Campaign, 27th June 2021

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A MOTIVATE PUBLICATION

HOW BRANDS AND MEDIA ARE EVOLVING AND INNOVATING. PLUS CLIENT-SIDE FACES TO WATCH

June 27, 2021

A E D 2 5 / U S D 7/S R 2 5

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June 27, 2021

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OMG promotes Elda Choucair from COO to CEO as Elie Khouri returns his focus to chairman role Omnicom Media Group MENA has announced the promotion of Elda Choucair from COO to CEO. The group said in a statement that Elie Khouri, who had assumed the role of CEO after the departure of Nadim Samara from the job a year ago, will now concentrate on his role of chairman and “ensure a seamless transition at a time when the holding group has shown substantial growth over the last year”.

Choucair became COO in June 2019 when she moved to the job from being CEO of OMG agency PHD. Her tenure has seen her focus heavily on the group’s response to the impact of the pandemic. The group said: “She has further demonstrated her leadership talent by successfully addressing both internal and external challenges and played a crucial role in transforming OMG’s regional operations by readying its resources for new and emerging market expectations.”

In the last couple of years, the holding group’s networks, OMD, PHD and Hearts & Science, have secured impressive account wins and award recognition at the MENA Effie and the Dubai Lynx, said the group. They also enhanced their talent pool through skill development and recruitment and deployed several new processes and platforms to

‘Success story’: Elda Choucair, CEO of OMG

respond to challenges with speed, precision and effectiveness.

A 15-year veteran at the group, Choucair held senior account positions at OMD and led PHD for more than 10 years. Under her leadership, the regional media network grew seven-fold and became a key player in the region.

She will continue to report to Elie Khouri. Choucair will now assume the full control of all OMG MENA operations and accelerate their transformation to stay ahead of the curve. Choucair is also an active industry figure, as vice-chair of the Advertising Business Group, board member of the IAB GCC and the IAA

UAE Chapter, and a founding board member of the Unstereotype Alliance.

“Elda is a true success story in her own right and has never stopped impressing everyone around her. Her vision, coupled with her pragmatism and attention to detail, means that she knows where we need to go and how to get there,” said Elie Khouri.

TikTok launches agency competition

ADIDAS BEYOND THE SURFACE The Beyond the Surface campaign, part of Watch Us Move – Adidas’ broader initiative to create more space for women in sport – celebrates the power of water and its ability to defy restrictions, bring renewal and accept everyone unconditionally. The new campaign is fronted by spoken-word artist and sport inclusivity activist Asma Elbadawi, who created a specially commissioned poem to celebrate her relationship with the water and the confidence it can bring to all women. The agency behind he campaign is Havas Middle East, and the production house is La Cosa.

Social platform TikTok has launched a competition for media agencies, with prizes including $20,000 of ad credits, creator collaborations and consultancy with TikTok. ‘Rock the Tok’ is in partnership with The Marketing Society and is open for entries until July 8. Teams must submit TikTok videos and supporting write-ups for one of three briefs. The briefs involve showing a seemingly unsuitable brand using the platform; highlighting TikTok as a platform for learning and food for thought; and showing how brands can use it as a full-funnel marketing channel.

Shant Oknayan, general manager of global business solutions METAP, said: “The Rock the Tok competition has been designed to encourage creativity further and provide the media industry the freedom to explore and build credible, inspirational and entertaining content.”

Find more at rockthetok.net.

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June 27, 2021

Young Lynx Academy addresses bravery, briefs and dignified storytelling

By Sofia Serrano The Young Lynx Academy took place in Mid June, in partnership with TikTok. The event was held at Dubai’s in5 Media facilities and featured a programme targeted towards 20 young professionals aged 32 and under, who work in the ad industry.

The opening session was led by Sami Moutran, B2B marketing lead at TikTok. Then industry experts shared their projects and experiences. Elias W. Bassil, head of brand strategy at TikTok, spoke about the knowledge economy and how brands are using TikTok. Ali Rez, regional executive creative director at Impact BBDO Pakistan and the Middle East, talked about how to crack a brief and showed examples including his agency’s #BeatMe for UN Women.

Aakriti Goel, strategy and data director at Cheil MEA, demonstrated how to use data assertively. And Ciaran Bonass, executive creative director at Vice/Virtue Asia Pacific

and MEA, talked about “the predictive engine of culture”, sharing many examples of campaigns that support women’s empowerment.

This year Dubai Lynx partnered with the Dignified Storytelling initiative by Dubai Cares. This initiative is a platform that fosters a common understanding of how storytelling can and should instil and maintain the dignity of all people while striving to create an environment of positivity that strengthens long-term relationships between the public, private and development sectors. Khalifa Suwaidi, communications manager of Dubai Cares, presented the principles of dignified storytelling.

For two days, the event gathered young talent from the creative industry. The participants were put into teams to answer a brief and produce a campaign for the client.

The event included the briefing, workshops and presentations.

The submission included the

The Young Lynx Academy took place at In5 in Dubai

business challenge, target audience, insight, strategy, key message, supporting points and messaging, and brand personality and voice.

The jury was comprised of Khalifa Suwaidi, Elias Bassil, Sami Moutran and Thea Skelton, festival director at Dubai Lynx.

“I loved how this hackathon challenged us to trust our gut instincts, be brave and implement

our learnings from the keynote sessions to create an impactful campaign within the short time of 24 hours,” said Chirag Khushalani from AKQA, who was part of the winning team. His teammates were: Aamna Iqbal from Create Media Group; Ahmed Sakr from Wunderman Thompson; Heba Al Nabulsi from Socialbakers; and Youssef Yammine from Leo Burnett.

SPOTIFY ONLY YOU

DUBAI DESIGN DISTRICT RETHINK THE REGULAR

Listening is everything for the 356 million users on Spotify. With more than 70 million tracks to pick from, there is a plethora of music to discover – but Spotify knows that nobody listens like you. So it brought its latest global campaign, Only You, to Saudi Arabia and Egypt to celebrate just that. The multifaceted, data-driven creative campaign features an in-app experience and personalised playlists and will run across social, digital, and OOH. While Spotify users have to wait a few more months for Wrapped and the top lists of what soundtracked their 2021, Only You is all about celebrating how they listen – providing a Wrapped-esque shareable experience that Spotify knows users will love.

Rethink the Regular is a global campaign from Dubai Design District (D3) with a simple objective: to position D3 as a creative accelerator that acts as the home for curious minds and novel experiences. The forward-thinking business district entices you to be inspired and see creativity from a new perspective. By breaking the rules and challenging the status quo, design can inspire growth and innovation at a time when the world needs it most.

Created in collaboration with Memac Ogilvy, it showcases not only what D3 is, but the possibilities that design-loving startups and regional and global corporations can discover.

The digital Rethink the Regular campaign was launched with a film that has attracted more than 1 million views. It demonstrates just how the artistically designed offices, restaurants, shops and recreation spaces in D3 can inspire you through intricate visual illusions that play with perception.

Egypt agency FP7 McCann Cairo Egypt production house Fekr Productions Saudi agency Xelement Saudi production house Apex

June 27, 2021

The Arabian Gallery – new online art portal launched TheArabianGallery.com launched in June and showcases a selection of artworks by renowned local and international artists.

Originally established in 1986 as a physical entity, The Arabian Gallery has now been transformed into an e-commerce platform where art lovers can purchase their favourite pieces from a collection of more than 1,000 works. TheArabianGallery.com can frame and ship purchases to buyers’ doorsteps worldwide.

Ian Fairservice, managing partner of Motivate Media Group, said: “We are very excited to be launching the digital version of The Arabian Gallery. TheArabianGallery.com will further diversify our offering and create new opportunities in the e-commerce space.”

The digital platform already features world-class photographers, painters and sculptors, with more artists to be added. Under the photographers’ section, you can purchase prints produced by global talent, including Baber Afzal, Sir Wilfred Thesiger, Jassim Al-Awadhi and Lord Patrick Lichfield. Under the painters’ section, you can scroll through a number of artworks from Andrew Vicari, Jassim Al-Awadhi, Faisal Abdulqadar, Najat Makki,

‘Coral’ by Almudena Angoso, one of the artists represented by The Arabian Gallery

Almudena Angoso, Khulood Al-Jabri and many more. If you’re looking for sculptures, you can find a variety of creations, from mosaic to 3D animal sculptures, from Abdul Rahim Salem, Lau Siu Hong Freeman and others.

TheArabianGallery.com accepts

major credit cards and delivers within 10 working days.

If you are a photographer, painter or sculptor you can join this list of esteemed artists by submitting your artworks and your biography to tag.submissions@motivate.ae.

ABG launches gender guide The Advertising Business Group (ABG) has released its Ethical Guidelines for Gender Portrayal in Advertising & Marketing Communication to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment in the UAE. The guidelines aim to provide direction to drive cultural change and inspire gender equality while balancing traditions and cultural sensitivities with the use of progressive communication in the UAE. This guidance discusses unconscious biases and how to avoid reinforcing harmful stereotypes.

The guidelines have been created by a group of female industry experts, including: Sally Tambourgi, creative director at JWT Dubai; Noura Al-Sarraj, deputy MD at Weber Shandwick; Priya Sarma, regional sustainability manager at Unilever; Naheel Abdelall, marketing communication manager at Beiersdorf MENA: and Deepa Vaidyanathan, senior director and regional head of communications sustainability and gender equality, at Procter & Gamble.

The themes discuss include stereotypical roles, stereotypical characteristics and stereotypical appearance and follow a 10-point format.

More at abg-me.com

YAS ISLAND TOY TALKS

INVEST IN DUBAI THE DUBAI MIRACLE

As part of its efforts to promote its Kids Go Free summer promotion, Yas Island, Abu Dhabi’s leisure and entertainment hub, developed a series of entertaining videos, using toys as spokespeople, highlighting their need to take their own break. The Toy Talks video series aims to emotionally connect with children and parents alike with relatable humour about life in lockdown, through the eyes of toys.

Smart Dubai’s investment portal, Invest in Dubai, needed to pitch the incredible Dubai growth story to international audiences. What better than capturing it in a short, high-energy video that packs everything Dubai through inspiring frames? The video has facts about the business-friendly environment in the Emirate, zero-red tape, faster approvals and so on. The video was shot extensively all over Dubai and features aweinspiring drone footage of iconic landmarks.

Agency Momentum Dubai Production house Dejavu Senior creative director Muhammad Ali Associate creative director/copywriter Vishal Munyal Associate creative director/art Gary Rolf ECD Raphael Nassoura

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Agency Liwa Content Driven Executive producer Sagar Rege Strategy Rohit Arora Producer Sammy E. Hassan Creative director Vijay Kumar Director Arun Shekar DOP Ian Murphy Colourist Brenden Burke Art directors Abhijeet Chaubal, Anas Ramzan Animators Nikhil Soman, Talal Dakak, Muhammad Shoaib, Arsalan Ahmed

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June 27, 2021

MOTIVATE SIGNS MOU WITH TEL AVIV’S I24 NEWS The multilingual news channel’s CEO explains the partnership is one of several he hopes will integrate Israel into ‘the new Middle East’

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srael-based broadcaster i24 News has signed a partnership agreement with Motivate Media Group, Campaign’s parent company and the publisher of titles including What’s On and Gulf Business.

Eight-year-old i24 is based in Tel Aviv but has only recently received a licence to broadcast in its home country. It is available internationally in English, French and Arabic.

It is owned by multibillionaire French-Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi, whose other interests include French telco Altice and Sotheby’s auction house.

The memorandum of understanding with Motivate is one of several partnerships i24 has signed in the UAE. It has also partnered with broadcasters Abu Dhabi Media and

Partnership: Ian Fairservice and Frank Melloul Dubai Media, Gulf News newspaper, Etisalat and Du telecoms providers and the Dubai Ministry of Tourism. CEO of i24 News Frank Melloul says that i24 has also agreed to open an office in Dubai Media City, the first Israeli company to do so.

“Ian Fairservice and I share the same vision,” said Melloul. “When he is thinking about Motivate he’s thinking about print, digital and events. I’m thinking about broadcast, digital and events. So you can see this partnership is complementary between print and broadcast, and we can be stronger together in digital and we can organise events together.”

Melloul said Motivate and i24 News would work on an initial project together, and have agreed in principle to work on further co-branded ventures.

Ian Fairservice said: “Having been privileged to witness the UAE’s amazing development since the 1970s I’ve become accustomed to surprises, to the unexpected.

But who could have imagined – or foreseen – the signing of the Abraham Accords last August and the opportunities that this would open up for us all? Our strategic partnership with i24 and the opportunity to work with Frank and his incredibly talented team is one of the most exciting new developments for our group in many years. We are all delighted and excited to be playing a part in this unfolding story.”

Melloul’s UAE deals come less than a year after the US-brokered Abraham Accords were signed, normalising relations between the UAE and Israel.

“We are here to explain what is going on,” said Melloul. “We are here to explain what on i24 News we are calling the new Middle East.”

He added: “The difference between the new Middle East and the old Middle East is: Before, you had Arabic countries and Israel; now Israel is part of this new environment. I24

‘‘THIS PARTNERSHIP IS COMPLEMENTARY BETWEEN PRINT AND BROADCAST, AND WE CAN BE STRONGER TOGETHER.” News is here to show you the reality of this new environment, what is working, what is not working, what should be improved. It is also here to establish strong links between people, to connect Israel to the reality of the new Middle East and to connect the new Middle East to the reality of Israel.”

Power brokers within Israel have been keen to use i24 as a platform to reach GCC audiences, said Melloul: “We have many politicians, many businessmen, many opinion leaders approaching i24 asking us to be on air and to be broadcast in the Gulf. They want to use it as a platform to showcase themselves.

They want to increase awareness of them in the Gulf and they are asking for interviews on i24 News.”

The sectors that are most keen to promote themselves to a new audience include technology, health and cybersecurity, said Melloul.

He added that one reason he was keen to open an office in the UAE within a year of the Abraham Accords being signed is to enhance the channel’s “credibility and legitimacy”.

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June 27, 2021

THE RETURN OF ADVERTISING – IN NUMBERS

Mediabrands agency Magna has released its latest ad spend forecast, and predicts global spending will rise by 14 per cent in 2021, with a slower recovery in the Middle East and Africa

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s the economy recovers faster than expected in most markets, marketing activity and advertising spending is following. With the added driver of rescheduled international sports events, Mediabrands media agency Magna (part of the Interpublic Group of Companies forecasts global all-media advertising spending to grow by $78bn (+14 per cent) to $657bn in 2021, a new all-time high.

Magna has also raised its forecast for advertising market growth in 2022 to +6.6 per cent (it was previously +5 per cent). The +14 per cent growth expectation for 2021 would represent the highest growth rate on record,

beating +12.5 per cent in 2000, and a significant increase from Magna’s previous global forecast in December 2020 of +8 per cent.

Economic recovery will lift all boats, but the contrast has never been wider between digital ad sales accelerating (+20 per cent to $419bn) and linear ad sales (linear TV, linear radio, print, OOH, cinema) which are barely stabilising (+3 per cent to $238bn after 2020’s -18 per cent decline. Covid-19 may be receding in most markets but the changes to lifestyles, media consumption and business models continue to fuel an acceleration in the adoption of digital marketing from both national consumer brands and

small, local and ‘direct’ businesses.

Digital growth from consumer brands comes partly at the expense of traditional linear channels but in the case of small businesses, it is mostly incremental to the advertising pie.

All of the 70 ad markets monitored

by Magna will grow to some degree in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, Asia Pacific ad markets will grow by +13 per cent, EMEA markets by +12 per cent. Latin America and North America will both grow by nearly +15 per cent.

Everywhere, the pattern is similar, with linear ad sales to grow by low- to mid-single digits and digital ad sales growing by +20 per cent or more.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

Magna’s regional forecasts come from monitoring six Gulf countries plus Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and South Africa Linear advertising sales will rise by +4 per cent across the region to reach $8m, about $1m below 2019 levels.

Digital formats continued to grow

‘‘2021 WILL BRING RENEWED MARKETING ACTIVITY ACROSS THE REGION.”

organically in 2020, rising by +8 per cent, and will accelerate in 2021: +19 per cent. The total advertising market (linear and digital) will grow by +9 per cent in 2021 to reach $12.9bn.

Economic stabilisation and the return of major events (Dubai World Expo 2021, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022) will support marketing and advertising recovery over the next two years.

Assuming continued global recovery and energy price recovery, 2021 will bring renewed marketing activity across the region, driving net advertising revenues to rise by +9 per cent to reach $12.9bn, slightly above the 2019 peak of $12.8bn. The strongest growth will come from several of the markets that were hit the hardest in 2020, including Saudi Arabia (2021: +12 per cent, 2020: -9 per cent), Qatar (2021: +10 per cent, 2020: -9 per cent), and the UAE (2021: +10 per cent, 2020: -9 per cent). Egypt remains the largest MEA market in terms of total ad dollars, with $3.8bn expected for the full year in 2021, followed by South Africa ($2.5bn), Saudi Arabia ($2.1bn), and the UAE ($1.9bn).

Linear media format sales will rise by +4 per cent across the region to $8bn, still $1bn below the 2019 peak of $9.1bn. Television remains a crucial part of the media mix in most MEA markets, with a little less than half of all ad dollars (and much more in the case of consumer brands) being spent on TV. Total television spend will rise +5 per cent to reach $5.9bn this year.

In the GCC, and to a lesser extent in Egypt, Morocco and Lebanon, Pan-Arab television networks such as MBC and Rotana remain immensely popular, drawing large audiences and attracting about 90 per cent of total television spend. Pan-Arab channels offer a wider variety of high-quality programming (including regional and international shows and sports) than the local channels, which are mostly government-owned and subject to restrictive guidelines on programming and advertising.

Pan-Arab television should see a faster recovery this year, +5 per cent, compared with free TV (+4 per cent).

