Comm73-Jan-2011

The marketing and advertising resource • January 2011 • Issue N° 73 • www.communicate.ae Talk is free: VivaKi’s Rami Saad says ­telcos need new ­revenue Page 32 streams

Getting connected: UM Cairo’s Dina Hashem on Egyptian clients’ move Page 52 into digital

Virtual lessons: Mobinil’s Rania El Bakry on what she’s learned in three Page 34 years online

OPINION Good intentions This month’s Communiquestion asks the industry: What’s your new year’s resolution? Find out who’s hitting the gym, who’s hitting the streets and who’s heading out to sea. Get your nicotine patches ready.

(Page 16)

QUIZ Speak, memory Can you remember how many ­Facebook users there are in Saudi Arabia, when Raja Trad joined Leo Burnett, and what Foursquare means? We’ve put together a new year quiz to test your knowledge of the industry in 2010.

(Page 44)

MEDIA Reader’s digest We delve inside Ad Age’s latest white paper on media consumption trends around the world and find that in India and China, print is alive and well, video is booming, and ­television is now a necessity, even in the poorest places.

(Page 46)

CAMPAIGN Sales drive

HELLO OPERATOR (Page 54)

Which media can expect a call from big-spender telcos, and who should reverse their charges?

Registered in Dubai Media City. Cover Image: Photolibrary

A MediaquestCorp publication Egypt.................... E£ 10 Jordan.................... JD 4 Kuwait................. KD 1.2

Lebanon.........L£ 5 000 Morocco.............DH 22 Oman................ OR 1.5

Qatar.................... QR 15 Saudi Arabia......... SR 15 Switzerland........... SFR 8

Syria................... S£ 100 Tunisia................. TD 2.5 U.A.E....................DH 15

JANUARY 2011 | LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Runaway winners W

hen I was about 11 I ran up a massive phone bill to premium rate numbers one summer. Not saucy chat lines – well, not for another five years, anyway – but the sort of odd services that were buried in the back of the Yellow Pages in the late 1980s. High-cost lines would let a caller listen to Beatles songs, racing tips, or the weather forecast for the South Coast.

I was just pushing random numbers (well, dialing them, back in those days) and seeing what pre-recorded message machine would pick up.

My parents weren’t amused, and I had to do a lot of odd jobs and forfeit a lot of pocket money to pay off that debt.

Someone got rich out of it, though. Well, a few people did: the companies providing those 0898 services, and British Telecom itself, which sold them the lines. Oh, and the phone book that listed the numbers.

Looking back on the experience, I am still hardpushed to imagine who might want to listen to Hey Jude through a bakelite handset, but there was evidently money to be made by telecoms companies from more than our

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weekly chat with Granny.

Many of those more esoteric premium-rate options have now migrated on to the Internet, where they are generally a lot more practical and free.

Still, telcos want to make money off more than just voice calls. More to the point, they need to. Skype may still be banned in many of the region’s states, but that doesn’t mean people haven’t found ways to use it.

Call costs are dropping, and telecoms companies need to make money from more than just a quick chat.

They have always diversified more than other sectors, offering a wide range of services and even hardware such as phones (Etisalat and du both deal in Apple’s iPhone, for instance).

And telecom services – such as data and roaming packages – are tailored to that hardware. This makes the service providers unique, in that they offer more than just a raw commodity: One of the speakers at the recent Al Arabiya telecoms debate at Dubai’s Media and Marketing Show pointed out that electricity providers will not sell you mains-powered appliances to consumer the power they pipe to your house.

Our cover story on page 22 looks at telcos. It looks at them mainly because they are one of the superpower categories on the region’s – and the world’s – advertising stage. They control an awful lot of ad spend. See page 28 to get an idea of just how much.

VivaKi’s Rami Saad tells us on page 32 that telcos need to find new revenue models as voice stops generating the income it once did. And we learn from Mobinil CEO Hassan Kabbani on page 28 that Egypt’s providers are in a worse situation than elsewhere in the region, as they can’t bundle their services together.

