What a Glass of Pineapple Juice Taught Me About Brand Strategy
I am standing under the high green ceiling of the Haramain High Speed Railway station in Madinah, Saudi Arabia. My eyes keep wandering from the ceiling, to the pillars, to the glass walls, the shops at the station, the people coming and going through the station. I pull out my phone from my pocket and make a video call to my family. When my mother picks it up, the camera is facing the green ceiling. The first word she says is “Masha Allah.” That is the praise I am sure many people uttered when they first saw the station, its beautiful ceiling, the chandeliers. Everything looks like it was designed with a modern standard while keeping the roots of Arabian design close.
Then I took her to the platform where the train had arrived. She was just silently watching, a faint smile on her face, her eyes carrying a kind of happiness that comes from seeing something through someone else’s eyes. When the train started, I showed her how it left the station promptly. Then the interior, the lighting, the seats. When we reached max speed, I showed her the glass of pineapple juice sitting on the table in front of me, how it did not shake even then. When there was nothing left to show, I just kept the camera facing the window so she could see the desert soaring past while we talked.
Why did I do all that? Because when I took in the feeling of standing under that ceiling, a photo or a reel did not feel like enough. There was a warmth in my chest that needed sharing with the people I love. People I wished were with me, so they could feel what I was feeling. Just traveling through HHR from Madinah to Makkah gave me a sense of pride. This is what Saudi has become. Now I can move between these two cities on a train that every Muslim can be proud of.
If that is what I felt, I am sure it is what many Muslims traveling through that train feel. So what is HHR telling them about itself?
Speed. Safety. Comfort. Punctuality. Those are the pillars HHR’s communication revolves around. They sound too uptight. They talk about features, and yes, features carry value, but the thing people actually feel is not the technical refinement of the train. It is amazement, while they are emotionally charged by a spiritual journey. HHR acts like a service provider while the people are buying an experience.
People are amazed by the grand stations and their beauty. They admire the design of the stations and the trains, how clean everything looks, how serene. Only after completing the journey do they feel they got an experience out of the ticket they paid for.
That feeling travelers go home with, and the features HHR talks about, that is the gap.
When I made that video call and showed my family the station, the train, how it left the platform on time, I did it because I was amazed myself. Proud that a country we visit for a holy purpose, a country that holds a special place in every Muslim’s heart, now has a train that exceeds our expectations. It is an experience you have to share with the people you love, hoping they can someday feel the same thing.
You don’t travel with HHR because it is fast or modern. You travel with HHR because you are already in Saudi Arabia to do a once in a lifetime thing, and this is another once in a lifetime thing that is part of that journey. It is not different.
That’s when I understood what HHR actually is.
HHR is not a transport provider. What is unique about it is not speed, not comfort, not punctuality, not safety. What is unique about HHR is something no one else has. It is naturally positioned as part of the most important journey in every Muslim’s life. Every Muslim has to experience Hajj or Umrah at least once. HHR is part of that experience.
If HHR could lean into this feeling instead of the features, the brand would become human.
If I had to design a campaign for HHR, it would look like this.
Everything should feel soft and ethereal, as if touched by a slight light, never bright. The visuals should not feel like film or a clean photoshoot. They should feel like the viewer is present. Instead of showing everything, we show the details. Not what the man is wearing, but how he moves. Not what his eyes see, but how his eyes see. Not how he smiles, but how his lips move, maybe a silent smile that is almost invisible, maybe his lips move to whisper “SubhanAllah.” Not how he is amazed by the experience, but how he stops in the middle of the journey to look at his own reflection in the window, to remember who he is and why he is here. How he stops in the middle of the grand HHR station and takes it all in, reminding himself of his purpose.
The final frame would be him looking up. Not at the station’s beautiful ceiling. The camera shows his point of view, looking at something beyond the ceiling, something no eye can see. And in soft white letters, “Part of the Journey,” beside the white HHR logo.
HHR is sitting inside one of the most emotionally loaded journeys on earth. Most brands would pay anything for that position.