Digital advertising formats will see 2021 growth of +19 per cent to top $4.8 billion, nearly 40 per cent of regional advertising (still well below global average of nearly 65 per cent). Video (+30 per cent) and social ad formats (+26 per cent) will see the strongest growth, driven by organic factors (acceleration of digital media consumption and e-commerce).

Magna anticipates digital sales will see continued strength in 2022, rising another +17 per cent to reach over 40 per cent of market share. Over the long term, digital ad sales will continue to grow by an average of +15 per cent per year to reach $8.6 billion by 2025, half of total regional advertising revenues.

June 27, 2021

A FINE BALANCE

The future of events includes hybrids, and the challenge will be finding the right mix between in-person and virtual experiences. The key is starting with the audience, write 360X’s co-founders

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By CAJETAN AFONSO and TANIA AFONSO, co-founders of 360X

‘‘An increased focus on adding virtual components to live events offers increased reach across borders and better monetisation opportunities.’’

vent management as an industry is constantly evolving, with technology and audience experience being at its core. The pandemic saw this ever-changing industry transform into virtual events. As experiential marketing professionals, if the canvas had changed from arenas and ballrooms to phones and laptops, we needed to design the best audience experience for this new canvas.

People have been networking virtually for well over a decade now, by way of social media, be it to connect with family and friends or to find jobs, companions and more. Virtual connections have been proven to build stronger ties and let attendees connect with speakers and other high-level personnel that they would not necessarily have access to in person. They also allow for in-depth analytics that help improve the user journey and the experience with every passing event and its learnings. However – and this cannot be emphasised enough – a virtual event is far more than just a live webinar. It’s about creating a holistic experience for your audience and making them soak in the brand and what it has to offer.

However, with more and more countries lifting lockdowns and giving a green light to live events, marketers are spending a lot of time trying to strike the perfect balance of live and virtual interactions.

Brands across the globe have been able to expand their reach via virtual events. Even with live events kicking off it’s important for them to continue engaging the virtual audience that may not be able to travel or may simply prefer attending an event virtually. Giving attendees this choice is paramount. This is where hybrid comes in.

Letting guests attend an event in a way that’s most comfortable for them is going to become increasingly important. Even when live events return, many people are still going to prefer staying in and not travelling. By shifting to hybrid events, brands take a customer-first approach and let the guests decide how they’d like to engage – physically or virtually. There will be an increased focus on adding virtual components to live events, which offers increased reach across borders, and therefore better monetisation opportunities.

Research from EventMB shows that 66.5 per cent of event professionals are already planning to use hybrid as their go-to format once in-person events resume. According to Forbes.com, acceleration in the virtual events space will exceed previous revenue estimates of $404bn by 2027. These statistics do not surprise us, and the last year has made the benefits of virtual and hybrid events clear: Health and safety: With countries still going through new waves and variants of the virus, audiences may feel safer participating virtually.

Cost efficiency: The cost-benefit to event producers and attendees cannot be ignored.

Amplification and reach: While physical events will be produced with limited audience sizes, the virtual clones of these events will give brands the opportunity to achieve extended reach and engagement across borders Flexibility: Content can now be live and virtual.

The efficient use of time makes it enticing to speakers and audiences.

Longevity: Virtual and hybrid events allow organisers to extend the life of the event and make the content accessible to guests for much longer Sustainability: Encouraging attendees to use digital versions of brochures, business cards, etc. is an underlying benefit of going hybrid.

For event producers, there needs to be an equal focus on the on-ground and the virtual aspects of the event. The audience experience is paramount, whether they are seated in the venue or attending the event virtually. While hybrid could mean live streaming from the venue to a virtual audience, platforms are expected to create a more immersive experience, like creating a digital twin of the physical event and letting audiences on the ground and virtually engage seamlessly. We shouldn’t be thinking of virtual as a compromise, but rather a foray into a new line of business and technology.

And we should pursue it with the same vigour and enthusiasm as a physical event.

With technology and design evolving across the realm in leaps and bounds, we have seen virtual events take on several interesting forms as well.

The example of Belgian dance music festival Tomorrowland proves the above. An on-ground festival that usually saw an audience size of approximately 400,000 had 25 million unique users for its virtual edition. The reason for audience traction is simply because Tomorrowland is known for its fantastic audience experience and the virtual audiences were certain that it would be more than just a stream. It was a truly digital festival. Another example is a virtual event we hosted for Panasonic.

Hosted on a stunning virtual island, the environment was embellished with everything on-brand, right from the colours and textures to the ambient music and more. While the event was targeting dealers from eight different markets, each attendee was only privy to content pertaining to his or her market and got a sense of exclusivity while giving the Panasonic team the convenience of hosting a multi-country event simultaneously.

Virtual and hybrid is now integral to the overall event experience and technology is improving. We will soon move into the adoption of true VR, wearables, etc. and find ourselves even more immersed in events from the comfort of our homes.

While we are all looking forward to live events, there’s no argument that live, virtual and hybrid must co-exist and the event industry needs to adapt to this new normal.

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PARTNER CONTENT

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June 27, 2021

MAGGI ARABIA celebrates the moments that define Ramadan The food brand used Facebook’s platforms to deliver appetising recipes from the traditional to the innovative, to inspire home cooks to create delicious meals through weekly planners all month long

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ood brand MAGGI ARABIA wanted to reach women who are passionate about cooking, during the second Ramadan the world would spend under social distancing restrictions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.

MAGGI ARABIA’s audience are often looking for ways to shorten the cooking process without compromising on flavour or taste. At other times, they want their meals to taste like the food their mothers cooked for them when they were young.

Today’s home cooks are open to trying new dishes and cuisines, to show off their creativity. At the same time, they also use cooking to preserve tradition, and the shared satisfaction of good, home-cooked food helps bring families together. This mix of creativity and tradition is particularly important during Ramadan.

As the world continued to experience the pandemic at different paces, applying varied measures of restrictions, MAGGI ARABIA wanted to showcase the versatility of its products, highlighting that no matter the circumstances ‘Ramadan will Always be Ramadan’ through its flavours, memories, and rituals.

Gatherings may have had to decrease in size, but Covid-19 has not changed the cooking, the inspiration or the dishes on the Ramadan dining table.

To reinforce its role as the cook’s partner in the kitchen, MAGGI ARABIA not only offered a wide range of recipe ideas on its website, but also curated and sent weekly menu-planner newsletters to customers who signed up.

By inspiring cooks with menu planners and daily new dishes, MAGGI ARABIA cut through digital clutter to emphasise that while Covid-19 may have changed our lives, the essence of Ramadan remains the same.

Partnering with Facebook, MAGGI ARABIA made sure its promotional messages all worked well together. The brand worked across Facebook’s platforms to engage with the users of each channel with relevant messaging, through Facebook and Instagram feeds, IGTV videos, Live Rooms, Instagram Stories and more. MAGGI ARABIA also collaborated with regional creators to integrate the campaign themes within their content, ensuring a consistent brand voice across all channels. MAGGI ARABIA was one of the first advertisers to use Facebook’s Shop Now features to retarget people who engage with its campaigns, and once again did this well. The films, images and copy changed to reflect the differences between the brand’s products and customers in different markets.

“The brand shone by focusing on the essence of Ramadan that holds strong even through tough times like the current pandemic.”

The campaign resulted in: 6.9 percentage point lift in message association (5.75 times higher than the benchmark).

3.8 percentage point lift in overall purchase intent towards the brand (6.3 times the benchmark).

5.5 percentage point lift in purchase intent towards the brand amongst the 25- to 34-year-old age group (9 times the benchmark).

8 percentage point lift in message association among the 18- to 34-year-old age group (6.6 times the benchmark).

PARTNER CONTENT

June 27, 2021

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Maiada El Shhawy and Sima Chamma, food comms and e-business leads, MAGGI MENA “Ramadan is our biggest month of the year. But our challenge this year was how to communicate it during Covid-19, or this new normal.

We wanted to connect with our audience on an emotional level with a nostalgic-impact ‘Ramadan will Always be Ramadan’ campaign, highlighting that when the sun sets, iftar remains intact despite all the big changes we’re witnessing around us. We leveraged our reach on Facebook and delivered our campaign through a mix of formats with the ultimate objective of delivering new recipes on a weekly basis to address consumers’ tensions during Ramadan.”

Akash Nemani, client partner, CPG, beauty & luxury, MENA at Facebook “The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the way people live, connect, shop and discover. This was more evident during Ramadan, a period of introspection and celebration for nearly 2 billion people. During Ramadan, people want to come together, whether virtually or socially distanced, to share the joy with loved ones. With Covid-19 creating barriers for physical engagement, we continue to work with brands such as MAGGI to create community-first engagement and provide them with the support they need to get through this period.”

Austyn Allison, editor, Campaign Middle East “Food, family and friendship are central to Ramadan, and even a pandemic can’t change that. So it’s nice to see a familiar brand like MAGGI using social channels to keep a nostalgic ‘Ramadan will Always be Ramadan’ message alive while helping out busy cooks with new recipes. The campaign helps bring novelty and variety to the dining table without forsaking traditional tastes, sentiments and experiences.”

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June 27, 2021

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ocial media platforms have become a powerful tool for creative concepts to flourish, and this is the story with Dubai Flying Dress Official. The concept consists of having a professional photoshoot with signature dresses in picturesque locations around Dubai.

The final outcome is glamorous pictures to keep as souvenirs.

In the past year or so, the Instagram account at Dubai Flying Dress Official has gathered followers and coverage from influencers and the press. Having experienced it myself, I can understand all the buzz. My day as an amateur model made me feel glamorous and artistic and produced images that look like they could be found in an haute couture magazine.

A shoot with the dress provides a memory not only of a visit to the desert but a transformation into a ‘Beautyfly’, as Alim Khadimi, the creator, calls his muses. Khadimi is a French photographer who turned his passion for fashion into a business.

He comes from a corporate background, having worked for many years in sales for big multinationals.

Khadimi began in 2019 with an Instagram account sharing

Alim Khadimi, founder of Dubai Flying Dress Official

‘‘IT IS MORE THAN A PHOTOSHOOT, IT IS AN EXPERIENCE THAT BRINGS OUT EMOTIONS.”

Dubai Flying Dress offers packages that include transportation, shooting and drop-off. There are options that include hair and makeup, and Khadimi has photographed children, couples, sisters and individuals. The choice of dresses includes the Signature, the Glam and the Modest, sensitive to more conservative clients.

Influencers were central to Khadimi’s marketing strategy. He says that at first content creators would refuse to be involved as they didn’t trust the new concept. However, it took one big name, Myriam K., to change perceptions. Other Instagram stars Khadimi has shot include, Magali Berdah, Milla Jasmine, Lena Mahfouf, Rym Renom, Paola Locatelli and Sarah Lopez. These influencers created awareness, especially within the francophone community. Influencers who helped boost Dubai Flying Dress with the Arabic community (who often opt for the Modest and Glam dresses) included Rahaf Elshami, Mai Ibrahim and Hind Medhat Farouk.

For my photoshoot, once I had been picked up and driven over the dunes to meet Khadimi, I was handed the dress I had chosen when booking. The

DRESS TO IMPRESS Photographer Alim Khadimi’s Dubai Flying Dress experience celebrates fashion, femininity and fearlessness, writes Sofia Serrano. And it looks great on Instagram

landscapes of Dubai, Dubai Photo Escape. On one occasion he photographed a woman with a long dress in the desert, and the images inspired the concept of Dubai Flying Dress. After this epiphany, Khadimi started to create a concept around the aesthetics of the movement of fabrics on the female figure in the desert. It evolved into a specialised experience.

The experience has grown, and Dubai Flying Dress Official now boasts more than 100,000 followers on Instagram. Khadimi says he wants to give women a first-class experience, make them feel confident and beautiful. He says the majority of his clients are shy (some are mothers who barely have time for themselves), but with a bit of guidance they start showing confidence and feeling great in their skin.

“It is more than a photoshoot, it is an experience that brings out emotions, to feel beautiful and to feel more confident. We can feel the happiness of our ladies and that makes us proud of what we do,” says Khadimi.

Bali Signature is a backless style that comes in many colours and is the most popular. I changed inside a small tent, with Khadimi’s assistant helping to wrap me. As the sun set, Khadimi suggested basic poses.

As I grew more comfortable I began exploring more poses as Khadimi encouraged my creativity, giving me space to explore my artistic side.

Trying to pirouette in the sand with metres of silk is no easy task but after a few attempts we came out with some interesting compositions. The shoot took about an hour and we finished with a small testimonial to camera.

Dubai Flying Dress has become popular among French speakers and other communities at home and abroad. Khadimi says some of his clients travel exclusively for the experience, taking home beautiful memories and unique photographs.

Also, he has had many clients who have chosen this experience to commemorate major milestones including marriage proposals, anniversaries, honeymoons and maternity shoots.

Khadimi says he is constantly innovating to be ahead of his competition. This comes less from other photography concepts but more from rival experiences such as helicopter rides, safaris and jet skiing.

The attraction of his concept, Khadimi says, is that it is 100 per cent dedicated to the beauty of women.

Not many experiences in Dubai have this specific vision and target audience. He continues to innovate and will soon unveil the latest additions to the Dubai Flying Dress Official experience. I wonder if they will allow me to spin better, or maybe if red is the next colour in season.

HEADLINE PARTNER

PREMIUM PARTNER

June 27, 2021

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his issue of Campaign Middle East is a combination of a few features we launched last year. We’ve called it The New Marketing partly because we liked the title when we ran a special report of the same name in 2020, but more importantly because it sums up the three sections we have bundled together.

The first section, Sectors, is closest to what we called The New Marketing last year. It looks at clients, brands, marketers, the side of the industry that has to decide what to do with often tight budgets to win and keep customers. We have asked marketing leaders across several industries to explain how their jobs, their brands and their verticals have changed in the past year or so, from a marketing and communications standpoint. It is interesting to see where marketers from sectors as diverse as telecoms, finance, healthcare and automotive are focusing their energies, and where their areas of concern are as they navigate the transition to a post-Covid world.

The next section is The New Media. Here we look at another side of the equation, asking media owners and representatives what their audiences and their advertisers are looking for, and how they can square these desires with one another. Digital is predictably a massive theme, given the shifts of the last 18 months. But there is also an enthusiasm for the return of more traditional media – and an examination of the digital/traditional hybrids that will emerge. There is a desire for more measurement. The drawing together of online and offline channels of communication promises to provide the opportunity for more data gathering.

Then it will need to be measured and analysed.

The final section is our Faces to Watch (Brand Edition). Last year we just called it Marketing Faces to Watch, but we felt that was a bit too specific and missed out the many other talented young professionals working in branding, communications, digital and more on the client side. We went with Brand Edition over ‘Client Faces to Watch’ because we also realised that some of the talent in these pages are doing work in-house that would once have been given to an agency, so they aren’t technically clients at all.

Over all, this is a look at how marketing has evolved in the past year and where it is going.

How are marketers communicating with their customers, how are media helping, and who is shaping the future of the industry? Those are questions worth answering, whatever names you give them.

16 SECTORS Marketing leads explain what they and their industries are doing differently now

23 THE NEW MEDIA Media owners and representatives tell us how they are adapting to the new normal

32 FACES TO WATCH ((BRAND EDITION) The client-side talent aged 30 and under who are shaping the future of marketing

AUSTYN ALLISON

EDITOR, CAMPAIGN MIDDLE EAST

Cover designed by Clarkwin Cruz and Thokchom Remy

Motivate Media Group Head Office: 34th Floor, Media One Tower, Dubai Media City, Dubai, UAE. Tel: +971 4 427 3000, Email: motivate@motivate.ae Dubai Media City: SD 2-94, 2nd Floor, Building 2, Dubai, UAE. Tel: +971 4 390 3550, Fax: +971 4 390 4845 Abu Dhabi: Motivate Advertising, Marketing & Publishing, PO Box 43072, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Tel: +971 2 677 2005, Fax: +971 2 677 0124, Email: motivate-adh@motivate.ae London: Motivate Publishing Ltd, Acre House, 11/15 William Road, London NW1 3ER. motivateuk@motivate.ae www.motivatemedia.com EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Obaid Humaid Al Tayer Managing Partner and Group Editor Ian Fairservice Senior Editor Austyn Allison Junior Reporter Sofia Serrano DESIGN Art Director/Hand Model Clarkwin Cruz Junior Designer Thokchom Remy ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES Tel: +971 4 427 3000 Chief Commercial Officer Anthony Milne Publisher Nadeem Ahmed Quraishi (+971 50 6453365) PRODUCTION General Manager S. Sunil Kumar Assistant Production Manager Binu Purandaran HAYMARKET MEDIA GROUP Chairman Kevin Costello Managing Director Jane Macken The publishers regret that they cannot accept liability for error or omissions contained in this publication, however caused. The opinions and views contained in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. Readers are advised to seek specialist advice before acting on information contained in this publication which is provided for general use and may not be appropriate for the readers’ particular circumstances. The ownership of trademarks is acknowledged. No part of this publication or any part of the contents thereof may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the permission of the publishers in writing. An exemption is hereby granted for extracts used for the purpose of fair review. Campaign Middle East includes material reproduced from the UK Edition (and other editions) of Campaign, which is the copyright of Haymarket. Campaign is a trademark of Haymarket and is used under licence. The views and opinions expressed within this magazine are not necessarily those of Haymarket Magazines Limited or those of its contributors.

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June 27, 2021

The past 18 months have transformed the marketing function. But rather than talk about the challenges, let’s focus on the opportunities, writes Schneider Electric’s Firdaus Shariff

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irst of all, let’s speak about digital.

We’ve all pivoted, but some channels have proved much more effectively in terms of return on investment.