However, Mobinil’s head of digital comms, Rania El Bakry, says the telco is marketing more online. Which is a common theme. Telcos are learning to use the services they provide to sell more of what they’ve got to consumers.

It’s a meta world out there, and telcos are spending money to get money – only these days they are not getting it from bored children dialling random numbers to hear about the probability of precipitation in Plymouth.

Austyn Allison, managing editor editor@communicate.vg

CONTENTS | JANUARY 2011

Contents

COVER: Telecoms marketing

THE COMMUNIQUESTION

24

FEATURES

22

28 28 30 32 34

Telcos are the biggest spenders on marketing in the region. Read our special report to see what they are talking about A new calling: Telecom providers are leading the charge into digital marketing Get it together: Mobinil’s CEO tells us telcos in Egypt are hamstrung by not being allowed to bundle their services Telephone bills: Which regional operators spend the most on advertising?

X-pert Files. Your call: Ogilvy’s chief digital officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, says providers should use their own technology to reach customers X-pert Files. Changing numbers: Voice calls are becoming less profitable, so telecoms companies need to find new models, says VivaKi’s Rami Saad Q&A. Switching on: Mobinil’s head of digital comms, Rania El Bakry, tells Communicate what her team has learned since it started going online in 2007

SHORTS 8

NEWS 10 12 14

Public rehab: MEPRA punishes its Agency of the Year for doctoring its winners’ photo Advertising. UAE IAA elects a new board Research. UM unveils findings from its Wave 5 social media survey Marketing. Kellogg names new CEO

16

38 42 44 46 48 50

We ask the industry: What’s your new year’s r­esolution?

Public Relations. Winning spirit: The second ­MEPRA Awards raise the bar for regional PR Marketing. Shop and change: Dubai’s malls are changing the way they chase consumers Quiz. Starter for 10: Test your memory of the year’s big – and not so big – stories with our new year Communiquiz Media. Around the world: Ten trends shaping global media consumption Media. Leading lights: Ten lessons from Ad Age’s Media Mavens Marketing. Hammer time: Bargain hunters pick up brand names for a song at an auction in New York

DEPARTMENTS 52 54 58

Q&A. Cairo calling: UM Cairo’s MD Dina Hashem says Egypt is switching on to digital Work. Selections from the regional and international creative scenes The Dish. Coupons, calculations and cowboys

JANUARY 2011 Published by: Medialeader FZ/MediaquestCorp Medialeader, P O Box 72184, Dubai Media City, Al Thuraya Tower 2, Office 2402, Dubai, Tel: (971) 4 391 0760

CO-CEO Alexandre Hawari CO-CEO Julien Hawari MANAGING DIRECTOR Ayman Haydar CFO Abdul Rahman Siddiqui GENERAL MANAGER Simon O’Herlihy CREATIVE DIRECTOR Aziz Kamel DISTRIBUTION & SUBSCRIPTION DIRECTOR JP Nair, jp@mediaquestcorp.com MARKETING MANAGER Maya Kerbage, m.kerbage@mediaquestcorp.com KSA GM Tarek Abu Hamzy, tarekah@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: +966 1 4194061 LEBANON GM Nathalie Bontems, nathalie@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: +961 1 492801 NORTH AFRICA GM Adil Abdel Wahab, adel@medialeader.biz, Tel: +213 661 562 660 FRANCE SALES DIRECTOR

Manuel Dias, dias@arabies.com, Tel: +33 1 4766 46 00

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FOUNDER Yasser Hawari MANAGING DIRECTOR Julien Hawari MANAGING EDITOR AustynAllison CREATIVE DIRECTORAziz Kamel JOURNALIST SidraTariq CONTRIBUTOR Rania Habib ART DIRECTOR Sheela Jeevan SENIOR SUB EDITOR Elizabeth McGlynn SUB EDITOR Salil Kumar ART CONTRIBUTORS Jean-Christophe Nys, Aya Farhat EXTERNAL AFFAIRS Manuel Dias, Maguy Panagga, Catherine Dobarro, Randa Khoury, Lila Schoepf, Laurent Bernard PRINTERS Raidy Printing Group ADVERTISING The Gulf MEDIALEADER, PO Box 72184, Dubai Media

