is sometimes more powerful than decoration.

Three Saudi campaigns that got people talking

There is no single formula for a successful PR campaign, which is exactly what makes the following examples interesting.

They come from very different categories, but each has a clear idea at its centre.

Visit Saudi: Go Beyond What You Think

A tourism campaign has to convince people to consider somewhere they may not have considered before. “Go Beyond What You Think” tackled that challenge directly.

The idea was built around challenging perceptions, using Lionel Messi as a recognisable global figure to help introduce audiences to a different side of Saudi Arabia. The campaign gave that message a visual and recognisable platform.

The strength of the idea is its simplicity. It identifies the barrier, what people think they know, and turns that into the reason to explore further.

That is a useful PR lesson. Sometimes the most effective campaign idea is about questioning an existing idea or message.

Visit Saudi: This Land Is Calling

“This Land Is Calling” took a different approach, focusing on the destination itself and inviting audiences to discover Saudi Arabia’s landscapes, culture, and experiences.

The campaign’s strength comes from its sense of place. Saudi Arabia is the story. That gives the campaign authenticity, which is so valuable in PR.

When a destination has a huge amount of material to work with, including heritage, landscapes, food, hospitality, adventure, and contemporary culture, the challenge is choosing the right story and telling it in a way that makes people curious.

“This Land Is Calling” demonstrates the power of making the subject itself the hero.

Riyadh Season: The Last Crescendo

Then there is Riyadh Season’s “The Last Crescendo”, which shows what happens when a campaign takes a familiar subject and gives it an unexpected creative treatment.

Created to build anticipation for the 2025 rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol, the campaign presented the boxing rivalry as an operatic three-act drama. The film used an original symphonic score, an elaborate opera-house setting, and appearances from the two fighters and legendary announcer Michael Buffer.

The fight itself was already a major story. The campaign made the build-up to it a story too. And that is an important distinction.

“The Last Crescendo” gave audiences a completely different way of experiencing the fight’s drama. Boxing and opera are not the most obvious pairing, which is precisely why the idea had stopping power.

Campaign Middle East subsequently included it in its 2025 selection of standout film campaigns, noting its ability to build recognition and audience connection.

For PR professionals, there is a useful takeaway here: you do not always need a new story. Sometimes you need a new way to tell an existing one.

Floward: February 14: Judgment Day

Floward’s “February 14: Judgment Day” proves that it is essential to know your audience and understand the cultural context around the moment you are communicating in.

The campaign took Valentine’s Day and gave it a provocative new framing, turning the pressure around the occasion into a creative idea for the gifting brand. It is a good example of how a brand can take a familiar calendar moment and find a distinctive angle within it.

Valentine’s Day was approaching, but instead of reminding people to buy flowers, the campaign built a story around the pressure of getting the occasion right.

That is exactly what a strong campaign should do. It takes something people already understand and gives them a reason to look at it differently.

The campaign was subsequently recognised with Gold at the 2025 MENA Effie Awards, with Floward’s “Judgment Day” listed among the winning work.

What do all four campaigns have in common?

They are very different campaigns.

One challenges perceptions of a country. One invites audiences to discover it. One turns a major sporting event into a piece of theatre. Another takes a familiar cultural moment and gives it a fresh perspective.

But underneath the differences, there are a few common threads. They have a clear idea. You do not need a 20-slide presentation to explain what the campaign is about.

They understand their audience. Each campaign starts with something its audience already knows, feels or cares about.

They have a reason to exist. The creative idea is connected to a genuine communication objective. It is not creativity for creativity’s sake.

They are memorable. Each gives people something they can describe, share or talk about afterwards.

And they feel bigger than the press release.

That last point is particularly important.

A PR campaign should not begin and end with sending a release to the media. The release is one part of the campaign. The idea should have enough substance to live across social media, digital content, events, influencers, broadcast, conversations, and earned media.

That is how an idea starts to become a moment.

So, what makes a good PR campaign?

There is no magic formula. But if you are planning a campaign in Saudi Arabia, it is worth asking a few simple questions before you start.

• Is there a genuinely interesting idea at the centre of it?
• Does the idea give people a reason to care?
• Does it make sense for the brand?
• Does it understand the Saudi audience?
• Is the timing right?
• Will people want to talk about it?
• Can the idea live beyond one press release or one social post?
• And perhaps most importantly:
• If the brand name was removed, would people still find the idea interesting?

If the answer is yes, you may be onto something. Because the best PR feels like a story that happens to have a brand at its centre.

That is the sweet spot.

And in a Saudi market that is moving, changing and creating more opportunities for brands every year, there has never been more room for good ideas.

For more related updates and to Katch us covering similar topics, watch this space!

Katch our game-changing PR and Communications, Social Media, Branding and Design, Brand Consultancy, ESG, and Global Communications services to help your brand make noise. Get in touch with our 360-Marketing Consultancy in Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and London, and let’s get the conversation started!