The one area I’d like to emphasise is owned media. We’ve invested in assets such as blogs, podcasts and other content channels. This allows us to regularly push out various content types, boosting our search engine rankings and engaging different audiences through both organic and paid reach. And the cost has been minimal. We’ve also developed these channels and assets in-house; there’s a belief that technical design work is complex, but it’s simpler than ever to create new platforms with tools such as Wordpress and SoundCloud.

The second element we’ve focused on is content creation. We need to populate the channels we’ve invested in, and it’s given us impetus to churn out more content. Again, we’ve developed many of these skills in-house, and we’ve been supported by our agencies throughout the region. We’ve been able to triple our content output over 18 months, with a focus on thought leadership, practical examples of how we’re helping our

By FIRDAUS SHARIFF, VP marketing, communications & digital customer experience, MEA, Schneider Electric

customers in various verticals, and pieces around issues that matter to our customers and stakeholders, such as sustainability, health and safety.

We’re using a blended model, creating content in various multimedia formats that suit our channels. This has also pushed my team to pick up new skills during this period.

On the content creation side, what’s been fascinating is thinking about how we can make what we do relevant to everyone. And that’s not always easy.

We’re a company that specialises in both electrical engineering and technology; we help our customers become more energy- and resource-efficient, and we provide electrical solutions in the most difficult of environments. How do you tell that story in a way that’s understood?

We all use electricity; we can’t live without it. But how many of us can explain how it works, and why it’s important to become more sustainable through notions like electrification?

Our third element is storytelling – in order to explain these concepts in the simplest possible manner. We’ve reached out to who we define as “influencers” – namely academics, people who lead sustainability-focused not-for-profits, technology experts, and government policy makers – and asked them to tell their story through our channels. An example of this was last summer, when in order to mark the fifth anniversary of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, we asked more than a dozen people to share their thoughts on their most important goal and what they’re doing to make that goal achievable.

We’re also working with our teams internally to find good case studies that we can transform into stories for a wider audience. I’ll admit, this hasn’t been as easy as I’d have hoped. What we do, the provision of electricity and its optimisation, is a basic service. And we’re increasingly focused on helping our customers become more sustainable through using technology. But, surprisingly, customers have been a little

reserved with telling these stories. I hope this changes, as sustainability-related issues will be the defining issue of the next two decades.

We’re seeing on a daily basis that more and more organisations in the region are prioritising this, and they now need to articulate what they’re doing, as that has wider implications for them and for society as a whole.

To sum this all up, everyone has shifted to digital over the past 18 months. But we’ve wanted to tell our story better through new channels, meaningful content and great stories told alongside others. It’s marked us out from others in the industry, who’ve put money into advertising without really considering the content they’re pushing and its relevance. And we’re seeing strong, steady growth in our brand awareness and our lead generation. As marketers, both will always matter to my team and me. And I’m especially grateful for the test-and-learn mindset that we’ve been able to inculcate in the team with trying out new concepts such as those I’ve shared.

We’re a long way away from ending this pandemic, and there’s still much to be done.

My hope is that organisations will come out of this with a better appreciation of the science and art of marketing, and the difference it makes for all our stakeholders, especially in business-to-business industries such as ours where we have a great story to tell.

‘‘WE’VE WANTED TO TELL OUR STORY BETTER THROUGH NEW CHANNELS, MEANINGFUL CONTENT AND GREAT STORIES TOLD ALONGSIDE OTHERS.”

June 27, 2021

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In a market that is constantly evolving, automotive and mobility brands need to engage with audiences whether they are their customers or not

onsumers expect a lot from their vehicles. Far more than just a form of transportation, they can be a status symbol or a tool for sports or leisure. They can act as hubs of entertainment and connectivity that help us manage busy lives, or even relax after a long day.

Furthermore, during the onset of the pandemic, as limits were put on our lives by lockdowns and curfews, just going out for a drive became our way of escaping reality and breaking out of the confines of the house.

The ways we use our vehicles, and what we expect from mobility companies, keep changing. This means the entire mobility industry is poised for continuous disruption, especially as the shift to electrification becomes rapid and total.

This trend might effectively reset some brands that are late to the game to almost zero, through a new set of measures for brand equity.

As with any major disruption, this presents challenges, but also vast opportunities. Opportunities to step back and reassess how we engage with our audiences, and measure brand KPIs to ensure we’re on the right path.

This conversation is by no means new, as the way we measure success has continued to evolve over time.

In the days of old, the effectiveness of marketing was simply a point of view.

Then, a decade ago, the industry shifted to KPIs measuring clicks, traffic and conversions. As the power of data became more apparent, we started using data and predictive marketing to analyse

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people’s behaviours, sentiments and emotional connections with the brands.

As we navigate this new age of mobility, using just one way to measure results is not sufficient.

This is why my team now has a mix of objectives that are both variable and set.

The set objectives measure the reaction of the in-market audience who are actively researching our product or segment – their feedback on the customer journey from online to offline and vice versa, and their reaction to tailored content that we’ve created.

These are measured by the usual conversion metrics.

The variable goals and KPIs are set around the type and quality of content and experiences we create. We will no longer create content that oversaturates people with messages. And, if it isn’t highly engaging and relevant, we simply won’t do it.

What this means, in practice, is that we focus on creating campaigns with a relevant and compelling message that can be adapted to various audiences depending on their needs, knowledge and level of interest. It means creating an emotional connection with our audiences, irrespective of whether they know and love our brands, currently prefer a competitor product, or aren’t even in the market for a car.

This is vital for marketers, as we increasingly compete for the attention of the consumer against self-proclaimed content generators with infinite access to creative resources through new social media platforms.

At the same time, our budgets have not changed in any significant way. We have, however, restructured them between fixed and variable. The fixed part is a bottom-up approach, focusing on the fundamentals that are needed to drive sales.

The variable involves a state of constant pitch for all marketing teams to do things differently and lift the brands.

This way we challenge them, and only award funding for ideas that are disruptive and unique.

In this ever-evolving world of data, insights and consumer sentiment, marketers should be guided by two thoughts: What is the game? And how are we going to win?

Perhaps, in order to win, we should just refocus on what constitutes compelling, engaging content, and build our story from there.

By MELHEM NAJM, head of marketing and digital at Stellantis Middle East & Africa

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June 27, 2021

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REALIGN MARKETING CAMPAIGNS Amidst the pandemic marketers have been forced to re-evaluate how they allocated their marketing budgets. With large gatherings no longer permissible, marketers have had to abandon or scale back strategies that rely on event-based marketing or develop alternative ideas for events that can be streamed live. In a post-Covid world, where more people will be engaged in hybrid forms of working, marketers need to look to ways to diversify their spending to maintain high levels of customer engagement. Many brands are also looking to diversify their channel mix, employing platforms such as TikTok and Instagram Reels, which have risen in popularity during the pandemic, to reach new audiences and engage with consumer audiences in novel and creative ways. Gaming and augmented and virtual reality content also provide opportunities for innovation and experimentation. With virtual reality, for example, customers can test drive a new car without having to visit the showroom or tour an apartment without having to leave their present location. As always, in today’s omnichannel environment, brands need to be aware of the increasing diversity of channels and media use and be prepared to engage consumers across these channels in meaningful and consistent ways.

or marketers, disruption has become a way of life. Increasing customer knowledge and sophistication, globalisation of markets, climate change, digital transformation and evolving business models are just some of the disruptive influences marketers continue to navigate. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, is different because of its rapid and wide-ranging impact, forcing businesses to change their operating procedures and adapt their longstanding and, in many cases, wellproven go-to-market strategies almost overnight. Businesses have been forced to find new ways to interact with their customers and employees and accelerate digital transformation The post-Covid era has tested the skills of even the most experienced marketers, and they have had to confront uncertainties and change in a way they have never done before. Changing consumer attitude and behaviour post-Covid have forced businesses to transform digitality, embracing digital channels to engage consumers and other stakeholders. It has changed the way consumers interact with one another and engage with friends and family, and has profoundly affected the way they view personal health and wellbeing. It has accelerated the adoption of technology across all aspects of life.

Here are some practical tips on how to market successfully while navigating change:

CHANGE YOUR NARRATIVE Most brands aspire to make meaningful connections with their audience. But in a post-Covid era this has arguably become even more important, and consumers expect brands to make deeper, more authentic connections with their communities and publics. Rather than just resorting to traditional brand and product-push strategies, consumers demand that brands connect with them on a deeper level through values-driven marketing and humanised content. In a post-pandemic era, communicating with empathy can create meaningful value for customers, cultivate customer loyalty and increase customer lifetime value (CLTV).

Indeed, a recent study by Deloitte found brands that genuinely attempt to understand customer challenges and demonstrate customer-centricity are 60 per cent more profitable than those that do not. Storytelling can play a critical role in linking the value of your product to the challenges your customers are facing. But this must be done authentically and be grounded on relevant consumer insight.

The cornerstone of changing the narrative is understanding the customer’s mind and emotions correctly, and there should be adequate research undertaken to create and shape appropriate customer personas. Businesses that listen, learn and evolve with empathy will emerge stronger.

Economic indicators show that growth will return by the end of the year, but marketers need to make it easy for their customers to spend again

REDUCE UNCERTAINTIES With the ongoing vaccination drive, the UAE economy is well-positioned for recovery. Estimates by the Central Bank of UAE state that positive growth rates will be restored by the end of 2021, supported by implementing the recovery plan and support packages for various economic sectors. Nevertheless, consumer confidence will take time to recover while uncertainties remain. Brands can help to reduce perceived uncertainties in many ways. Enabling consumers to experience brands on a trial basis or embracing pricing mechanisms that enable consumers to reduce the magnitude of their initial investment and leverage social influence and support are just some of the options that marketers have at their disposal. Loyalties in a post-Covid era will be decided based on how well brands understand consumers’ new priorities. To succeed, brands need to understand the opportunities and pain points at each stage of the customer decision-making journey. Using content strategies that emphasise providing the right kinds of intervention, support and advice as the consumer progresses along the path to purchase is key, and measuring and monitoring the consumer’s experience.

Brands that understand the customer journey and respond to the uncertainties that consumers face as they progress towards the purchase and beyond will be the ones that survive and thrive.

By DR. PAUL HOPKINSON, associate head of Edinburgh Business School for Heriot-Watt University Dubai; academic lead for Heriot-Watt Online

June 27, 2021

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Oppo’s hybrid launch event reflected the new normal of technology communications

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hile Covid-19 regulations remain in place to protect the public and ensure that safety and hygiene protocols are being followed, the UAE government has been regularly rehauling precautions to allow for more freedom. Globally praised for its battle against the pandemic and thorough vaccination drive, the country’s wise leadership was able to achieve rapid recovery rates across many industries; technology was no exception.

At the start of 2021, as the rules were gradually being eased, the Oppo GCC team was busy planning an exciting new launch.

Not only was it our first for the year, but the brand-new 5G Reno5 Series, comprising Reno5 Pro 5G, Reno5 5G and Reno5 Z smartphones’ market entry was key for our messaging and positioning. Our aim was to find the right way to introduce the range to the region.

Although they were a new concept, hybrid events had taken the world by storm. Hailed as best practice in times of pandemic and beyond, hybrid happenings combine an in-person event with virtual access to some or all components in a new way of conducting business and networking.

According to Forbes, virtual event technology had significantly improved in 2020, allowing for a more seamless experience for attendees and improving engagement. In 2021, marketing firm Markletic released survey results revealing that 34 per cent of event organisers were expected to invest more in hybrid events over the next few years; 57 per cent of respondents said they would rather attend an in-person version of a hybrid event than the virtual format.

As an innovative technology brand, we have a promise to keep – and it includes informative, ground-breaking events that bring our latest to stakeholders.

Oppo’s brand DNA is all about unique user experiences. Fortune favours the bold, and since no smartphone brand out there is bolder than Oppo, we decided to think out of the box and give back to the media community and influencers – our Oppo Army as we like to call them – to whom we owe a huge part of our success.

Given the ongoing situation, we had to rethink hosting a full-on physical event and instead focus on delivering an experience that would allow us to

get closer to our audience across the GCC, while taking advantage of the slightly more relaxed regulations in the UAE. The answer was a hybrid event, featuring a video stream for our attendees in the UAE to enjoy physically while the rest of the GCC joined virtually.

With the theme ‘Featuring You’, a nod to how the Reno5 Series puts users centre-stage, we created a video that saw five of the region’s leading Arab technology experts and YouTubers, and long-standing Oppo partners – Faisal Alsaif, Omardizer, Mr Q from Raqami

‘‘THE ANSWER WAS A HYBRID EVENT: A VIDEO STREAM, FOR OUR ATTENDEES IN THE UAE TO ENJOY PHYSICALLY WHILE THE REST OF THE GCC JOINED VIRTUALLY. ” TV, Android Basha and Ahmad Boarki (Slorks) – talk through some of their favourite features of the new device. They expressed their thoughts and opinions, giving customers hands-on reviews in real-time.

For our physical event, we invited UAE-based media, influencers, and VIPs to enjoy an engaging evening comprising a gala dinner and video viewing at W Dubai – The Palm, while following all government guidelines. An interactive programme entertained guests, including a photobooth area, Reno5 product display pop-up, and special Oppo-branded area to mingle. At both events, a robust press office and media reviews programme were in place.

On the night, more than 105,000 people tuned in to watch the live stream, with more than 75 attendees joining the physical event. Since the launch, more than 35,000 people have viewed the video on Oppo’s YouTube channel. We received great feedback from all attendees, especially those who could join in person and were excited to be a part of the revolutionary concept.

While circumstances were once again different to what we were expecting, our goal remained the same: to bring the best of Oppo’s technology to the region. Guided by our theme, ‘Technology for Mankind, Kindness for the World’, we put our heart and soul into innovating for the benefit of all.

By LUCY AZIZ, Senior PR & communication manager for Oppo in the GCC

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June 27, 2021

Mashreq Bank’s Aimee Peters says that while technology can help marketers do amazing things, they need to build on strong foundations

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s we hit the midpoint of the year and start tentatively putting dates in diaries for 2022 planning, which gets terrifyingly earlier every year, it is a good time to reflect.

Whether or not my ponderings shed any light on ‘New Marketing’ or sounds old and tired (it’s how we all feel after a year of Covid) remains to be seen. Answers on a digital postcard please (is that a WhatsApp? A DM?).

In the last year we have all pivoted so much we are dizzy, and have gone through transformations that have affected our workplaces, shopping habits, social interactions and holiday plans. So how on earth do you draft a marketing plan that can cope?

For me, the answer has been relatively simple. In order to do the whizz bang well, the fundamentals need to be solid.

If we don’t know our customer inside out, we can have all the tech in the world and we still won’t land our message with them. If we don’t understand what they think of our company, services, offering or quality of experience, we will get the marketing wrong. No matter how whizzy it is.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about the whizzy bits. Digital transformation – and the capabilities it offers us as marketers – is mindbogglingly exciting. The energy and passion and level of understanding my CIO and his team have for topics I used to have to shout from the rooftops is hugely encouraging (though he is brilliant, and quite an unusual CIO, if I’m honest).

There is so much we can do to build really sophisticated marketing operations capabilities, return on marketing

investments (ROMI) modelling, and martech stacks, which will properly accelerate what we can do for our customers and our business stakeholders.

Naturally, this is taking a larger chunk of our budget as a result, much of which is unplanned spend and having to be funded by slimming down projects that we had hoped to roll out in the optimistic days of October 2020, but that is the reality of planning.

The biggest challenge we face is existential, and is a trend that we need to keep striving to understand, keep pace with and transform accordingly. That is simply: What will our customers need from a bank in the future?

As a brand, and an institution, we do believe that banks will have a role, but we’re not naive enough to think it looks like the bank of our childhoods.

We know that open banking is changing the face of banking globally, and how people perceive money has already changed – the speed of acceptance of digital currencies and wallets has astonished many.

This does change how we engage, and changes what marketing channels feel right to both our customers and our teams within the business. Will we all go back to big ballroom events on a regular basis? Sadly for the hospitality sector, I don’t think so. I’m not convinced anyone ever really loved them, they’re not cheap, and they’re hard to measure. Is it the end of in-person

‘‘THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE WE FACE IS EXISTENTIAL: WHAT WILL OUR CUSTOMERS NEED FROM A BANK IN THE FUTURE?”

engagements? Definitely not. But I think quality over quantity, I think integrated physical/digital comms is key, and I think that there are now many more ways for brands to meaningfully engage with customers than simply throwing a party.

The other key point that continues to accelerate in importance is the criticality of data, and individuals’ ownership of our data. What we choose to do with this, how we allow brands access, and start to monetise our personal information on a micro level, is a significant shift that I think we are all grappling with in real time, and will need to take a position on to succeed.

What I do know – in the face of rapid change – is that our role in championing the voice and needs of the customer continues to be our most important contribution to the organisation we represent. We’ve got a great roster of agencies that agrees with me on this, and a young and dynamic team across multiple markets that’s going to help Mashreq deliver on our promise to our customer.

I’m always up for listening to anyone with a view on Mashreq; please find me on Linkedin and send me your thoughts.

By AIMEE PETERS, senior executive vicepresident, group head of marketing & corporate communications, Mashreq Bank

June 27, 2021

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t is no secret that the world has changed. The enduring impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has put the most resilient governments and healthcare systems to test. Global economies have felt the strain, and new strains of the virus are affecting businesses, the general public and youth around the world.

But, in this time of adversity, the global healthcare community came together like never before, bringing hope to people everywhere. Pharma giants, research institutions and medical scientists joined hands in the quest to develop a vaccine.

Indeed, Covid-19 ushered in a new era in collaboration and became an unintended force for a medical revolution.

The UAE has been at the forefront of the battle against the pandemic, devoting its resources to saving human lives and contributing towards scientific and humanitarian efforts. In the UAE and globally, vaccine distribution is well under way and hospitalisation rates are decreasing. However, the threat of mutations and further waves of infection remains.

