6 min
BYD entered the GCC with no influencer benchmarks, no regional brand presence, and a budget that ruled out celebrity talent. Boomerang, a Dubai-based influencer marketing agency, delivered 3 million views against a 2 million target using eight creators.
This is the full breakdown: what we got right, what we'd change, and the numbers behind it.
Car brands that use influencer marketing in the GCC
Automotive is one of the fastest-moving categories in Gulf creator marketing, driven by an EV market growing at a 22% CAGR toward $31.66 billion by 2031. New Chinese entrants in particular have leaned on creators because they arrive without the dealer heritage legacy brands spent decades building.
Here is how the approach differs by brand:
What the verified campaigns have in common: modest creator counts, lifestyle-led framing, and vertical video. Neither campaign won on budget. Both won on creator fit.
Below is the full BYD breakdown — the campaign we ran.
Why BYD's GCC launch was a hard brief
A brand with no regional baseline
BYD is now the dominant EV player in the region, holding roughly 60% of Middle East EV sales. In Q1 2025, that position was still being built.
We had no historical engagement rates, no proven creator list for the category, and no internal benchmark for what "good" looked like. Every projection was a first.
A messaging mismatch
BYD arrived with a commercial, China-centric brief: battery chemistry, range figures, technical differentiators. Sound engineering — wrong register for Gulf social audiences, who respond to lifestyle framing over spec sheets.
Left unchanged, that brief would have produced content creators posted out of obligation and audiences scrolled past.
A budget that excluded the obvious answer
Celebrity talent and formal brand ambassador deals were off the table. That constraint turned out to be useful: it forced a creator mix built on engagement rate rather than follower count.
We covered the trade-off in detail in our guide to micro vs macro influencers for UAE brands.
Boomerang's influencer marketing strategy for BYD
How we selected 8 influencers on a limited budget
We shortlisted against three criteria, in this order:
- Engagement rate over reach — a 40K-follower auto creator with 6% engagement outperforms a 400K lifestyle account at 0.8%
- Category credibility — audiences detect a creator who has never discussed cars before
- Commercial flexibility — creators open to bundled Reels-plus-Stories deliverables at accessible rates
The final eight blended automotive specialists with lifestyle creators. Automotive accounts carried credibility with in-market buyers. Lifestyle accounts carried the vehicles into feeds that would never follow a car brand — where category expansion actually happens.
Our creator network runs past 5,000 profiles across the GCC, which is what makes filtering this tightly possible.
Read more about our influencer marketing service for brands.
Rewriting the scripts
We did not forward BYD's talking points to creators. We rewrote every script in each creator's own voice.
Range figures became "I didn't charge it all week." Cabin specs became a school-run scene. The product claims survived; the delivery changed entirely.
Client education was part of the work — showing BYD why technical accuracy and audience resonance were not in conflict, they just needed different sentences.
Creative direction
The content ran on three formats:
- Instagram Reels — hero format, highest completion rates
- TikTok — discovery and category expansion
- Snapchat Stories — strong penetration with GCC audiences, routinely underused by automotive brands
Content centred on hybrid and electric performance, comfort, and running costs, folded into lifestyle narratives. Event coverage added a live layer.
End-to-end management
- Creator onboarding and detailed briefing
- Custom scriptwriting per creator
- Content approval against brand and regional standards
- Real-time analytics and transparent reporting
We track every campaign through the stack described in our guide to influencer marketing analytics and tracking tools for the UAE and GCC, following our campaign process end to end.
BYD Campaign results
Fill before publishing: total budget range, cost per view, average engagement rate, follower-tier split. Even as ranges, these are the most citable figures on the page.
What the numbers mean in context
Eight creators, three million views. That is roughly 375,000 views per creator — well above what follower counts alone would predict, which is the practical case for engagement-rate selection over reach.
Beyond the view count
BYD went from unknown quantity to recognised presence in Gulf feeds. Comment sentiment was positive. Audiences engaged with the vehicles as lifestyle objects rather than imported spec sheets — exactly the reframe the campaign was built around.
"The campaign with Boomerang allowed us to introduce our vehicles to a completely new audience in the GCC, and the influencer collaboration helped build a more relatable and engaging brand presence." — Marketing Representative, BYD
What worked, and what we'd change
Worked
The blended creator mix. Automotive creators delivered credibility; lifestyle creators delivered reach into non-category audiences. Neither alone would have hit 3M.
Voice-first scripting. Rewriting to each creator's register was the highest-leverage decision in the campaign.
Snapchat. Consistently underrated by automotive brands in the Gulf, and it delivered.
We'd change
Deeper automotive specialists. Higher-engagement auto creators would sharpen in-market impact, even at fewer placements.
More creative latitude. The scripts worked, but the strongest content came where creators improvised. Tighter briefs, looser execution.
Extended product testing. Multi-day loans producing range tests and real usage footage. Highest-intent content format in the category, and absent from this campaign.
What this means for automotive brands entering the GCC
The UAE holds 42% of the GCC EV market and targets 25% EV share of new car sales by 2035, with over 70,000 EVs already on its roads. Pure EVs were still only around 3.4% of 2025 new-car sales, so the category is early.
Early categories reward brands that build familiarity before they build dealer networks. Three practical takeaways:
- Localise the message before you localise the media buy. A globally approved script that ignores regional register wastes the placement.
- Budget constraints are a selection filter, not a ceiling. Eight well-chosen creators beat two expensive ones.
- Vertical video is the category's default. Reels, TikTok, and Snapchat Stories — not brand films.
For the wider playbook, see our guide to running influencer marketing campaigns in the UAE and GCC and our influencer marketing pricing.
FAQ
Which car brands use influencer marketing in the GCC?
BYD ran an eight-creator campaign across the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Q1 2025 that generated over 3 million views. DEEPAL's G318 launch in the UAE reached 49M+ impressions. Automotive brands in the Gulf — particularly newer EV entrants — typically combine automotive specialists with lifestyle creators across Instagram Reels, TikTok, and Snapchat.
How many influencers does an automotive campaign in the GCC need?
Fewer than most brands assume. The BYD campaign exceeded a 2 million view target by 50% with eight creators. Selection quality and content fit drive outcomes far more than creator volume.
Does influencer marketing work for EV brands entering a new market?
Yes, and it is arguably more effective for new entrants than for established brands. BYD had no prior GCC benchmarks or brand presence. Shifting from technical, China-centric messaging to lifestyle-led content was the adjustment that made the campaign resonate.
What does automotive influencer marketing cost in the GCC?
It varies with creator tier, deliverable count, and exclusivity. The BYD campaign delivered above target within a budget that excluded celebrity talent — evidence that mid-tier creator strategies are viable at accessible spend levels. See our pricing page for current ranges.
Which platform performs best for car brands in the Gulf?
Instagram Reels carried the highest completion rates in this campaign, with TikTok driving discovery beyond the automotive audience. Snapchat Stories are frequently overlooked by car brands in the GCC despite strong regional penetration.
Work with an automotive influencer marketing agency in the GCC
Boomerang does one thing: influencer marketing across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the wider Gulf. Over 200 campaigns, a 95%+ client retention rate, and a network of 5,000+ regional creators.
If you are launching a vehicle, an EV line, or any product entering the Gulf without an existing audience, the BYD campaign is a working template.
See more of our influencer marketing case studies →