LONDON: Throughout October, Arab News will place a proud pink ribbon on its masthead to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the pink ribbon, a powerful symbol for millions of people affected by the disease.
Breast cancer is one of the major causes of cancer-related deaths among women and has become the most common malignant disease among Arab women.
The most recent statistics from the World Health Organization show that in 2012, there were 99,000 cases of breast cancer reported across the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Central Asia combined, whereas the EU had 367,000 cases, and the US had 1,677,000.
While breast cancer rates in the MENA region are evidently lower than in the West, the disease appears in Arab women on average at least 10 years earlier than among their global counterparts, according to research from Lotfi Chouchane and Konduru Sastry of Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, published in the Lancet Oncology.
In their findings, the Weill Cornell Medical College experts noted that when the disease is first discovered, Arab women are found to have a more advanced stage of the disease with larger tumors. The regional trend toward delayed discovery only adds to the impetus to promote awareness of the disease in women.
Throughout the month, the Arab News website and printed newspaper will feature a series of special reports focused on raising awareness of breast cancer and combating the disease in the Middle East and globally. Our team will be doing all we can to promote this worthy and increasingly vital cause.
Arab News goes pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Arab News goes pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month
KFC Arabia and TBWA\RAAD’s Saudi campaign wins big at TikTok Ad Awards 2025
DUBAI: TikTok announced the winners of the TikTok Ad Awards 2025 at a ceremony held at the King Abdullah Financial District Conference Center in Riyadh on Wednesday, celebrating advertising campaigns on the platform from across the Middle East.
The top honor, G.O.A.T. (“Greatest of All Time”), which celebrates the best overall campaign combining creativity, media performance and proven effectiveness, went to the Saudi campaign “Om Bdr — 12th Ingredient,” developed by TBWA\RAAD for KFC Arabia.
The campaign was born out of Saudi user behavior on TikTok, which saw users dusting a seasoning created by a local cook named Om Bdr onto their KFC chicken. Picking up on this trend, KFC partnered with Om Bdr, adding her seasoning as its unofficial 12th spice.
Instead of focusing on trends or virality, the brand listened to its audience and “made the creator a partner,” said Ahmed Arafa, chief marketing officer at KFC Arabia.
He added: “This campaign was about respecting where the idea came from, crediting the community that discovered it, and turning cultural momentum into something real. Om Bdr’s seasoning belonged on our menu because our customers put it there first.”
The campaign emphasized authenticity, moving away from high-production studio shoots to filming inside actual KFC outlets, with minimal setup and featuring Om Bdr as herself.
As a result, KFC Arabia recorded its highest sales mix to date, while Om Bdr sold out of her own seasoning following the campaign.
“Om Bdr — 12th Ingredient” also won Gold in the Goal Digger category, which celebrates work that delivers measurable results, and Silver in the Community Core category, which highlights campaigns driven by creator and community collaborations.
The two firms also collaborated on another campaign, “Nuggets — Nugg it. Dip it. Crunch it.”, which ran across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, and won Bronze in the Sound On category.
The campaign centered on a looping audio track paired with videos focusing on picking, dipping and eating a nugget.
TikTok said the campaign promoted creator participation, with users adapting and reworking the audio in ways that felt native to the platform.
Saudi-based creative agency Habbar’s campaign, “14 Feb: Judgement Day!”, for online gift delivery service Floward, won Silver in the Goal Digger category.
The campaign took a humor-led approach to reflect the pressure and last-minute decision-making often associated with Valentine’s Day gifting, using creator collaborations and video formats designed to encourage sharing and commenting.
Other notable campaigns included “My Like First” by Lux, which ran in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and won Gold in the Community Core category, as well as “How I Crunch It” by Bugles, created by MRM and UM, which won Bronze in the Sound On category.
“The Ad Awards winners of this year show what’s possible when brands embrace TikTok not just as a media platform, but as a creative canvas,” said Shadi Kandil, general manager of global business solutions for the Middle East, Turkiye, Africa, Central and South Asia at TikTok.