Bringing life back to some normalcy is the world’s priority, but the way that people interact with the world around them is changing, and human priorities and values are evolving. Organic opinions have found their collective voices, both online and offline, not just on public health, but on personal health choices, and are holding systems accountable.

Add to that complexities of mis- and disinformation, which have contributed to chaos, panic, and delayed effectiveness in pandemic management.

Healthcare-related communications and engagement have had to evolve, and the disruptive approaches have led to positive change in the art and science of communications. In the new world order of transparency, trust has to be reestablished and, in that, marketing engagements have to be more meaningful and relevant to establish trust based on motive, judgement and delivery.

The regional healthcare sector presents distinct communication opportunities.

While fundamental medical marketing and communications principles are universal, the changing dynamics of the

industry and audience expectations demand a new and highly nuanced approach.

At G42 Healthcare, our experience with the 4Humanity Clinical Trials, the world’s first inactivated vaccine trials and the first ever to be conducted across the Pan-Arab region, was successful in recruiting 43,000 volunteers who included 125 nationalities, as its marketing ethos remained true to following science.

The programme’s effort was to build awareness, educate public and stakeholders on risk versus benefit and allow them to make their own choices. It was nuanced and tailored for all audiences with an omnichannel approach. The programme was consistent, sustained and deliberately kept simple. The purpose and mission of the programme was always at the core of the marketing communications, and the model was an example of public-private partnership and collaboration for ethical public health communication.

We at G42 Healthcare remain committed to advancements in the sector to transform healthcare from sick care to preventive, personalised healthcare. Our healthcare and life sciences business is rooted in supporting the health of future generations – from genomics, imaging and diagnostics to digitisation programs, manufacturing, and cutting-edge research backed by AI, big data, and healthtech innovation.

Additionally, the Emirati Genome Programme is one example that will revolutionise healthcare management for the future generations. The programme’s ambition is to create an advanced genomic healthcare system in the region, underpinned by the latest scientific advances, which ultimately will unlock the power of personalised care.

At the heart of this unique programme, which mirrors the UAE’s focus on future advancements across every sector, are robust marketing and communications efforts that seek to drive a nationwide call to action for all Emiratis to support and become part of this country’s evolving healthcare system that safeguards the health and wellbeing of all.

Success will be grounded in the ability

By FAHEEM AHAMED, acting group chief communications officer for G42

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to drive trust amongst the Emirati public to participate in the programme. Our marketing and communications efforts are centred on creating understanding around the importance of genomic medicine and personalised care with a deep focus on the impact and value such advancements will have on the UAE’s healthcare infrastructure transformation as the nation celebrates its 50th anniversary and sets its vision for the next 50.

The healthcare industry is perhaps the most exciting one to be in, and one of the toughest. Never more than now have better health outcomes been so desperately needed, in a world beset by challenges but where every single man, woman and child deserves the best health of their lives.

All the old truths we knew are being swept aside, as innovation ripples through the industry and reinvents the healthcare continuum from the bottom up. With this transformation comes the need to authentically communicate by committing ourselves to making a better, healthier future for everyone. Today we are creating a legacy for future generations through innovation,

As the world has started asking more questions, transparency is key to a new model of healthcare marketing

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June 27, 2021

Etihad’s sonic identity blends tradition and modernity. The airline’s vice-president of brand, marketing and sponsorships, Amina Taher, explains the thinking behind it. By Sofia Serrano

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s a rule, marketers want to connect with people’s emotions and senses in a way that eventually can create loyalty towards their brand. “For this reason, for Etihad it is always about the heart,” says Amina Taher, vice-president of brand, marketing and partnerships at Abu Dhabi-based carrier Etihad Airways. She is explaining the latest sonic identity created for her brand.

A sonic identity is a unique sound or piece of music connected to a specific brand. It is the translation into audio of the personality of the brand. That is why the sonic identity is more than a jingle.

There is science behind the power of audio. “We associate songs with emotions and that stays with you for a long time,” says Taher.

Etihad wants to bring the world to Abu Dhabi, and Taher says the brand wears its heritage with pride and the sonic identity is one of the many ways it shows this.

“We are proud to be one of the few brands in the world with a full sonic identity, which means we not only have a unique look and feel but a distinct brand sound that is unique to us and to Abu Dhabi and our DNA,” she says. “We wanted to ensure our Emirati roots are incorporated in our sonic design to face the world.”

The music uses a technique known as El Sadu, a traditional musical style in the UAE, which Taher compares to weaving because of its method of blending melodies that overlap and respond to each other. The song features a mix of local and regional instruments including the ney, qanun and oriental percussion to ensure an authentic sound. The musicians include regional artists, reflecting the diversity of nationalities in the UAE to celebrate the inclusiveness of the country.

The sonic identity also reflects the UAE today, while incorporating elements of its history and heritage.

Etihad partnered with Sixième Son, a Paris-based branding agency. The song was subject to focus groups, which included staff and external listeners, to determine which sounds related better with the identity of the brand, so that it made Emiratis feel at home, feel like they were in Abu Dhabi.

The sonic identity is being shared across all of Etihad’s verticals. Guests will hear dozens of bespoke music tracks – which have been built from a single sonic DNA – when on board, in lounges, at events, when calling the contact centre, on the radio and across Etihad’s branded content.

The team worked on the sonic identity for 18 months from the conception to the launch and Etihad Airways won Gold for Best Use of Audio Branding in the Transform Awards MENA. “Anything you do in terms of success is about the people, and I had the privilege to work with an amazing team. They work with their heart and so much passion, so this is a celebration of the success of my team,” says Taher.

She also reminisces about how her grandmother knew poetry, history and the Quran by heart, even though she didn’t know how to read or write, emphasising how Emirati society comes from an orally driven tradition, resulting in music and poetry being important elements of the culture. Therefore, it is rooted in the culture of an Emirati brand to have a sonic identity.

Taher also says the sonic identity came at a time, during the pandemic when people were overloaded with visuals.

Etihad wanted to touch other senses in an intimate and engaging manner, with audio being the selected approach.

‘‘WE NOT ONLY HAVE A UNIQUE LOOK AND FEEL BUT A DISTINCT BRAND SOUND THAT IS UNIQUE TO US AND TO ABU DHABI AND OUR DNA.”

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ll for one and one for all” is best known as the motto of the Three Musketeers in the adventure novel

by Alexandre Dumas, yet it also applies to three very different, albeit equally adventurous, musketeers: Arab media and publishers; regional advertisers; and big tech.

There is no doubt that the internet and the smartphone have unlocked information sharing for the masses.

Where news was once limited to only the affluent and subscribed, today, anyone with a smartphone can access the latest news for free. While this has its benefits, such as in the communication of Covid-19 protocols, it has also raised a number of concerns, as highlighted by the recent Future of Media: Myth of Digital Transformation report by Arab News. Some of these are: The accuracy of news on social media. Who is checking and making sure users don’t receive fake news?

The rapid turnaround of news cycles. False news stories are 70 per cent more likely to be retweeted than true stories, causing irreparable damage.

Unfair media remuneration. While credible news is created by leading news companies, digital media is dominated by social media distribution and its algorithms, channelling advertiser money away from news creators and towards big tech, whose exponential growth and power is too large for local media to compete with. In a world where global tech platforms are innovating and evolving their online ad offerings at an increasingly faster rate, advertisers are finding themselves with more options than ever before.

The Action Plan While advertisers and big tech should shoulder a lot of the blame, it is time for Arab media owners to band together and forge their future. Forming an regional media/publishers association is the approach that Europe, France, Germany and Australia have taken to levy billions in fines. Is it the only way to nudge global tech companies? While there are many Arab associations representing the needs of the advertising community (the IAB, IAA and ABG), the industry lacks one that brings together Arab media to represent both their own interests and their readers.

Such an association can contribute to negotiations with big tech, contribute to fast-tracking and education on revenue diversification, and help raise awareness of the importance of the sector and the value of journalism. Change will arrive only once, the top regional companies raise awareness of the value of media to advertisers and come together with one voice to negotiate with global tech and local governments for law creation.

While it is now common for users to pay for content in the video and audio space

‘‘IT IS TIME FOR ARAB MEDIA OWNERS TO BAND TOGETHER AND FORGE THEIR FUTURE.” via subscription, very few Arab media players and publishers are embracing this new revenue opportunity, among others such as physical events, partnerships, licensing and e-commerce. While it does require a long-term investment view, the potential return is very rewarding and Arab media players shouldn’t hesitate to jump aboard. Advertising cannot be the only source of revenue.

Big tech has brought value to the industry and launched local programmes to support local journalism, but the world’s tech leaders must find ways for fairly priced advertising from the local market to flow towards local media. Although an Arab media association will make it easier to communicate with big tech, big tech should also learn from what’s happening across the world and apply fairer remuneration as consumers demand privacy, governments look to regulate and international media fights for its fair share.

Advertisers must help support the local media ecosystem that they form an integral part of. They must challenge the media, challenge their agencies and challenge their marketing department to ask for local ideas from local media.

Accepting the standard offerings of global offerings at what may seem to be a cheap entry cost, and focusing on the ‘final click’, is a race to the bottom for brands to get commoditised. Are experienced advertisers unaware that the erosion of journalism and its value to the public is something they have contributed to?

Advertisers should ask for local, ask to be relevant to Arabs, and reach out to local media. What local media may lack in technology and algorithmic performance solutions, they can offer in localised and relevant initiatives that can be both effective and creative.

Arab media is an influential and growing industry, employing tens of thousands in the region across digital, TV, news, and radio with content creators, video studios, developers, designers and journalists, to mention a few. Yet, despite great progress over the years, the Arab media sector has been deprived of advertisers’ and big tech’s support. Now is the time for all three to unite towards a common cause. All for one and one for all.

By ZIAD KHAMMAR, COO, DMS

Publishers, advertisers and big tech must work together to grow the Arab media industry

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June 27, 2021

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ithin the rapidly transforming world of media, television stands out as a true giant, a medium which, despite the whirlwind of changes shaping its surroundings, continues to adapt, evolve and capture the attention of audiences and advertisers alike.

Looking at TV from the consumer (viewership) perspective, it would be safe to highlight the growing importance of viewers’ preferences for quality content.

From an industry standpoint, the war for content is not merely a passing concern but a definitive race that will potentially decide TV’s most sought-after future players and platforms. From entertainment to news offerings, sports and beyond, broadcasters are pulling out all the stops to develop high-quality, innovative, highly engaging content that will meet the viewing preferences, tastes and expectations of wider audiences.

On the global front, leading broadcasters, networks and production companies are witnessing an unprecedented wave of acquisitions, consolidation drives and collaborative partnerships aimed at cementing their content capabilities. This drive for exclusive offerings is not only pushing industry standards and setting new benchmarks all the time, but is also helping media owners to stand-out, reiterate their identity, make a mark and outperform the proliferation of competition. This shift is surfacing on the regional and local levels, and there’s no end currently in sight.

But beyond the focus on content, what has truly changed the most for consumers – and even more so in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has given rise to a host of new television viewership and media consumption behaviours – is their desire for greater accessibility. Long gone are the days of TV being restricted to a single screen.

Today, consumers seek out their favourite content on a variety of platforms, spanning VOD, AVOD, SVOD, social media, and that too across various telco providers and a wide spectrum of devices. This desire to consume content whenever they like, and wherever they please, has compelled publishers to strengthen their cross-platform distribution strategies and provide more touchpoints. The massive boom in OTT, which is being witnessed today, will undoubtedly ensure that TV continues to thrive as an ever-larger, constantly evolving video ecosystem.

From the perspective of brands and advertisers, TV continues to be a crucial asset for marketers, delivering a powerful combination of opportunities that supplement the effectiveness and impact of campaigns. These include sponsorships and placement integrations. Brands are also placing a greater emphasis on tracking for efficiencies, bringing about a heightened focus on monitoring and measurability

Television has seen new habits come from the Covid-19 experience, combined with the growth of alternative screens.

TV continues to be a crucial marketing asset

tools. This becomes even more relevant as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to place greater pressure on economies and market dynamics.

TV revenues today are being upheld by a multitude of brand partners, some traditional TV loyalists and others who are coming around to discover TV’s latest

reincarnation as a powerful performance marketing tool. At the moment, advertisers who are embracing a proactive approach to position themselves correctly and are preparing to take advantage of opportunities in a post-Covid-19 world are TV’s main lifeblood. Budgets are still being allocated in support of new products and launches. TV is also maintaining its place as a vital ingredient in the marketing mix for brands employing a holistic, 360-degree approach.

Looking to the immediate future, TV revenues stand to follow global economic trends. This means that budget allocations could suffer declines if another wave of the pandemic brings about recessionary conditions and stifles economic activity and consumer sentiments. On the flipside, should the pandemic begin to display positive containment, consumers who had curtailed their spending throughout the lockdown periods and ended up saving money at home would be looking to go out and spend. This could potentially lead to a very healthy economic upswing.

As far as offerings are concerned, series formats are now at the forefront and have become a top priority for broadcasters. This trend is sustained on both a global and local level and supported by the shift in viewer habits as well.

By AHMAD SAEED AL MANSOORI, CEO of radio and TV sector, Dubai Media Incorporated

June 27, 2021

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The last year has required publishers to adapt, evolve and innovate, writes Motivate Media Group’s Ian Fairservice

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hat a year it has been.

This time last year, the world was facing the challenges of Covid-19 head-on. Motivate Media Group was no different as we faced up to this challenging new world order.

Our strategy was to put our content into the hands of our readers at a time when distractions were most needed.

Content was delivered through our magazines, digital platforms, webinars and online events. We had to adapt to the needs of our audience and our business had to be agile.

When our magazines were unable to be displayed in hotels, airport lounges and planes we resisted the temptation to save on print runs and partnered with Gulf News and, for the first time in 40 years, switched to a controlled free distribution model.

Fast-forward 12 months and that strategy is paying off. Keeping content alive and fresh while delivering it to our audience through their preferred medium has made us stronger. The recent announcement by the National Media Council allowing magazines and newspapers to distributed to hotels and cafes will further strengthen our visibility and brand recall.

‘‘OUR TARGETING CAPABILITIES HAVE ALLOWED US TO DELIVER, RELEVANT CONTENT, TO REGIONALLY ENGAGED AUDIENCES.”

That’s just print, though. A year ago I wrote for this same issue of Campaign on the subject of ‘print’. This year, that narrow title seems out of touch with all that we offer. Even ‘publishing’ doesn’t do justice to the many arrows in the quiver of a modern media house like Motivate. In our Media City offices we have an influencer marketing company, a cinema advertising firm, an art gallery, a book shop, an events division, a fullyfledged photography and film production arm, and more. And our digital platforms are growing apace. Anyone who wasn’t online before the pandemic is now.

Luckily, diversified media groups like ours were there to welcome these new or converting customers.

With the ever-evolving digital landscape, our platforms have witnessed exponential growth. Our targeting capabilities have allowed us to deliver desirable, locally relevant content, to regionally engaged audiences.

One thing we have witnessed, particularly in the luxury segment, is brands needing to re-engage with their local audience as they are no longer able to rely on tourist shoppers. This has put home-grown brands such as Emirates Woman back in the driving seat as they continue to champion and celebrate a more local voice by engaging with the incredible women in the region. It is important as a UAE publisher to support local and regional companies as we work our way through these difficult times.

Gulf Business has continued to support SMEs with its SME Revival campaign that saw the provision of a million US dollars of advertising support to 20 local companies. It is extremely important that the local media support and partner the events and exhibitions industry, as it provides a much-needed boost to the economy. DWTC has done a tremendous job showing the world how to provide a safe environment for live events and bring peace of mind to visitors and exhibitors. This safe path to recovery is of great importance to us all as we are now less than 100 days away from Expo 2020.

In addition to many highly successful virtual events in the last year, we staged two live events – the What’s On Nightlife Awards and the What’s On Awards. Both showcased our ability to put on live events in a safe environment.

With an eye on the future, Motivate Media Group has expanded its operations

in Saudi Arabia with the launch of WhatsOnSaudiArabia.com, which will complement our growing cinema advertising business (Motivate Val Morgan) and influencer marketing operations through VAMP. We have continued our strategy, established more than three years ago now, of forging strategic partnerships and joint ventures with new and upcoming companies in related fields.

Only this month we signed a new partnership with i24 News, the Tel Aviv-based 24-hour news service. The synergies between our businesses were apparent from the start. Both companies place great importance on the digital space and events, and where Motivate also has a strong legacy in print media, i24 brings broadcast media to the party.

We’re currently in talks to form a partnership with a media content producer, and are meanwhile forging ahead with our feature-length documentary film on the 50th anniversary of the UAE and the legacy of Sheikh Zayed with our award-winning partners, Lorton Entertainment, in the UK. Our Arabic websites, Arageek and Menatech, are examples of partnerships focused on fully Arabic content. Such is our appetite for these kinds of exciting opportunities that we launched a campaign inviting people to contact us if they would like us to consider working with them. We set up a dedicated e-mail address, bigidea@motivate.ae, for anyone who wishes to reach out.

We have also ventured further than ever into the e-commerce arena, having launched thearabiangallery.com on June 1, offering more than a thousand original pieces of art ranging from sculptures, paintings, and photographs to beautiful handmade timepieces.

Our heritage is print, but the future is diversified. The whole industry has known this for a long time, but has often been slow to evolve and innovate. A year and a half of coronavirus has shown us that the world we have grown comfortable with can change overnight. Companies like Motivate have a choice: to bury our heads and pretend everything will go back to normal, or to tap into the spirit of change and growth that epitomises the UAE and the wider Middle East, and come out stronger and ready for anything.

