EMS Al Bareed Al Momtaz Turns Ramadan Into a Global Delivery Statement
"The fast" is an ambient campaign created for EMS — known in Saudi Arabia as Al Bareed Al Momtaz — by Bold Creative Boutique, Riyadh, published in August 2013, using a large-scale 3D mall installation to reposition the brand's Mobtaath international delivery service for Saudi students sending parcels to the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, and Australia, according to De Slideshare.
EMS stands for Express Mail Service, a postal-network express-delivery product, not a healthcare or emergency medical brand. In Saudi Arabia, the service operates under the Al Bareed Al Momtaz identity, and its Mobtaath service is specifically designed to support the country's significant student-abroad population, according to Pmc Ncbi Nlm Nih Gov. The campaign's stated objective, as documented by Clapboard, was to convert EMS's established local reputation into broader recognition for its international capabilities — a strategic pivot from domestic postal familiarity to cross-border express credibility.
The chosen medium was ambient, executed as a large-scale 3D installation placed in a high-traffic Saudi mall environment. The timing was deliberate: August 2013 coincided with Ramadan, a period of heightened public footfall in Saudi mall culture, giving the experiential installation maximum exposure to its target audience of students and their families preparing for the academic year abroad. The single archived media asset documented on Clapboard captures the full visual scope of the installation, according to Cnegypt. The campaign earned a Clapboard Score of 71 out of 100, reflecting competent strategic alignment and strong creative ambition within the professional services category for the Saudi market.
EMS identified a precise cultural and commercial window in Saudi Arabia. Ramadan consistently drives some of the highest retail footfall of the year in Saudi malls, according to reporting by Studocu on Saudi consumer behaviour patterns, making ambient installations in those environments significantly more effective than at other times of year. Bold Creative Boutique leveraged this behavioural reality rather than working against it.
The Mobtaath service targets a specific and growing constituency: Saudi nationals enrolled in universities abroad, particularly in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, and Australia. This audience requires reliable, fast international parcel delivery, a segment where EMS competes directly with global logistics operators including DHL, whose international express network is documented extensively in DHL Group's published corporate materials, and regional carriers with established Saudi market presence. The strategic challenge for Al Bareed Al Momtaz was that its brand equity was rooted in domestic postal recognition rather than the international speed and reliability associations that competitors had built over decades.
The campaign's narrative genre — ambient storytelling that transforms a familiar service into an experiential global journey — was the mechanism chosen to close that perception gap, according to Cms Leoncountyfl Gov. Rather than presenting Mobtaath through conventional print or broadcast advertising, Bold Creative Boutique constructed a physical argument: a conveyor belt emerging from an EMS box and appearing to pass through international landmarks, visible to thousands of mall visitors at the height of Ramadan. According to Clapboard, the campaign's social media traffic more than doubled following the installation, and it generated more than seven thousand social mentions, indicating that the ambient execution successfully converted physical footfall into digital amplification across the Saudi market.
The creative execution of "The fast" rests on a single, precisely engineered spatial illusion. The installation depicted a conveyor belt emerging from a branded EMS parcel box and extending — through forced perspective and 3D anamorphic techniques — past recognisable international landmarks, physically representing the Mobtaath service's promise of cross-border speed.
The illustrator behind the 3D floor art was Leon Keer, a practitioner internationally recognised for large-scale anamorphic street and floor installations. Keer's involvement gave the campaign a level of technical and artistic credibility that ambient work in the professional services category rarely achieves. Creative direction was handled by Mohamad Baalbaki, who also served as one of the two art directors alongside Syed Rizvi. Account direction and copywriting were the responsibility of Abeer Alessa, while Aljoharah Alrasheed served as designer and Fahed Awkal as production manager. Photography was handled by Frame Studio, and Limescent served as the digital agency extending the campaign's reach online. All credits are documented by Clapboard.
The decision to work in the ambient medium, rather than conventional out-of-home formats, was a deliberate craft choice. Anamorphic 3D installations require viewers to occupy a specific vantage point to resolve the illusion correctly, which naturally concentrates attention and encourages the sharing behaviour that converts a physical installation into earned media. In a Ramadan mall environment in Saudi Arabia — where families gather, dwell, and photograph their surroundings — this mechanic was structurally well-suited to the campaign's dual goal of driving both in-person engagement and social amplification for the EMS and Mobtaath brand.
No verified third-party performance audit for "The fast" is publicly available, and no confirmed wins or finalist placements at major international award shows including Cannes Lions have been found in publicly accessible records, according to Clapboard's research documentation.
The data points that are available, as reported by Clapboard, are meaningful in the context of a single-asset ambient campaign in Saudi Arabia in 2013. Social media traffic for EMS more than doubled following the installation's deployment, and the campaign generated more than seven thousand social mentions. For an ambient execution relying on a single physical installation rather than a paid media budget, these figures indicate that the anamorphic creative achieved genuine organic amplification — a structurally difficult outcome to engineer in any market.
The Clapboard Score for "The fast" is 71 out of 100. That result reflects a campaign that executes its central creative idea with technical confidence and clear strategic logic, while stopping short of the category-redefining impact that would push it into the highest scoring tier. The choice of Leon Keer as illustrator and the precise timing of the Ramadan window are the two decisions that most clearly elevate the work above the ambient category norm for professional services in the Saudi market. The campaign demonstrates that locally specific cultural timing, combined with internationally credible craft, is a reproducible model for brands seeking to shift perception without conventional media spend.
"The fast" is an ambient campaign for EMS, published in Saudi Arabia in August 2013 by Bold Creative Boutique. It used a large-scale 3D mall installation to promote the Mobtaath international delivery service, targeting Saudi students sending parcels to the United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, and Australia, according to Clapboard.
Bold Creative Boutique, based in Riyadh, created "The fast" for EMS. Creative director and art director Mohamad Baalbaki led the creative team, with Abeer Alessa as copywriter, Syed Rizvi as co-art director, and internationally recognised 3D illustrator Leon Keer executing the anamorphic floor installation, as documented by Clapboard.
Mobtaath is EMS's international parcel delivery service in Saudi Arabia, specifically designed for Saudi students studying abroad. The 2013 campaign positioned Mobtaath as a fast, reliable cross-border option for shipments to the United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, and Australia, according to Clapboard's campaign documentation.
EMS and Bold Creative Boutique chose an ambient 3D mall installation because Ramadan drives peak footfall in Saudi malls. The anamorphic format encouraged photography and social sharing, converting physical visitors into online amplification. According to Clapboard, social media traffic more than doubled and the campaign generated more than seven thousand social mentions.
"The fast" holds a Clapboard Score of 71 out of 100, according to Clapboard. The score reflects strong creative execution and clear strategic rationale — particularly the use of Leon Keer's 3D illustration and Ramadan timing — while indicating the campaign did not reach the threshold of category-redefining impact in the professional services sector.
Al Bareed Al Momtaz is the Saudi Arabia identity for EMS, which stands for Express Mail Service. EMS is a postal-network express-delivery product, not a healthcare brand. In the Saudi market, Al Bareed Al Momtaz operates the Mobtaath service for international student shipments, as documented by Clapboard and confirmed by publicly available postal network records.
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