The number that should stop every CMO mid-scroll isn’t 22,500, the bars of soap; it’s 95. That’s the percentage of revenue The Camel Soap Factory lost almost overnight when regional conflict broke out earlier this year and tourism to the UAE dried up. Dubai Airport Terminal 3 alone had been generating 150,000 AED a month for the 13-year-old brand. Then it stopped.
For a business built on visitors picking up handmade soap as a souvenir, that kind of cliff-edge drop doesn’t leave room for a slow pivot. It leaves room for one bet, made fast, with whatever’s left.
Dubai-based tactical marketing agency Plug made that bet on the least glamorous asset in its toolkit: an email list of 7,500 names. No paid social, no influencer roster, no rebrand. Just a campaign called “Save Our Soap,” built on direct emailers to the brand’s existing customers and organic LinkedIn posts, asking people to help keep a homegrown manufacturer alive.
Plug Founder and Brand Commander Lucy Bradley is blunt about why. “There was simply no budget. But just as importantly, I have always believed that it creates a stronger connection with customers when you reach out to them on a personal level,” she said. “The engagement and shares were very high, unlike on their Instagram where we didn’t see a lot of impact.”
That channel call is worth sitting with. In a market where brand teams default to Instagram and TikTok as the first line of response, Plug’s data told a different story: half of all sales came from LinkedIn posts, and half from eblasts going out twice a week — a platform marketers usually reserve for B2B, doing consumer heavy lifting because the audience on it was real, owned, and paying attention.
Three months on, the campaign has sold more than 22,500 bars against a 25,000 target, kept every staff member employed, and — perhaps more strikingly — reshaped the brand’s customer base entirely. “We now have a loyal domestic market which the brand didn’t tap into before, including 70% new customers,” Bradley said. “Sometimes the best ideas are the most simple.”
Ask Bradley why the campaign worked and she doesn’t point to copywriting or creative. She points to vulnerability. “I think seeing a business owner be vulnerable and ask for help was the biggest motivation for people to act. The message was authentic and clearly coming from the heart,” she said. “The campaign has been a shining example that when things get tough, UAE residents are ready to help each other and support small businesses.”
It’s a case Bradley has had to defend since. “The thing I keep being asked is why didn’t we focus on consumer-facing social media or hire an influencer,” she said. “My response is why would we use an influencer who is not the owner, or most likely not a past customer. The best influencer has to be the owner herself, who started the business from her kitchen worktop. If she can’t influence her past customers to get on board with this very personal mission to save the business, then how is a paid influencer going to.”
For Stevi Lomass, founder of The Camel Soap Factory, the harder part wasn’t the strategy, but the exposure. “When Lucy first shared her idea, I wasn’t convinced it could achieve what we needed. And I was nervous about making ourselves vulnerable by sharing our situation, but I decided to trust the process,” she said.
What came back was more than sales: kept jobs, a rebuilt domestic customer base, and corporate orders returning alongside past customers. “A few months later, we have sold more than 22,500 bars of soap, kept all our staff employed, reached new customers and built a loyal domestic market,” Lomass said. “To everyone who bought a bar of soap, placed a corporate order, shared our story or cheered us on, thank you. You didn’t just buy soap. You helped keep a homegrown UAE manufacturer alive.”
Bradley’s closing lesson is the one worth pinning above every marketing team’s desk. “A good customer database is gold,” she said. “Nurture it, keep in touch with your audience, because one day you might need their help. You can’t rely on social media followers when you need it the most.”