By IAN FAIRSERVICE, founder and CEO of Motivate Media Group

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June 27, 2021

The days of a few platforms dominating are over, but with more choice comes more need for strategic planning and a deep understanding of the options

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hen social media as we know it first emerged in the early 2000s, several platforms were vying for users. Out of this initial crew we saw a few channels dominate and prove their longevity, resulting in a relatively stable period during the 2010s. Think Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and WeChat, platforms that now exceed 1 billion users globally, followed by other well-known players like Twitter and Snapchat.

Most of these platforms have a stable user base and a wellestablished ad offering that make them viable channels for people and brands. People gain access to community or content and brands win access to potential customers.

During the pandemic in 2020, a new social media platform flourished in popularity as a serious contender to the ‘old guard’ channels. The popularity of TikTok opened up opportunities for other social media sites to evolve and capitalse on new user behaviours that are emerging around content and community.

These include interest-based sites that enable users to engage over a specific interest like books (Goodreads), music (Spotify) or video games (Twitch). Content creation platforms have grown beyond TikTok to include Clubhouse, Poparazzi and BeRea. Finally, new message-based networks have flourished. Signal and Viber allow users to create chat groups and share content more privately than competitors Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger.

This re-fragmentation increases the complexity of social media for brands and agencies, and requires fundamentally different strategies when it comes to content, paid media and distribution.

However, both brands and consumers are poised to benefit from the variety and adoption of additional social media platforms. Consumers benefit because they have access to communities that support their interests, whether that’s musicians

By BRITTANY WICKERSON, global head of media for Socialize/We Are Social?

and artists or cooking and cryptocurrency. For brands, these niche platforms create greater precision on how they reach and engage with their potential consumers, as well as diversifying their marketing efforts to balance short- and long-term effects.

Brands wishing to navigate the new social space first require a deep understanding of their customers, including their interests and the platforms that they prefer. To achieve this level of detail they must have access to first-party data that provides these insights and can be analysed and segmented.

Second is that brands must produce content bespoke for these platforms.

Each site has its own characteristics and community – and, within that, its own culture. Adopting these platforms as a brand requires

adhering to three key parameters: context (knowing who is on that platform and what they are looking for from the community and from brands); customisation (which formats need to be selected specific to that platform to maximise the value from your investment); and authenticity (creative that looks out of place or ads that feel irrelevant will negatively affect your brand).

The third point is that brands need to distribute their message in ways that are appropriate to that platform; whether it’s through ads, influencers, branded content profiles or publishers. Many of these emerging platforms may have a limited or even ad-free offering, and to ignore them because of it could be at your peril.

The final consideration is measurement. More niche platforms will perform differently from high-reach channels, and we cannot hold them to the same standard. We should leverage holistic analysis when examining performance and impact.

For example, investing in a platform where your highest lifetime value (LTV) customers are might have high costs but should be amortised over the lifetime of that cohort.

As important as it is to adjust to this fragmented social space, it is also vitally important for brands to be responsive to further change and for agencies to help navigate unknown territory. For example, more niche platforms can result in greater polarisation of users, and it may be harmful for brands to appear alongside such content. We should also expect consolidation and be ready to explore what that means in terms of measurement and targeting, while seeing some niche sites become more general. Finally, be prepared to see a reversal in adoption and time spent on social media in the postpandemic era, and look for ways to bridge online and offline experiences.

One thing is for sure, social media is an ever-changing ecosystem that offers unparalleled ways of bringing people and brands closer together.

June 27, 2021

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s the media landscape continues to transform, we cannot but highlight the TV landscape being massively different from what it once was.

Today, we are in the middle of the biggest revolution, with the constant rise of different viewing options that play a major role in how a person consumes content. As viewers adopt new ways to access video content, they sometimes still feel challenged to find the specific content they want to watch.

Even with all the changes and long history of TV evolution, the core sources of value within the industry remain the same.

Production of high-quality content and content rights have always remained and still are critical pieces of the puzzle.

Looking into the future, the linear TV industry is navigating its course on the strength of new insights, trends and behaviours that have emerged over the years.

It is evolving to cater to an all-new set of needs and expectations, driven by consumers as well as advertisers. Today, the industry’s focus is what content producers are all after, differentiating themselves and capitalising on the evolving consumer demand towards quality content.

TV channels all around the world and across this region are finding themselves in the middle of a fierce battle for differentiation. The past few years have served as the most prolific periods for TV content creators and have resulted in the establishment of many new benchmarks for high-quality exclusive productions. Within this context, marketers are now seeking associations that provide their brands opportunities to become a part of stories that connect with the audience. The need for tailor-made local productions has never been greater.

Great content creators who are rights holders are still well positioned to succeed in this highly saturated industry. Many linear TV content providers, such Abu Dhabi Media TV, for example, have made massive investments to stay in the game and are succeeding in their efforts.

With quality content now becoming almost a prerequisite to success, broadcasters are also striving to strengthen their distribution capabilities, and are taking on board a cross-platform approach. This has become an absolute necessity for attracting advertisers who are constantly seeking

‘‘WITH QUALITY CONTENT NOW A PREREQUISITE TO SUCCESS, BROADCASTERS ARE ALSO STRIVING TO STRENGTHEN THEIR DISTRIBUTION CAPABILITIES.”

With quality content now table stakes, broadcasters are looking to cross-platform strategies to raise their game

opportunities to associate their brands with content that can be extended, cut down or featured as snippets, to cover more consumer touchpoints. Today, television content invades the entire video ecosystem, encompassing social media, VOD, online streaming and more.

Within this fragmented video ecosystem, the need for a proper measurement solution that can measure video consumption across screens has become a necessity. The industry, driven by the Advertising Business Group (ABG) has already taken the initiative of challenging the status quo. Its initiative in the UAE was aimed at answering important matters such as who is watching what, where and how, and what amount of audience duplication exists across platforms.

Cross-media measurement is key to helping advertisers target and optimise better, making the most of their budgets by moving towards

audience-based targeting. In the UAE, a new measurement solution that is passive, cross-screen and driven by analytics and real-time data is getting pitched by global research and tech players. In Saudi Arabia, people meters are making their way into the market. The significant momentum being witnessed in the TV industry proves that we are all moving in the right direction.

Although TV’s primary focus over the years has been on upper- and somewhat mid-funnel metrics, brands today have an appetite to be performance-driven while still adding TV into their media mix. Capitalising on consumer preferences, TV – fuelled by technology, data, analytics, and attribution modelling – has unravelled its potential as an equally powerful lower-funnel, performance asset. This has been proven by major global e-commerce players, who have returned to TV to increase their user base. In this region, Choueiri Group has introduced Brand4mance to the market to offer a cross-funnel solution that drives not only awareness but also conversions by connecting the offline TV world with the digital ecosystem. To ensure further confidence among advertisers investing i n TV, brand lift studies are also part of the offering.

Looking ahead, especially on a local and regional market level, TV is ready for an upswing in terms of commercial activity, with some of the most highly anticipated mega events such as Expo 2020 about to take place, serving as a key catalyst to revenue generation, and anticipated to lift up all the economies in the MENA region.

As a result of these major industry shifts, media companies have had to relook at the types of talent they recruit. The traditional sales model is no longer relevant. A businessled-solution approach is the way forward, and hence talents with digital, data and measurement experience have become critical in today’s world.

By ZIAD MOUSSA, COO, Mediasat Advertising

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June 27, 2021

Meshary Alharbi, CEO of Saudi influencer agency Moment, says that e-commerce has become a driver for influencer marketing, but brands must consider each platform individually

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lot of the companies I have seen have been focusing on using influencers to boost their e-commerce offerings recently. They look to take advantage of the audiences that influencers can reach, and aim to change their shopping behaviour and persuade them to shop online.

At Moment we work to develop influencers by helping them create more content and reach wider audiences. Some other influencer agencies in the region use a model where they work with the largest number of influencers they can, and leverage exclusive agreements and contracts. Each company has a slightly different approach to how it works with influencers.

The focus on e-commerce across influencer platforms, including our own, reflects what clients have been asking from us. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic more than a year ago, even traditional brands have begun focusing more on e-commerce strategies. For many brands, this is new territory, and we treat their expansion into e-commerce as new projects, starting from scratch and helping them think in a wholly new way compared with how they traditionally marketed themselves.

From the point of view of companies like Moment, this means that there is consistent growth in the industry, and opportunities to grow further. As long as the shift from traditional commerce to e-commerce continues, there will be growth opportunities in the influencer market.

While the shift to e-commerce was given a boost by the pandemic, Covid-19 kept most of the world inside. This is now changing, and we are seeing events becoming physical in the region, rather than online, once again. And in more and more markets, travel is opening up again. The signs are there of a return to normal life, and this means that there will be competition between brands as they vie for the attention and spends of online audiences. All this means there is opportunity for influencers and content creators who can bring those brands to the attention of their followers.

In terms of challenges to the influencer market, we would like to

‘‘THE SHEER NUMBER OF INFLUENCERS CAN DILUTE THEIR MESSAGING, AND DILUTE AWARENESS AND IMPACT AMONG FOLLOWERS.” see more updates to the social media platforms themselves. Some of the changes that have been brought in since the outbreak of Covid-19 have not been as impactful as we would like.

The growth of influencer numbers also makes it more challenging to marketers.

There are hundreds more influencers in the region compared with only a few years ago, and not all of them have the experience and professionalism brands might like to work with. The sheer number of influencers can dilute their messaging, and, combined with weak content, this can dilute awareness and impact among followers and fans.

To counter this, agencies such as ours must help raise influencers’ awareness of content-creation best practices and help leading content makers stand out from the crowd.

When it comes to the content that works, this depends on the platform.

Each social channel requires a different policy, different communications and a different posting strategy. To find the right mix, everyone – brands, influencers, agencies and the platforms themselves – must study the behaviour of followers on each platform, to see what content will best suit their interests and consumption habits.

The skills that we are looking for, and that are in high demand within the influencer marketing industry, include copywriters, designers, social media executives, photographers, filmmakers and musicians.

By Meshary Alharbi, CEO, Moment

June 27, 2021

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to these areas. Over-the-top (OTT) streaming services, such as Netflix and Hulu have added 20 million households in the past four years, with growth in the reach of ad-supported OTT services up 7 per cent year-on-year. As 5G rolls out and there’s wider availability of internet-enabled devices, brands will have more opportunities to connect on smart TVs and gaming consoles in real time.

Connected TV is also primed for further investment, on course to reach $11.31bn this year and $18.29bn by 2024. It’s a powerful channel to tap into for a few reasons: hyper-level targeting, high completion rates and engaging content. That being said, there needs to be a strategic approach to planning, given the scale and rise of more OTT services and devices. Brands will need to optimise for specific audiences, locations, media and devices to see results.

Podcasts are also an increasingly important part of the marketing mix, as long-form audio continues to buck the trend for shorter, snappier content seen across social media and video. In fact, research

As we reach the midway point in 2021, the disruption to our digital ecosystem is clear, but so too are the opportunities for growth. We just need to be ready to capitalise on them, says MMPWW CEO, Ayman Haydar

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et’s talk about acronyms, the never-ending list of acronyms our industry has become so obsessed with over the past few years. ATT, FLoC, FLEDGE, CCPA, GDPR... I could go on but I have a word count to observe, so consider these ‘the headliners’, the ones that are causing the industry such a headache right now.

The rapid pace of change, accelerated further due to Covid-19, has triggered both panic and confusion in the market. Everyone is wondering the same thing: how will this new privacy-focused landscape play out in practical terms? It’s all very well theorising, but as more roadblocks force us to change direction, we need to be bold and fearless in carving out a new path.

Back in January 2020, it was Google that fired the first warning shots that the landscape was about to shift again with its decision to end support for third-party cookies by 2022. We’re now six months away from that deadline and have a privacy sandbox full of bird-themed solutions to show for it.

Marketers have so far been wary of FloC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) despite Google insisting its cohort-based replacement was 95 per cent as effective as cookie-based advertising.

Elsewhere, Apple’s delayed IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) changes have also come into effect, with ATT (App-Tracking Transparency) recently activated alongside the iOS 14.5 roll out. User opt-in figures vary hugely for this, but according to data from AppsFlyer, adoption is on the rise (currently at 27 per cent), set to increase to 50 per cent by the end of June. It’s these kinds of figures, taken without much context or consideration, that tend to conjure up the most apocalyptic scenarios. Seriously, some of the

conversations I’ve endured are worthy of cinematic production.

That, combined with the media’s tendency to run hyperbolic headlines about ‘the end of targeting and measurement’, make it that much harder to separate fact from fiction.

In reality, it will still be possible to serve relevant and personalised content, but only if marketers take steps now to prepare for a more anonymised future and don’t just sit on the sidelines, waiting.

As we head towards the end of H1, it’s Apple who is very much in the driving seat, much to Facebook’s frustration. Google, on the other hand, has taken a much more practical approach, being cautious rather than outright rebellious, even following Apple’s lead by allowing its users to opt out of ad tracking across its Android devices in recent weeks.

Although there are obvious challenges ahead to navigate, we need to consider the emerging opportunities as well, particularly when it comes to programmatic. Statista predicts that programmatic buying will increase to $127bn by the end of 2021, while in the US, eMarketer projects a $3.93bn increase in mobile spending and a $2.83bn increase in video spending is on the cards. The untapped potential across digital video and audio here is huge; each growing their revenues – by 20.6 per cent year-on-year and 13 per cent year-on-year respectively – according to the 2020 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report.

It’s not hard to see why marketer focus is moving

from Edison shows that 70 per cent of monthly listeners don’t do anything else while listening to a podcast; that’s almost unheard of in today’s multitasking society.

But all of the above is futile unless we can move past the disruption, continue to double down on digital investments and recruit talent that can work across different platforms and streams seamlessly.

To that end, it’s going to be less about recruiting for specific skills and more about prioritising competencies, such as being adaptable, data-fluent and creative.

It’s true that the gulf between 2019 and 2021 couldn’t be wider, but I’ll level with you: No-one has all the answers just yet. Our job is to manage the chaos, embrace change and set an example for others to follow. Disruption. Evolution. Progress. It all amounts to the same thing in ad tech, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

By AYMAN HAYDAR, CEO, MMPWW

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June 27, 2021

Radio has moved beyond simple listening and hard-sell adverts, says Fun Asia Network’s Sunny Ahuja

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hat are consumers wanting that’s changed over the past couple of years, and how are radio broadcasters giving

them that?

It’s beyond what you hear and see through the audiovisual mediums.

Touch and feel have become equally important, so marketing is now taking place through the line and not just via above-the-line and below-the-line.

What are advertisers asking of broadcasters that’s new, and how is the industry responding?

It is no longer just about the hard sell.

Advertisers are looking to a process of intriguing and inspiring the audience.

While radio or TV cannot just function by themselves, activations and digital forums are equally integral to drive the thoughts of brands to their audiences.

Where are you seeing revenue opportunities grow and decline?

As the market evolves with the consumer mindset, revenue

‘‘WHILE RADIO OR TV CANNOT JUST FUNCTION BY THEMSELVES, ACTIVATIONS AND DIGITAL FORUMS ARE EQUALLY INTEGRAL TO DRIVE THE THOUGHTS OF BRANDS TO THEIR AUDIENCES.”

opportunities have increased in the e-commerce platforms. Retail has been consistent and FMCG, hospitality and events are slowly bouncing back. The healthcare sector has evidently seen a huge spike as well.

What are the biggest opportunities for growth in the coming months?

In industries from healthcare to education to finance to manufacturing, the pandemic has forced companies to use technology to reimagine nearly every facet of their operations. Crisis can be a catalyst and can speed up changes that are on the way. It can almost serve as an accelerant.

What threats do you see ahead, and how is the radio industry reacting to them?

Reduced spends in marketing are pushing brands to explore digital marketing as a forum. However, radio has taken an active step by including social and digital platforms that complement various campaigns being broadcasted.

How is your content changing?

It is getting more personal; it is beyond the “good to know” content that focused on entertainment and celebrity culture. “Need to know” content and campaigns are the driving force of creative mediums like radio now. Activations around entrepreneurship and based on sports and utility-enhancing topics help intrigue and inspire the audience and help the platform be relevant within changing markets.

What are you and other radio broadcasters hiring for? What talent and skillsets are in demand within the industry?

To stay relevant in the creative domain, multitasking has become an essential skill. Presenters are getting involved in contributing to managerial tasks in order to enhance the overall output of the medium.

By SUNNY AHUJA, head of business, Fun Asia Network

June 27, 2021

O

ver the course of the last few years, the marketing and advertising practices brands and advertisers traditionally employed to reach potential customers and generate leads have either witnessed dramatic shifts or were completely retired and replaced by newer tactics and tools.

This transition was further accelerated by another unprecedented gamechanger, Covid-19, which went from being just another virus no one really knew much about to changing life as we know it for 8 billion people around the globe, all in the span of three short months. After the disruption the pandemic brought to our everyday lives and global economies, a massive surge in unprecedented trends and behaviours, including media consumption habits, forced advertisers to revisit their media plans and strategies in order to cope with the new normal.

Within this context, any review of the outdoor advertising sector would best be served by examining the dynamics through pre-Covid and current pandemic lenses.

Prior to the pandemic, advertisers leveraged OOH as a primary means of brand building, product awareness and call-to-action campaigns largely focused on protecting and sustaining their share of voice compared with their competition.

In Covid-19 times, devastating lockdowns and curfew orders were implemented across most nations, leading to a very limited volume of commuters on the roads (drivers and public transport users). Consequently, commuting times were drastically reduced, resulting in fewer eyeballs focused on out-of-home ads. Traditional investors pulled back, as they had nothing left to actively promote, at least not on empty roads. They also turned to alternative advertising channels, as the dip in street commuters no longer justified their investments. This decline continued in spite of the exceptional support clients were given.

When lockdowns began to ease and people started to venture back outdoors, OOH impressions witnessed a marginal increase. Traditional investors led this rally and reinstated the yearly deals cemented in the pre-Covid days. This stimulated the appetite of non-regular outdoor advertising investors, who made their debut appearances on OOH assets.

