Vino El Khatib, chief marketing and brand officer, Majid Al Futtaim – Holding, explains the premise behind the company’s new regional brand campaign “Create Great Moments Together”

Humans are social creatures. Since our early existence, our survival and prosperity have relied on banding together for enjoyment, sustenance and protection. Although our needs have evolved over time beyond the basics of food and shelter, our well-being continues to be influenced by the powerful interactions and bonds we form with others. The link between happiness and quality time together is at its strongest when it comes to family and friends.

 
The Grant Study by Harvard Medical School illustrates this correlation. Over a period of 75 years, the study tracked the physical and social well-being of 700 men with the aim of identifying their sources of happiness and success. The conclusion was simple: the happiest individuals were those who had established more quality relationships with the people they loved.

Another study devised by Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University identified socializing as one of the most impactful activities affecting people’s well-being. As part of the study, participants documented their daily activities and rated how each one made them feel. Spending time with family and friends ranked overwhelmingly as a key contributor to happiness.

While the evidence is clear, at Majid Al Futtaim, we started to wonder if people really prioritize spending quality time with family and friends? Or in the fast-paced, hyper-connected world we now live, is it starting to slip away?

To test our hypotheses, we conducted an independent study across the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, Oman and Lebanon. The results revealed that while 92 percent of residents do indeed feel happiest when spending quality time with family and friends, more than a quarter spend just five hours or less per week doing so.

In fact, 50 percent of respondents recognize that they waste at least two weekends per month by not spending quality time with friends and family, and 40 percent turn down offers to meet loved ones at least twice a month. Encouragingly, however, the need for change was not lost on anyone. In fact, 80 percent agreed that they actively need to prioritize more of their time for the ones they love.

Majid Al Futtaim’s new campaign “Create Great Moments Together” was born from this insight: the greatest moments in life come from experiencing, sharing and discovering life together, but we just aren’t doing it enough. The campaign, therefore, carries a subtle message that encourages people to spend more quality time together by showcasing the powerful emotions experienced when people share moments and memories – a sentiment that we aim to incorporate in all of MAF’s current and future initiatives.

By inspiring people to come together and celebrate life, in many ways, the overarching idea of “Create Great Moments Together” is as much of a social call to action as it is a marketing campaign. Having happiness as the essence of the campaign strengthens our ability to refocus people’s attention on spending more time together – whether that’s at home, the great outdoors or at a leisure and entertainment destination. It also captures the Majid Al Futtaim vision of creating great moments for everyone, every day and reinforces the fact that over the last two decades, it has provided a platform for people to create great moments together.