Advertising campaign revolves around award-winning 'Fi Masafi' slogan

Dubai, September 25, 2006: Masafi, the regional leader in the bottled mineral water industry, launched "Fi Masafi?" - its new communications campaign in the local market. Building on its leadership, the campaign seeks to create top-of-the-mind recall for Masafi within a competitive bottled water market. The new campaign revolves around its award-winning and iconic 'Fi Masafi?' (Do You Have Masafi?) slogan.

Masafi, the pure natural mineral water which has carved a niche with its creative communications strategy, has further built on its famous 'Fi Masafi' tagline to a value proposition that sets out its position in an unconventional set of related thoughts. The campaign reflects Masafi's position in the UAE market and portrays the company's successful business model. In support to the new campaign, the company has developed a strong media plan to involve outdoor, print along with in-store branding. The key message communicated is Masafi is 'your choice of beverage'.

Commenting on the campaign, Ashraf Abu Shady, Chief Executive Officer of Masafi, said: "Our market leadership in the region is largely charged by our consumer's confidence and trust in the Masafi brand. The company's success is derived from its philosophy to deliver superior quality products, strict adherence to international quality standards and innovative communications strategy. We are thrilled to unveil our new campaign which targets at a more diverse audience than ever. Close on the heels of the success of our successful and award-winning Fi Masafi? slogan, we aim to solidify our presence in the regional market."

Mr. Abu Shady added: "We are confident that the new advertisements will leverage Masafi's market leadership and reinforce our brand positioning building on our previous successes in the earlier 'Fi Masafi' campaign."

The latest campaign has been jointly developed by Team Y&R & Wunderman.

Masafi, which has garnered many accolades for its quality, innovation and product excellence, recently bagged the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) Aqua Awards 2005 for its pioneering corporate campaign. In recognition of its creative development, it was also conferred the GMR Effectiveness in Marketing Awards (GEMAS) 2006, winning the gold for Sales Promotion and 'Marketing Achievement - Large Company' as well as the most popular award - the GEMAS Gold Grand Prix. Masafi was also 'highly commended' in the Customer Focus category.

Masafi, has successfully retained its market leadership in the UAE mineral water segment with more than 40 percent share. The company exports 30 per cent of its bottled water products to different countries. The major importers in volume terms are Oman, Kuwait, Japan, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Jordan, Djibouti and Syria. The company's mineral water is also exported to Bahrain, Morocco, Taiwan, Germany, UK, Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, Yemen, Sudan, Australia and Pakistan.

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About Masafi
Masafi, the leading producer of pure natural mineral water in the entire Gulf was established in 1976 with a paid-up capital of approximately $5.5 million. The company has retained its market leadership for the past three decades by providing world-class products which are renowned for their pure natural freshness. This has seen Masafi become a generic name for mineral and bottled water in the entire region. In the process it has built an extremely strong distribution network to consistently deliver to dynamic market requirements and has continuously upgraded its equipment to keep pace with technological advances around the globe.

Being a leading brand that delivers to consumer needs, Masafi's wide product portfolio includes mineral water, tissues, and the newly launched Masafi Juices. The mineral water product line comes in bottles of 1.5 litres, 1 litre, 500ml, 330ml (regular and sports), 330ml kids packaging (regular and sports); mineral water cups in sizes of 250ml, 200ml, and 125ml. The tissue line includes boutique fragrant tissues in three scents, floral tissues in purple, pink and green colors, and car tissue boxes, while the hugely popular Masafi juices come in Orange, Apple, Mango and tropical flavors available in 1 litre, 200 ml and 180 ml bottles.

The company was the first recipient of the ISO 9002 certification in the entire Middle East and was awarded the ISO 9001:2000 certification for developing and maintaining a high standard Quality Management System. Masafi has also been awarded the HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) certification. Masafi is also a member of International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and Asia Bottled Water Association (ABWA). Masafi Water is tested and approved by NSF International, USA, which carries out annual surprise audits on behalf of IBWA. Masafi is the first mineral water company in the region to be awarded the prestigious ISO 14001 certification for Environmental Management.

For further information, please contact
Ghada Kammoun/ Naeem Badiuzzaman,
Bates PanGulf PR,
Dubai.
Tel: +9714-2953456;
Fax: +9714-2951027
E-mail: gkammoun@batespangulf.com / naeem@batespangulf.com 

© Press Release 2006