Today, clients are relying on out-ofhome to generate sales and are closely monitoring their return on investment (ROI), much like any other medium. The pandemic has resulted in drastic increases behind OOH spends for e-commerce

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players, virtual retail shops and F&B brands, after witnessing the ROI out of home delivered. For start-ups and virtual stores, outdoor advertising carries the incentive of helping them overcome one of the greatest hurdles to success. It provides them with credibility and generates the trust that consumers must have with brands. Once the association is established, customers feel more confident about transacting with the brand.

More than ever before, advertisers today are seeking ways to rationalise their investments behind out-of-home. The OOH sector across the GCC is poised to witness a future driven by technology, not only in the form of LED screens, but also in harnessing the power of technology that can effectively measure their ROI, as well as the precise attribution value.

As we edge closer to a post-Covid scenario and investments behind the sector grow, so will the demand for measurement capabilities and audience discovery to quantify the deliveries.

Media owners are keen on making advertisers feel confident about their OOH budget allocations.

Audience measurement, reach, frequency and opportunity to see (OTS), among others, stand out as the parameters being considered by several independent research companies in a bid to assign value for the industry. Several methods are being adopted, ranging from tracking devices to data collection from telcos and publishers.

Unfortunately, the landscape is fragmented in terms of measurement solutions. However, we believe that adopting a unified measurement currency across the entire market that is agile enough to cope with the changing landscape, from tracing to privacy, will add value to media owners and advertisers alike. This currency should be developed by an independent player with no vested interest in media representation, a neutral body weighing the significance of individual OOH assets, irrespective of the media owner or advertiser.

Outdoor advertising is coming back post-Covid, and brands are looking for measurable results Fawzi Tueini, COO of Arabian Outdoor

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FACES TO WATCH

June 27, 2021

AMINA MASHUKOVA, 29

PR & marketing executive, Alshaya Group – Bath & Body Works How has covid changed your job? Covid has changed all obstacles into opportunities. Helped us dig deeper into creativity, to reach to our customers and fans with suitable information, through the channels that they prefer. It created amazing opportunity for all marketers to enjoy the digital world that we all like to explore, innovate and try new campaigns.

AYESHA TAYYEB ABDULLA, 27

Communication and marketing manager, Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation

ANOOP KUMAR, 30 Assistant marketing manager, Times Square Center

BADER AL HAJJAJ, 29 Digital marketing manager, Hyundai Motor Company MEA

Nominated by: Mohammad Badwan, head of marketing Enthusiasm, eagerness to learn and adaptability have helped Bader hit the ground running. In no time, he has made himself a vital part of the team. He’s a true team player as he goes above and beyond for his team. Bader takes a customer-centric and data-driven approach to solve problems. He continually amazes me with his creativity while working with partners to create result-oriented digital campaigns. Bader is currently owning multiple digital campaigns across MEA. I know that he will continue to grow to become a marketing leader in the region.

Nominated by: Nancy Ozbek, GM Times Square Center, Al Masa Mall, Oman & Jewel Tower Anoop’s extraordinary efforts have been highly visible to Times Square Center’s retailers, visitors and mall management.

His initiative and absorbing of additional responsibilities, productivity and commitment to Times Square Center make him a role model to all of us within the team.

The previous three years’ events at Times Square Center have been a great success because of his hard work and attention to detail. Anoop always displays excellence in his tasks and has a positive energy with everything he does.

His diplomatic approach has an enlightened impact on all the staff members of Times Square Center, our agencies, retailers and visitors.

Nominated by: Nora Malkawi, admissions and student service manager I see Ayesha as hardworking and her story needs to be shared with the world. She is the backbone of DIDI and we trust her judgment for everything to do with communication, marketing, design, and editing. Whenever she is assigned a task she will make sure to submit it perfectly within the given timeframe, and what is unique about her is that she will also give you options. I really think that Ayesha’s story should be shared with the world.

BAHAA MOUSSALLI, 30

Head of marketing, Switz Group/Saudi Masterbaker Nominated by: Mohamad Awkal, account manager at Socialize Bahaa is an exceptional client, who is always looking to innovate and push our marketing strategies to create real consumer connections.

Our work with him and Switz is a result of more of a partnership than an agency-client relationship. It has allowed our team to experiment, learn and grow our online communities for the brand in impactful ways over the last six years.

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FACES TO WATCH

June 27, 2021

DINA EL GEWELI, 27

ESHRAQ MOHAMED ISA, 25

Nominated by: Martin Style, chief product officer Dina is an incredibly versatile UX, marketing and branding professional. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her developing a new fintech experience that our customers will be obsessed about.

Dina’s creativity shines through and she’s evolved our brand to another level at breakneck speed and has tremendously elevated the UX of our experience. Her incredible talent coupled with her passion have brought innovative ideas to the table in all aspects of the business, demonstrating her multifaceted skill set at every turn. Dina is a truly impressive person who is a face to watch in any context.

Nominated by: Mohamed Abu Saqer, head of corporate communications Eshraq is more than a colleague; she’s a great team player with an optimistic spirit that will surely contribute to her growth and the growth of any organisation that she’s a part of. She’s highly dedicated to her work and always strives for improvement.

Senior UX designer & brand strategist, Splintr

Digital marketing transformation analyst, Ahli United Bank Bahrain.

DAVID PAMIES MANRIQUE, 26

Head of digital customer experience, Schneider Electric

Nominated by: Firdaus Shariff, VP of global marketing MEA, Schneider Electric David’s guiding principle is based on two things: people and sustainability. People are always the centre of an organisation, and embracing the different, looking for diversity and assuring everyone’s safety is a must for all leaders. Now, in a fast-paced world with challenges coming in record time, sustainability needs to be the core of our attention and efforts in all the actions we take.

ESRAA AHMED, 27

HARSHITA LAKHIANI, 27

Assistant marketing manager, MG Motor Middle East

Digital acquisition manager, Careem

Side hustle: When not thinking all things digital, I am an avid dancer. I train in various styles from Afropop to Latin, and I do envision starting my own dance company and teaching other women.

Side hustle: Despite her young age, Esraa has a passion like no other for traveling and is aiming to complete 30 countries under 30 years of age. She is an eager learner and is always on the lookout to grow not only her technical skills, but also her interpersonal skills through the different cultural experiences she encounters. She’s currently developing a travel blog to share her adventures and experiences with people who have a passion for travelling.

FATIMA ZAHRA LOUGHZAIL, 23 Global Fine Guard marketing manager, Fine Hygienic Holding

Nominated by: Hande Hitai, Global Fine Guard category head Fatima’s passion for understanding consumers and the changing dynamics of the marketing world makes her a unique talent. Her agility and resilience in tough situations – especially last year, when we launched 12 new products in just eight months – have made her an integral part of Fine Guard.

FACES TO WATCH

June 27, 2021

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KUSHAL DESAI, 29

Customer success director, Liana Technologies Nominated by: Tomi Saikkonen, vice-president, Middle East No matter how busy the day gets, the customer is always his first priority. Being able to help his team members, and at the same trusting them to have their support, makes Kushal an effective and trustworthy team member who always delivers.

What is agreed is kept.

HESSA AL-THANI, 29

Tourism marketing and promotion sector, Qatar National Tourism Council Hessa thrives on creative freedom and uses her significant abilities to collaborate with leadership, colleagues and agency partners. Her keen eye for creative excellence has been pivotal in her involvement in the soon-to-launch new global brand campaign. Her voice, which is represented in work at the highest level at QNTC, helps shape and guide Qatar’s presentation to the rest of the world.

KAREN KOUGIOUMTZI, 30

Digital & CRM executive, Panerai – Richemont Group Nominated by: Yan Kanaan, influencer marketing manager/team leader Karen has worked with Carat, Choueiry Group, and other agencies before moving to Richemont. Her work inspires me and she taught me a lot about the digital world before starting to work in the field. I’m recommending her because she is an overachiever and her work sometimes goes unnoticed.

KHOLOUD AL SHIBA, 25

Public relations officer, Qatar Foundation for Education Science and Community Development

KAJAL RAMCHANDANI, 28

Media, social media and retail advertising section manager, international markets, INFINITI Middle East Nominated by: Nassima El-Mounfalouti, deputy general manager marketing, international markets I have been working with Kajal for almost a year now. She has been a great asset to the team since day one. Kajal has always shown a hardworking attitude, and she is always happy to go the extra mile to provide irreproachable work. She has the energy and the dynamism to refresh traditional mindsets. Her extensive knowledge of automotive gives her the ability to be strategic as well as tackling operational issues, keeping in mind the business objective of INFINITI. She is a real multi-tasker. She can handle media and creative subjects as well as data topics, as she has a great understanding of data-led performance planning. From a personal standpoint, she is very easy-going, sweet and a true team-player.

Nominated by: Riham ElHoushi, senior account director, Memac Ogilvy Working with Kholoud always gives us a refreshing reset. She constantly reminds us that communication is a tool to inspire and create impact.

Despite the common client-agency dynamic in our region, she works just as hard as her agency team and is always hungry for learning opportunities. She delivers her projects with a passion, employing every communication tool possible to reach audiences. Her work on the Education City Speaker Series has been transformative and she, with her team, has used the challenge of the pandemic to truly take it global. She is definitely a face to watch for PR professionals in Qatar and the region.

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FACES TO WATCH

June 27, 2021

LAIFONG WONG, 29

LUCY SPEED

Nominated by: Irum Sultana, senior manager – content, group communications Laifong has brought an excellent quality of work and excellence across communication platforms to DP World. It is often thought that creative people have laid-back attitude, but she is different. She is quick and well organised yet creative.

She has successfully implemented great strategies to align the content and brand guidelines globally and has tactfully handled her relations during this process. People working at global HQs can relate to how tough this task is.

Nominated by: Henry Windridge, senior director marketing, digital & creative Lucy is a vital member of my 60-strong team across 15 countries. She is one of our most advanced digital marketers, combining engaging content with strong performance marketing, driving platform growth and digital commercial revenue. Lucy is excellent at stakeholder management, and working across a global matrixed organisation. Her diplomacy and strategic insights have helped many campaigns get through the business. She is nimble and agile, able to pivot from product launches to PR campaigns, and from client management to creative ideation. In short, I would fight to keep Lucy as part of my team.

She is definitely one to watch.

Senior content specialist – group communications, DP World

Marketing manager, Middle East and Africa, Pay TV Lifestyle Brands, Discovery EMEA

LEILA EL SAMAD, 27 Regional digital manager, Active Cosmetics Division (ACD), L’Oréal Middle East

Nominated by: Tamara Ghantous, media manager, UM Leila is a true collaborator and strategic partner for ACD. She communicates her business challenges effectively and gives the agency full flexibility and the reins to meet these objectives. She trusts and values the agency as media experts and, in a short time frame, has positioned herself as a strong lead with a clear directive and vision for her workstreams. She is organised in her thinking, which reflects in her ways of working with the agency, making her a strong business partner.

AHMAD KHEIR, 30

Director of digital & e-commerce at Five Hotels and Resorts

MOSTAFA TORKY, 28

Digital marketing Manager, CIB Egypt Nominated by: Shaimaa Hussein, head of digital marketing Moustafa is an added value to the CIB family and he is very passionate about what he is doing. Also, he is looking for bigger responsibilities and new digital eras. He is a very committed and hard worker, creative and innovative

Nominated by: Aloki Batra, CEO, Five Hospitality Ahmed is a dynamic leader in a marketing team of more than 20 in-house marketers at Five. He has built a digital marketing ecosystem that is agile, distributed, and scalable with automated functionality that allows Five to concentrate on and boost its best-performing channels, campaigns, ads and source markets. Under his lead, direct-frombrand bookings grew from AED 29m in 2018 to AED 101m in 2020, while total revenue grew from AED 150m to AED 204m in the same time period; and our burgeoning, highly engaged social media community stands at a staggering half a million followers – and is growing by the minute.

MAHA MOUSSA, 25

Creative video producer, TikTok Nominated by: Youssef Gadallah, Creative Lab Lead – METAP In the eight months that Maha, a filmmaker and producer, has been a content creator at TikTok, she has developed and directed a slew of campaigns that creatively and strategically elevated branded content on the platform. No idea is ever too crazy for Maha, and she always brings fresh insights and executions to the table through her endless social media interactions and tech savviness. Not to mention her great sense of humour that makes working with her quite fun. Sometimes. It’s my pleasure to be part of her creative growth journey and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before you see her next big film or idea taking the stage.

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FACES TO WATCH

June 27, 2021

NAZLA ANWAR, 26

Senior brand manager, P&G

MOUAD JAAFARI, 30

Regional head of digital projects & infrastructures, Jaguar Land Rover

Nominated by: Tariq Shalabi, partnerships manager, Vamp Nazla is very tenacious, highly motivated and has bags of enthusiasm towards her work.

She is smart when it comes to taking business decisions. She is supportive and always works with her partner agency as if she is one of the team. She doesn’t save her efforts in getting the job done to the optimum level, and is always looking for new creative approaches. We are incredibly lucky to work with such a young and inspiring character who’s all about her job and enjoys all this potential and skill.

Nominated by: Ziad El Zyr, associate media director and JLR media lead at Dentsu X Mouad’s extensive digital knowledge gives him the ability to optimise key digital projects and contribute greatly to the media planning at our agency. He always has a positive attitude with the team and is always ready to extend support when needed.

Mouad’s curious nature has benefited both parties greatly and strengthened the client-agency partnership, which is one with mutual respect and admiration. Together, we have managed to bolster the MENA region among the top performing SEO markets within the JLR global network.

MUHAMMAD ARSLAN, 28

Business development representative, Sojern Nominated by: Stewart Smith, managing director, MEA Muhammad Arslan has been with our locally based Dubai team for the past three years.

During this time he has shown a never-saydie attitude to his work, always going above and beyond. On a day-to-day basis, Arslan leads our business development efforts across the entire MEA region, setting up pitches for sellers and managing virtual market visits, which have enabled us to open up new revenue opportunities across the region. Over the last year he has achieved 120 per cent of his new business goal. His attitude to work and willingness to always help colleagues, along with his outgoing personality, leaves me in no doubt he will be a face to watch in the years to come as his career develops.

NADA ABDULAZIZ, 23

Marketing and design coordinator, Emirates Literature Foundation

NEHA DUHOON, 27

Assistant marketing manager, Hyatt Regency Dubai Creek Heights Nominated by: Ghada Salah and Ishan Gangakhedkar, EAM sales & marketing and cluster director of revenue Neha is a young, vivacious and well-articulated female leader. She has an innate art of making friends wherever she goes and that’s what makes her a likable personality. She is eager to learn, determined and well organised at the workplace, always ready to help when needed. Her ability to adapt in a highly dynamic Dubai hospitality environment has led to exceptional results in such a short stint since she took over the department. In some ways, she always has a spark alive. Her creative inputs have driven our organisation forward; with this positive take on life, she will definitely achieve greater heights – not only in her career but in her personal goals too.

Nominated by: Andrea Gissdal, head of communications and marketing There are certain qualities you look for when you build your team. Ability is only one part, and we also want people with a desire to learn, a great attitude and growth potential. Nada has it all.

Festival director Ahlam Bolooki says: “As a foundation for literature, the language we use matters enormously, so the stakes were high, and Nada has been instrumental in raising our standards as an organisation for how we communicate and market in Arabic.”

NADA BAROUDI, 28

Digital & communications specialist, Guerlain, LVMH Nominated by: Joud Boksmati, associate business director, Spark Foundry Nada is an absolute joy to work with. She is a symbol of professionalism in everything she does, and approaches everything with an extremely open mind. Her approach is always collaborative and transparent and, more than anything, she is always looking to innovate and take on new ideas. Nada asks poignant and smart questions, which ensures that whatever project she is involved in is always of the highest quality. On behalf of myself and the rest of the team, I can say that working with a client like Nada is truly refreshing.

FACES TO WATCH

June 27, 2021

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NOUR SEIF, 29

RAGHAD ELASSI, 25

All my life I have been a lover of stories, be it in movies, series or music. I saw stories everywhere I looked. That had me major in Communication Arts with an emphasis of Radio, TV & Film and build my career brick by brick.

Starting with working as a segment producer and assistant director with various leading TV networks, to then leading influencer marketing management, following a role as branded content and influencer development and focusing on premium digital content creators – and then taking all of that to work at TikTok in creator solutions, connecting our TikTok community to brands. Stories have different shapes and forms, and I am proud to have had seen and tested various angles of every booming sector.

Nominated by: Sevgi Gur, vice-president, marketing, OSN Proactive, dedicated and result-oriented are the three phrases that come to mind when I think about Raghad. Since she joined our marketing team at OSN, she has fully emerged herself in the PR role and championed multiple initiatives, emphasising the importance of PR at OSN. It’s rare that you come across standout talent like Raghad. I was particularly impressed with her ability to effortlessly juggle multiple tasks at the same time and deliver quality work with very high work ethics. She led the PR activations to launch the OSN Woman channel, and most recently Friends: Reunion, in addition to many other PR campaigns. It’s a pleasure to have Raghad as part of OSN’s marketing team.

Creator partnership manager, TikTok

Senior PR specialist, OSN

PREETI LAUNGANI, 30

Marketing manager, Z5X Global (Zee Entertainment) Nominated by: Finniey Benjamin, associate marketing director Preeti has been on my team for close to two years now. Her energy levels and enthusiasm towards completing projects at hand speak practically about her being a go-getter and a dynamo. I remember asking her to find me someone like her because her potential shone through. While she proactively takes the lead, she also understands the importance of teamwork. Her biggest asset is that she never wants to stop learning. Taking courses, interacting with different teams to understand the working of her job and its effects, she wants to know as much as possible to ensure her and the brand’s growth.

PRAKARTI LAKHWANI, 29

RACHA ASSI, 29

Social media manager, Sephora

Nominated by: Vinita Merchant, media manager, Spark Foundry Prakarti is an adaptive and agile marketer who channels a deep-rooted passion to learn, grow and always deliver the best results for Sephora and the Sephora consumer. She leverages on data to always improve the communication and media strategy to get the optimum results, which is only made possible through her ability to make quick and effective decisions to keep up with the constantly evolving media landscape. She encompasses all the traits of a true leader and the characteristics of a great marketer.

L’Oréal digital manager CPD (Consumer Products Division), L’Oréal Middle East

Nominated by: Shreya Parker, business director, UM Racha is one of the strongest digital leads in the business and continues to make an impact both on L’Oreal as well as the agency side. As one of UM’s key business partners and a true collaborator, Racha challenges the agency but in a very effective way with the sole aim of ensuring that the agency delivers best-in-class solutions. She not only has strong digital and e-commerce acumen but has her finger on the latest media pulse, ensuring that she is just as up-to-date on all new tech, betas and digital innovations as her agency counterparts.

RAWYA ABDELKADER, 30

Communications manager, Middle East and North Africa, Facebook Nominated by: Amr Gamal, head of communications, MENA From the smallest idea to the largest project in global impact and reach, Rawya treats each campaign the same - with honesty, commitment and a genuinely incredible passion to do more. She approaches each situation thoughtfully, weighing all possible outcomes – both positive and negative – and then putting in place a robust plan that not only seeks to embed Facebook’s impact in the region, but also shines the spotlight on the people that make Facebook a success – the communities and the people. She is also the ultimate colleague, going out of her way to support team members within both communications and other functions. The work she has done has helped bring to light those working on incredibly difficult missions, supported mental health in the region, removed misinformation through ‘Think Before You Share’, spotlighted communities in Ramadan and more. The list goes on, as does Rawya’s determination and commitment. It’s a privilege to work with Rawya.

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FACES TO WATCH

June 27, 2021

REEM ZOUBEIR, 23

RITA WEHBE, 26

Regional associate marketing manager, kitchen towel category, Fine HH

Head of The Shop By TikTok, TikTok

SARA EL-ESNAWY, 24

Retail marketing manager, General Motors Nominated by: Alex Jena, business director Faced with challenging business conditions and a tough retail environment, Sara has been a tremendous force of positive energy within the team. Sara has a strong drive to inspire creative, innovative work that pushes boundaries whilst also delivering on results, and she doesn’t shy away from the detailed metrics to understand the performance in depth. Sara is also a good team player and gets straight to the point in her communication, which is highly beneficial with cross-agency and internal team stakeholders. It’s good to have her in the team despite the age envy.

SAGAR PATEL, 28

Head of marketing – e-commerce, HORECA, Casinetto Nominated by: Giacomo Bernardelli, managing director Sagar is passionate and driven about his work, consistently thinking out of the box to drive consumer behaviour as a whole. He’s creative, quality- and performance-driven and always gets things done, no matter the problem at hand, while staying true to focusing on achieving business results. He’s always positive and optimistic but at the same time understands the realistic approach to strategically delivering on effective and efficient work that makes a difference.

Nominated by: Fahad Osman, regional director Rita is one of the most self-reliant, multi-disciplinary and down-to-earth people I have had the pleasure of working with. She came in, had an idea and ran with it, in every sense of the word. The Shop is a concept that started from nothing and is now a critical part of our service offering to clients and a large part of our success in getting so many clients to be able to be brave on TikTok.

I was in sales for two years in the IT services Industry. After Covid-19 hit and I sat quarantined at home, I started reflecting on shifting my career completely, knowing that I’m very passionate about marketing, social media and branding. Knowing I do not have background experience, I took advantage of the time at home to take marketing courses, such as Google’s Digital Marketing Fundamentals 40-hour course. After six months of job hunting and rejections due to the background experience written on my CV, I was able to land a job as an entry-level brand manager/associate marketing manager at Fine HH and I’m very happy. I’m currently preparing my master plan.

SANA ASHRAF, 24 Copywriter, Huawei

Nominated by: Suzanne Kanianthra, director at GolinMENA It was evident from day one that Sana is the perfect catalyst between agency and brand. She is very proactive with information and has a deep knowledge of technology and its core industries. Sana’s out-ofthe-box thinking, coupled with stellar storytelling skills, allows her to produce great work no matter the obstacle or deadline. Sana is a team player, and effectively aligns the agency’s expertise with the needs of the brand. Sana’s can-do attitude is contagious and always motivates her peers and agency to scale new heights, together.

SAYALI KAVALEKAR, 29

Digital communications specialist – Middle East, Turkey and Africa, Boehringer Ingelheim Nominated by: Khaled Hakim, account director, Socialize Collectively and as a team, Sayali is one of our favourite clients. She is a very determined, passionate, and focused professional who has been on a successful quest to bring her organisation up to speed in leveraging social and digital media channels to help her organisation achieve its marketing objectives in the region. We highly commend her efforts day-in and day-out, as over the years we have seen her grow her role and function within her organisation to take on a flagship position. She ushers in different departments and business units in the region to explore the realm of social media communications in their marketing mixes. And beneath it all, Sayali is a true team player through and through and this sincerely extends beyond work and is genuine inside and out.

FACES TO WATCH

June 27, 2021

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SHERRY ITALIA, 30

Communication specialist, IBM Middle East & Africa

SAZIA RAHMAN, 21

Digital and brand specialist, Lenovo

Nominated by: Jumana Akkawi, communications leader, Middle East & Africa Sherry is one of the most imaginative and creative people I have ever met. Her drive to do things differently, curiosity for new skills and appetite for treading unchartered waters are admirable. An outstanding writer, Sherry traverses the complexity of simplifying technology for our audience with utmost ease and is an integral part of every creative brainstorm and campaign execution. She is passionate, dependable, smart and knows how to keep her calm through challenging situations. I will confidently say that Sherry is someone to watch out for as she rises through the communications spectrum over the next few years.

Nominated by: Mamadou Diallo, consumer and brand manager MEA Sazia started her journey at Lenovo as an intern to support the marketing team and delivered outstanding results that resulted in her becoming permanent in the company as digital and brand specialist for MEA. Sazia is a result-driven individual; she will always strive to learn. In addition to that, she is a hard worker and passionate about her job. What makes her so special is her ability to learn and execute quickly.

Sazia has a bright future ahead and I am sure she will be one of the most talented female marketing leaders of our region.

YARA HASAN, 26

Brand & communication specialist, GCC region, BRF Nominated by: Yuliia Hryhorash, brand & communication Yara is very passionate about her work and in a short span since joining the BRF team has already successfully implemented marketing campaigns that positively contributed to brand equity and business results. As a team player, she always adds great insights and her own personal experience to each project.

WAFA GHAOUI, 30

Founder, Wafa Ghaoui Interior Design

YOUSSEF ASHRAF MAHMOUD, 24

Regional marketing manager – facial category, Fine Hygienic Holding Nominated by: Shyair Ganglani, facial tissues senior category head The primary difference between a salesperson and a marketer is the scale at which the latter has to convince their audience to take action – being able to influence millions of people to love your brand. Few are able to do this as naturally as Youssef, who leverages his emphatic style of storytelling, blended with his mastery of marketing and business fundamentals, to create award-winning communication and campaigns that resonate with his consumers and grow our brand. Since joining the facial business for FHH, Youssef has been instrumental in exponentially strengthening our brand fundamentals, growing our equity, top-of-mind awareness, and consideration scores by double digits. Definitely a brand builder to keep an eye on in the future.

Nominated by: Salah Mustafa, VP digital marketing, Wego Wafa definitely deserves a nomination for her talent and successful presence on social media to build her own personal brand and grow her business in a matter of a few months. In less than one year, Wafa Ghaoui has managed to launch her own interior design brand and successfully acquired and delivered more than 10 residential projects (villas and apartments) in Dubai , leaving a trail of happy customers.

YUMNI AL MACKEENI, 26

Associate, marketing & business development, Savills Nominated by: Klarissa Crasto, associate director Yumni, our lead designer and digital marketing wizard, takes on the workload of seven markets and multiple service lines across MENA. Yumni’s know-how in digital marketing helps us level up our game. He always reaches new heights with his can-do, will-do attitude, proving that he is a determined self-learner, naturally passionate about marketing and design.

Fay Lloyd, head of marketing and business development, says: “Yumni brings creativity to the most mundane of tasks, and sees every communication challenge as an opportunity to experiment, learn and push boundaries.”

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June 27, 2021

FROM BOOMER TO BOOMING What one creative learned from his challenge to amass 100,000 TikTok followers in a year

I

n an office morning huddle in early 2019, our CEO Akanksha Goel said the word “TikTok” maybe 18 times as she was trying to encourage us to tackle this platform that is rising in popularity, asking us to start thinking about how we can integrate it within our media mix.

Though technically I am not a boomer, the generation gap between Gen X and Gen Z is wide enough to make me feel closer to my father than I am to 20 year olds. And in this meeting I was held back with PTSD from previous meetings when Snapchat was a thing, and then IG Stories were a thing, this feature, that feature… We simply have to reset and rework our understanding of these platforms from scratch. Every time the word “TikTok” was brought up, a piece of my soul left me. I am 38 and struggle to be relevant to the younger generations. My gags are referred to as “senior jokes” and I heard the word “grandpa” when I struggled to get out of my chair.

I came out from this meeting with a clear vision in mind. I knew what had to be done so I started drafting my resignation letter, but midway through I became angry. I was never a quitter and I love experimentation. I am lucky to be in a field where experimentation sets you apart, and experiments can fail – so I can still win by failing.

I can never understand a platform by reading about it. I was always a lazy student and never was the type of person to look up articles and share them with my peers to show intellectual superiority. Enter “The Experiment” test subjects: myself, a 38-yearold Egyptian male with a somewhat good following on other platforms, and Taline, a 24-year-old Gen-Z female from Jordan with a next-to-none following on other platforms. The goal: Reach 100,000 followers in a year’s time.

We both downloaded the platform, signed up and fell into the rabbit hole of vertical stories. I was mesmerised by the fun of it, but was intimidated by the creativity, so I decided to film my kitten (you know how kittens grab hearts on social media), then eagerly waited for the promise of going viral and achieving my goal with the first video. A few days in, I got one notification with someone liking the video, but that was it.

Taline tried lip syncing to trending music and included a colleague in her video. It also tanked. We decided that we need to think this through and study how we can achieve engagement before we do anything.

We started studying the trends and what makes them trendy. Is it about how it makes you look? The fun aspect to it? The ease? The creativity? What about the environment?

What if we duet with a famous person? What about hashtags? What about thumbnails? A million questions set the premise of our new experimentation criteria, leading us to the following conclusions:

‘‘I DECIDED TO FILM MY KITTEN. A FEW DAYS IN, I GOT ONE NOTIFICATION WITH SOMEONE LIKING THE VIDEO, BUT THAT WAS IT.”

1. HIJACK HASHTAG

CHALLENGES Hashtag challenges are designed to activate the TikTok community.

They are easy, fun, and allow room for creativity. They also include a good example (usually seeded by an influencer). However, simply copying the trend will not get you anywhere, but instead think about how you can twist the challenge just enough for it to be different and relatable.

For example, the hand gesture challenge was taking place. I decided to replicate it while

tapping into a part of our Egyptian culture, which is signalling microbuses using hand gestures. I set the context for my Tiktok using the text overlay, and then did the sequence using the well-known microbus-signalling hand gestures. In less than 24 hours, the video received 100,000 views and incredible engagement.

2. COMEDY IS KING Comedy is innate to the Middle East. When it comes to sense of humour, we are the biggest fans and critics. Drawing the line between cringe and actual comedy is where things get interesting. The deeper the joke and its relatability, the better it performs, so take a trend and think of how it can put a smile on someone’s face.

3. DON’T TRY TOO HARD A huge pitfall for both brands and people is trying too hard, forcing a joke or a trend on someone while being deluded that the more complex it is, the better people will take it in. When designing a TikTok response to a challenge, or coming up with one, think of the laziest person in the room and what would take for them to actually take part.

Trying too hard with the music, the dance, or the concept is only going to contribute to the failure of the TikTok. Going over the top with production, using voice overs (adsy ones) or using non-native filters is not going to create any appeal because it cannot be replicated by others.

4. ALWAYS INTERACT

The algorithm in TikTok is extremely clever.

It can stress-test a good TikTok by exposing it to an ever-growing sample of audience. So receiving likes moves the needle, but comments are what makes it fly. Never leave a comment unanswered, even if it is negative (this can actually be turned around by using the video reply response feature).

Commenting back, liking the comments and tagging others into your conversation programmes TikTok to detect that this is an engaging piece of content. That doesn’t mean make the video and comment on it yourself, just make sure that within the first few days you are checking regularly and responding accordingly.

The experiment took a lot of trial and error.

Just like any other experiment, we needed to change the parameters of testing as we went.

I ended up understanding how it works up until today, but tomorrow brings a new set of challenges, as more people join the platform and the competition for attention increases.

TikTok is adapting fast, catering to business needs. This is making it a less organic platform but rather pay-to-play, which is not a bad thing because at the core it is still a swipeable choice for the user. But, in essence, TikTok is built on sharing joy and fun, so don’t take yourself too seriously (that goes for brands too) and enjoy the ride.

And yes, both and Taline and I managed to surpass 100,000 followers. This experiment also helped me craft one of Socialize’s most successful TikTok campaigns for General Mills’s Bugles, reaching a whopping 1.2 billion views during the campaign period.

By AMR YOUNIS (aged 38), creative director, Socialize

June 27, 2021

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BAT TO THE FUTURE The Basic Attention Token uses cryptocurrency technology to bridge users, advertisers and publishers, writes Starcom’s Elio Kassab

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n technology, attention has come to be a commodity that is sought after by advertisers, publishers and content creators alike.

Nevertheless, opening up a single web page today, you find yourself bombarded with tons of advertisements through a display format or video, as well as the first Google search result you get with the stamp “Ad” right next to it. Needless to say, ad technology overwhelms one’s attention span and also overwhelms one’s operating system, RAM and battery life, with more than 22 per cent consumed because of back-end ad operations. In response to this, more than 600 million users worldwide have opted in for ad blockers. This has increased the incentives for advertisers to reach more users and for publishers to decrease their advertising revenue (with publishers losing more than 66 per cent of this over the past decade).

Malleable to its core, the digital advertising sphere, which has seen fundamental growth since its inception, today finds itself at an intersection that puts the three fundamental blocks of advertising on an equidistant triangle: advertisers, publishers, and users. It does so with the advent of the Basic Attention Token (BAT).

An ERC-20 token powered over the Ethereum blockchain platform, BAT is a digital utility token that aims to power the advertising industry and disrupt its current foundational values. So, as users of the internet, neither you nor we have that much say over whether you would like to see a display banner or a pop up prompting you to try out a brand’s latest product.

Why is that so? Clearly, the reason is that conglomerates like Google and Facebook take advantage of their platforms and enforce the ads that they show their users. So you end up asking yourself: “Did I ever agree to see

‘‘WITH THE HELP OF BRAVE, BAT AIMS TO GIVE BACK POWER TO THE USER IN CHOOSING WHETHER TO WATCH AN AD OR NOT.” all these ads?” Of course, you did not, but do you have any other option? Not much, except for that ad blocker.

Today, however, users are not just worried about seeing ads. What worries users most is their privacy being taken advantage of by advertisers and by publishers, and we can see a rift in the market happening, with security updates in Apple’s mobile operating system iOS 14.5 stirring up controversy and raising countless question marks over the future of what ads can and cannot do.

Today, users have no incentive to watch an ad, but would rather get rid of it. This, of course, hurts the advertiser as the user’s attention is

not with the ad but instead is looking to finish it. Of course, this drops the advertiser’s return on investment, with publishers suffering as advertisers decrease their investments into the digital sphere.

However, what if there was a way to close this issue from its core, a way to entice the user to watch an ad willingly?

So far, we have discussed the whole ad atmosphere and how it sounds from the perspective of the team behind BAT, but how do they plan on turning the whole scenario upside down? The BAT ecosystem runs closely alongside a browser called Brave, a piece of software similar in

appearance to Google Chrome but with a built-in ad blocker. After the user installs the software, they get asked whether they would like to earn BAT rewards for getting served ads.

Depending on the action taken by that user, they earn BAT tokens. You can exchange BAT for other cryptocurrencies on exchanges like Binance, tip your favourite creators that have also done partnerships with Brave and commit to giving back to the community from 1 to 5 BAT a month to the websites you visit the most. With the help of Brave, BAT aims to give back power to the user in choosing whether to watch an ad or not. If they choose to, they are compensated for their time.

BAT has seen great results since its integration into the Brave browser’s first global private ad platform: 25.4 million monthly active users, 9.2 million daily active users, 1 million verified creators accepting BAT, millions of wallets created, thousands of ad campaigns with leading brands and growing utility in the most innovative names in blockchain gaming. The results make BAT one of the most successful altcoin projects to date, with big brands latching on including Verizon, PayPal, Lenovo and BMW. From an advertiser’s point of view, BAT might not end up working, or it might become one of the best uses of the Ethereum network. More importantly, it is vital to take out of this that the crypto community is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with, primarily when disrupting industries. If Bitcoin maximalists have advocated for the asset to become the next digital gold, what prevents BAT from being the next big thing in the advertising industry, and what costs will advertisers incur with more power given back to the users?

By ELIO KASSAB, executive – media, Starcom

Exclusive paintings, sculptures and photography from award-winning international artists.

Sculpture by Freeman Lau

Photography by Baber Afzal

Painting by Almudena Angoso

June 27, 2021

News, views & trends from across the spectrum

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NOW IS THE FUTURE

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June 27, 2021

A VIEW FROM

Alex Malouf

Alex Malouf is Corporate Communications Director MEA at Schneider Electric

WHERE ARE ALL THE BRAVE COMMUNICATORS?

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Given we’re a region with a rich oral-based storytelling tradition, you’d think it’d be a given for people to communicate this way. But all I seem to be hearing is silence.

ravery is such a wonderful notion. In one part, it’s defined as the ability to face danger and endure pain. On the other, it’s all about the idea of doing something unusual and taking a risk. For me, 2020 (and 2021) can be best defined by the former, by our need to endure over and over again as we face one crisis after another.

But I’ve kept asking myself about the need to take risks. As communicators, what have we done to do things differently? As everything around us changes, have we also embraced the opportunity for change? Do we truly understand what our stakeholders are going through and have we tried new concepts and ideas to improve how we engage with others?

I’ll give a simple example of this: let’s look at audio. None of us would deny the importance of audio when it comes to communications. In the digital world, audio has been around for decades (the first podcasts date back to the 1980s, under a different name). And over the past year we’ve seen new formats and platforms, such as Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces. Others see the opportunity in this space, including Spotify and Facebook.

This all sounds wonderful, but where are the communicators, I ask myself? How are we using these new channels to engage? Given we’re a region with such a rich oral-based storytelling tradition, you’d think it’d be a given for people to communicate this way. But all I seem to be hearing is silence.

And then there’s the basics; think of a single source of truth during a crisis, such as a website.

It’s remarkable how few organisations have set this up, both for their people and for their external audiences. Instead, we have to trawl through a myriad of social media sites to understand what’s going on.

I love being a communicator. It allows me to be creative and engaging. And it gives me the opportunity to make an impact for the better in people’s lives. And I experiment. Some ideas work out, some don’t. But this is what’s exciting, the constant need to change and dip your toes in the water to understand if there’s a better way to help others understand a message or get a conversation started. And that’s why my favourite communicators are those who are brave and who push for new ideas.

To end this note, I’d like to ask each and every one of you to share one brave thing you’ve done recently. Tell me what you’ve done that’s different, that’s new, and that makes a difference.

I’d love to hear your stories of bravery.

TECH TIPS

Facebook expands Shops feature Facebook has expanded its Shops feature to its messaging app WhatsApp in several countries and to Facebook Marketplace in the

United States.

Facebook will also be introducing personalised advertisements in its Shops service based on users’ shopping behaviour and is investing in immersive technologies such as augmented reality and artificial intelligence that will be the “foundation for the way we shop online going forward,” it has said in a blogpost.

“Last year, when Covid-19 shut down local economies, we accelerated the launch of Shops to help businesses sell online,” said Facebook. “We believe the shift to online, social-first shopping is not temporary. One in three shoppers globally say they plan to spend less time in-store even after the pandemic is over, and almost three-quarters say they get shopping ideas from Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp. We’ll continue to support economic recovery by making further investments in Shops and waiving fees for business sellers through June 2022.”

It added: “Businesses want to offer shopping experiences that are seamless and relevant and we want to provide a shopping experience that is as personalised as your News Feed. That’s why we’re introducing Shops ads solutions that provide unique ads experiences based on people’s shopping preferences. For example, we’re testing the ability for businesses to send shoppers to where they are most likely to make a purchase based on their shopping behaviour, such as curated products that you might be interested in from a Shop or a business’s website.

In the future, we’ll explore ways to help brands further personalise their Shops ads by providing special offers or promotions to select shoppers.

“This builds on existing tools for business that help them find the right audience like Shopping Custom Audiences and ads with product tags, which enable businesses to send people to their Shop directly from an ad. Together, this suite of personalised Shops ads solutions can help businesses move customers from discovery to purchase.”

June 27, 2021

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Faulty futurology

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ecently I subscribed to the US version of Condé Nast’s Wired magazine again. I sign up every few years, as it has great journalism and some fascinating topics. It can read like written Ted Talks. Then I realise that a lot of it is either over my head or too self-involved and I let my subscription lapse till I’m next feeling like a Silicon Valley tech bro.

One of the things I enjoy from magazines like Wired (and also from speakers at Cannes and Lynx and other industry events) is their visions of the future. It’s all flying cars and Bitcoins and NFTs. And what’s even more fun is seeing how they get the future wrong.

We’ve all laughed at the Victorian prints of life in 2020, with hot air balloons and steampunk top hats, and basically all the fads and foibles of the day taken to extremes. It’s the same in The Jetsons. The 60-year-old cartoon envisions a future that is basically the 1960s in space.

Whenever we imagine the future, we tend to take whatever is common right now, and combine it with whatever seems most advanced right now, and futurism tends to tell us more about the time predictions were made than the time they are looking forward to.

So I was very happy when browsing Wired’s website to find an article from 1994 entitled, “Is Advertising Dead?” (Don’t let my talk of subscriptions put you off; you can google it and read it for free.) Some of the ideas were great, such as computer viruses made by advertisers that will insert their products into the media we are consuming. I see what they were getting at there, but they underestimated how much advertisers are held to account for their ethics today. If every PDA (there’s a lot of PDA references) we saw in a film were to be hijacked by a Sony-sponsored virus and branded with that company’s logo, I suspect there would be an outcry, rather than bland acceptance that it’s just what advertisers do.

But some of what the authors predicted wasn’t too far off the mark. They wrote: “Likely we’ll see the new media renegotiate the power relationships

between individuals and advertisers.

Yesterday, we changed the channel; today, we hit the remote; tomorrow, we’ll reprogramme our agents/filters.

We’ll interact with advertising where once we only watched; we’ll seek out advertising where once we avoided it.”

All of this rings true. We do indeed seek out advertising to interact with it online – think of Snapchat filters.

And we also use ad blockers to get rid of what we don’t want – which is often Editor the old-fashioned, invasive ads that were dominant in 1994 and have only austyn.allison@motivate.ae substantially changed by migrating @maustyn from offline to online channels.

We spend a lot of our time as an industry trying to predict (cynics would say ‘guess’) the future of advertising.

The features in this issue under the umbrella of what we have called The New Marketing look as much at the next as at the now, at what will come after cookies are phased out, as the world dares to look forward to life after Covid.

They do this by looking at what is concerning us right now (measurability, health concerns) and what feels advanced (all things digital).

The chances are that we’ll get it wrong in the details, but if we get it right in spirit we’re doing well. That 27-year-old Wired article did well when it said: “The economics of advertising, promotion and sponsorship – more than the technologies of teraflops, bandwidth and GUI – will shape the virtual realities we may soon inhabit.” I’d argue that they hit the nail on the head there.

AUSTYN ALLISON

Simplicity works, complexity doesn’t B

A VIEW FROM

DAVE TROTT

Dave Trott is the author of Creative Mischief, Predatory Thinking and One Plus One Equals Three

y 1830, people began wondering if electricity could be used to communicate over long distances.

It would be called telegraphy, and there were two competing versions.

In the UK, there was Sir William Cooke and Sir Charles Wheatstone’s; in the US, there was Leonard Gale and Samuel Morse’s.

Cooke and Wheatstone’s system was the more elaborate – it sent electric signals that would move needles at the receiving end into semaphore-like patterns.

It required complicated equipment to send and receive, and also two people – one to watch the needles and one to write down the letters as they were shouted out.

It worked well enough in the UK, where it was mainly between cities.

But Gale and Morse’s system was better suited to the vast open spaces and small towns of America.

Their system was much simpler – it just switched the electric current on or off, it could be on very briefly or slightly longer, that was it.

If it was short it counted as a dot, slightly longer and it counted as a dash.

They arranged the dots and dashes into an alphabet, and that was all there was to it – no moving parts, no elaborate equipment.

The simple sound of the dots

and dashes meant it only took one operator to write down the letters without having to look at the machine.

The letter E would be just one dot, the letter I would be two dots, the letter T just one dash, the letter M two dashes, the other letters a mixture of dots and dashes.

One person sitting on their own in the middle of nowhere could send and receive messages.

The simple code was called Morse, named after the inventor.

Cooke and Wheatstone’s system disappeared, and Morse code dominated all communication for the next 100 years.

Cooke and Wheatstone’s failed because it depended on complicated hardware, the Morse version succeeded because it depended on the simplest possible software – people.

Morse code could be learnt and used anywhere, with or without electricity.

Ships at sea could use lights to blink messages in dots and dashes, prisoners in jail could tap messages on the bars using tin cups.

The system adapted to people, even without any hardware at all.

In a prisoner of war camp in 1941, Major Alexis Casdagli knitted a wall hanging, which he took with him from camp to camp.

The Germans let him display it as an example of how “effete” the British soldiers were.

But all the other British prisoners could read the pattern that was stitched into it.

It clearly read “F**K HITLER”, stitched many times over in Morse code.

In Vietnam, in 1966, a downed US pilot was forced to make a video.

To camera, he said: “I get adequate food and clothing and medical care when I require it.”

Meanwhile, his eyelids blinked “T-O-R-T-U-R-E” in Morse code.

The reason Morse code is still in use nearly 200 years after its invention is its simplicity.

Morse knew that, with the human mind, simplicity works and complexity doesn’t.

We could learn from that.

Complexity is a security blanket, it makes us feel safer, as if we’ve been clever.

But actually complexity is weakness, it just means we haven’t thought long enough to get to the simple answer.

It means we stopped while it was still complicated, we didn’t persevere to simplicity.

So we never bought a ticket into the mind of people.

And that’s the place where simplicity always beats complexity.

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June 27, 2021

GCC Cinemas… ‘It is nice to see cinema operators put competitiveness aside.’ (YO)

Valiu… ‘The acting is spot on.’ (PM)

Chevrolet… ‘I smiled quite a few times while watching it.’ (YO)

Oppo… ‘Oppo could not have chosen a better brand ambassador.’ (PM)

Nakheel Malls… ‘It should have been less commercial and staged.’ (YO)

June 27, 2021

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Private View YASSER OBEID

PABLO MALDONADO

Managing director, AKA Media

ECD, Wunderman Thompson

(1) GCC CINEMAS I am a firm believer that by joining forces we are stronger. It is nice to see that cinema operators put their competitiveness aside and joined forces to tackle a common problem – empty cinemas. The campaign is amusing and the copy is catchy. While it does talk about how going to the movies is an experience, I am not sure that comparing it to the home viewing experience is the way to lure viewers in. It is much more than that. It’s like comparing eating at a nice restaurant and eating take out, two very different things.

(1) GCC CINEMAS Cinema is magic. The ritual of preparation, the popcorn, findings your seats, when the lights go out... It’s all part of an experience you don’t get from watching a movie at home. So the message of this piece feels right to me, the reasons behind it are clear. I feel like I needed surprise in the idea and in the execution, that same one that the VO mentions. I missed the feeling of being in the movies, and in the story of this video.

(2) VALIU You don’t often stumble upon a Ramadan campaign that is this good – so 10 million views in as many days is hardly a surprise. The idea, the script, the production values, the animation when combined produce a truly memorable film. The production value is great with the 3D animation and live action coming together really well. The acting is great, along with the camera work.

(3) CHEVROLET While I am not entirely familiar with the original show, I have many friends that are. As a cornerstone of television in the 80s and 90s, this is what a whole generation of today’s Arab professionals grew up on – so the target audience is spot on. I smiled quite a few times while watching it – it is entertaining. I can imagine that those viewers would feel a sense of nostalgia and emotion. There you have it, all the ingredients of a successful campaign.

(4) OPPO There are not many people in the Middle East that can generate as much engagement as Mo Salah. Oppo could not have chosen a better brand ambassador for themselves. He resonates with both men and women, young and old. The campaign’s simplicity is great, and effective. #CaptureTheSpirit is a great call to action to the photographer inside us and, looking at the content generated, people got quite creative.

(5) NAKHEEL MALLS I love the concept. For us here in the region, Ramadan is a very special time. It is a time of spirituality and togetherness. And for those of us who are away from our families, our ancestral homes, the opportunity to be home with our family is priceless. The spot is emotional and relatable. However, I feel the execution should have been different. It should have been less commercial and staged, and more authentic. Not using made-up models, but real people. Not a perfectly comped screen, but real pictures. It should not have been so polished, because life never is, and neither are emotions.

(2) VALIU: THE ENDLESS SHOPPING LOOP It has the best execution, craft, and rhythm of these five ideas that I judged. It has a slight humorous tone that we’ve seen a few times before. The acting is spot on. I would have liked to see them take a few more creative risks, as the product and tone of the brand are modern and fun.

(3) CHEVROLET: FAWAZIR RIDDLE SHOWS I found the intention behind this campaign interesting in a time with as much Ramadan communication everywhere. I applaud the ‘TikToker’ style that the videos have, where some gags are better than others. However, it seems to me that without a good social strategy and demonstrable engagement, it is yet another campaign that goes unnoticed.

(4) OPPO: #CAPTURETHESPIRIT 58 million impressions across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in less than a month. It seems to me that it speaks to the good use of a celebrity like Salah and what his image associated with a brand generates. #CaptureTheSpirit as a concept seems to me quite predictable and wasted for a phone and a special date. I would have liked something a bit more different and not talking during Ramadan like all brands do year after year.

(5) NAKHEEL MALLS: RAMADAN IS BETTER TOGETHER This seems to me the most exciting within the works that I had the chance to judge. Some of the acting is unfortunately a bit artificial and some emotions not so real. Maybe it would have been worth doing the experience in a real way, with no actors, and portraying equally powerful stories.

However, it seems to me that in these challenging times it is a concept that is worth seeing twice and reinforces the meaning of Ramadan more than ever.

GCC Cinemas

Title: #BetterAtTheMovies Cinemas: Vox, Novo, Muvi, Cinépolis, AMC, Empire, Roxy, Star, Mukta A2 Agency: Freedom

Valiu

Title: The Endless Shopping Loop Agency: TNA – Tarek Nour Advertising Campaign star: Ruby Directors: Hamba (Ahmed Hamdallah), Sherif Doss DOP: Ahmed Tahoun Production house: Kay-Oh Productions

Chevrolet

Title: Fawazir Chevrolet Agency: Commonwealth McCann Dubai ECD: Andrej Arsenijevic Copywriter: Habiba Allam Junior art director: Mayar Essawy Arabic copywriter: Abdulkader Asfari Editor: Ayman Hussein Production house: Boomtown Director: Ingrid Bawab

Oppo

Title: #CaptureTheSpirit Agency: M&C Saatchi

Nakheel Malls

Title: Ramadan is Better Together Agency: Momentum Senior creative directors: Muhammad Ali, Shahbaz Khan Zobairi Associate creative director: Vishal Munyal Senior art director: Jad Alchamaa Strategic planning manager: Sameer Islam Media ageny: Initiative

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June 27, 2021

The Spin Not all the press releases that hit The Spin’s inbox are strictly relevant to a magazine about advertising. Though many of them do give us fodder for this column. And some of them teach us things we had never thought to ask. Like how to burn a candle. We got a whole instruction guide from Kind by Design candles, and now we feel foolish for thinking you just, you know, light the things. You should trim the wick before each burn, keep them in a cool dark place (obviously it gets less dark when you light them) and keep the jar when you throw them out. We were most intrigued by one line, though, that made us wonder how many young tea lights we have traumatised over the years: “Every candle has a burn memory – a particular memory of the first time it was lit and burned. This determines how the candle will burn for the rest of its entirety.” No wonder they hide in cool, dark places.

The lovely thing about children is that they are uncorrupted by this cruel capitalist world. And that’s why children’s books are great. They are about simple things. Caterpillars that are hungry, for example. Or cats that wear hats. They are about being good, enjoying the world and loving life. The corruption of greed and wanting stuff comes later. So there was evidently a gap in the market for this book of “ABCs for the future watch collectors”. It’s never too young to covet, right?

The Spin has been wanting to go on a road trip for a long time, but while we can find plenty of #vanlife options for taking dogs and cats along, we’d never found an option for our more peculiar pets. Luckily, Dubizzle has us covered.

Appointments Memac Ogilvy has named globally recognised creative TILL HOHMANN as its new chief creative officer for MENA, where he replaces Juggi Ramakrishnan.

Hohmann rejoins the agency, having served as its UAE executive creative director from 2007 to 2010. He will be dedicated to sustainable and innovative growth for major clients in advertising, brand and content; experience; public relations; healthcare; and growth & innovation, across the MENA region.

Dubai-based Middle East Communications Network (MCN) has launched Craft, a dedicated production agency. To lead regional operations, MARCUS JOHNSTON has been appointed managing director for the Middle East. As part of the McCann Worldgroup roster of companies, Craft will enhance MCN’s production capabilities in response to growing client demand.

TishTash Marketing and Public Relations has appointed SCARLETT SYKES as a PR director.

Sykes has more than 14 years’ experience in the region, during which time she has launched and retained some of the biggest international and home-grown brands and concepts, including Blue Marlin Ibiza UAE, Gemfields, The OZEN Collection (Maldives), Sofitel Dubai The Palm, Les Mills and Asprey.

OSN has named ALEX MURRAY as head of creative. Murray joins from J. Walter Thompson Dubai.

He will be responsible for leading a team of art directors, editors and writers to deliver on the company’s creative vision across all verticals. His previous experience includes BBDO Chicago and Dentsu Japan.

Programmatic advertising specialists Crimtan have named PHILIPPE KHOURI as their new MENA business director. He

brings more than 20 years of media experience, from an account executive planning the media budget of a major fast-food chain opening in early 2000 in the region to heading 70 per cent of the commercial revenue of one of the most prominent media group in the UAE. CLAIRE FLETCHER has been appointed as head of engagement at OMD UAE. She will be developing new ways brands can connect and engage with audiences by placing empathy and human connection at the forefront.

ALANNA TURPIN has been promoted to director of sustainability and culture at OMG MENA. She will propel OMG’s culture while building on sustainability and wellness initiatives.

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