City, AlThuraya Tower 2, Office 2402, Dubai, Tel: (971) 4 391 0760, Fax: (971) 4 390 8737, sales@mediaquestcorp.com Lebanon Walid Ramadan, walid@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: (961) 339 9087 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tarek Abu Hamzy, tarekah@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: (966) 1 419 40 61, Ghassan A. Rbeiz, ghassan@mediaquestcorp.com, Fax: (966) 1 419 41 32, P.O.Box: 14303, Riyadh 11424, Europe S.C.C Arabies, 18, rue de Varize, 75016 Paris, France, Tel: (33) 01 47 664600, Fax: (33) 01 43 807362, Lebanon MEDIALEADER Beirut, Lebanon, Tel: (961) 1 202 369, Fax: (961) 1 202 369 WEBSITE www.communicate.ae

JANUARY 2011 | SHORTS

D’oh!

MEPRA Agency of the Year sanctioned for doctoring victory photograph by Austyn Allison

A

t Communicate we’ve long been fans of d’pr. The Dubai-based independent PR agency has – generally speaking – not spammed us with press releases, has persuaded its clients to answer our questions, and has treated us as journalists with our own agenda and deadlines. We’ve also published several articles by that agency’s Jamal Al Mawed. In short, d’pr is a team of good, competent communicators.

So we weren’t particularly surprised when the results of this year’s Middle East PR Association Awards were announced (see “Raising the PR bar,” page 38). D’pr won four prizes, including Young Communicator of the Year for Al Mawed, and was named Agency of the Year.

The MEPRA Awards reward best practice in PR. Now in their second year, they are finding their feet and helping establish the Association as a credible industry body. There have been teething problems, but the Awards

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are on their way to respectability, and rewarding good PR can only improve the industry’s overall competence.

Rebecca Hill, MEPRA’s executive director, tells us in our story on the awards that many of the winning entries will become case studies in how to do good PR. However, d’pr will be keen to forget one example of less-than-best practice.

Shortly after the awards, and the inevitably flurry of self-publicity sent to us by the winners, we got an e-mail from d’pr asking us to replace a photo sent earlier – “an internal version that should not have been circulated to the public” – (see The Dish, page 58).

The reason for this recall became clear a couple of days later, with the issue of a public notice from MEPRA. It is titled, “Registered agency d’pr is sanctioned for sending out doctored photograph.”

The notice explains, “The photograph, an official record supplied by

MEPRA, was changed by the agency, resulting in the sponsor logos being airbrushed out and d’pr’s logo being inserted.” UAE dailies Gulf News and Khaleej Times both published the offending image.

MEPRA has put its foot down. D’pr is on probation for a year, and has been fined 15,000 dirhams. (MEPRA is an association with voluntary, fee-based membership.) D’pr is not allowed to enter the Agency of the Year category next year, and each employee has to sign a copy of a code of practice, to be lodged with MEPRA. Like naughty school kids, d’pr’s staff have to undertake internal training on ethics, and must attend a MEPRA symposium in May, on the same theme.

Camilla d’Abo, d’pr’s managing director, tells Communicate the agency accepts the sanctions and will comply.

D’Abo sent MEPRA an apology, saying, “Our excitement and pride surrounding the achievement overtook our

normal practices and we realize that we made an undeniable mistake. We had intended the image to be a memory of the event, and recognize this should not have been distributed to the public to promote our agency through this award. We now realise that this action jeopardized the position of the sponsors and the code of practice of MEPRA.” All this rather overshadows the other news from d’pr, which is merging with sister company d’events into Dabo and Co., an “integrated communications company” with a digital communications division (see Regional News, page 10).

The episode shows that even the best PR agencies have much to learn.

Let’s hope the whole industry can take a lesson from this episode that as PR improves, not only will good work be rewarded, but bad practice will be punished too. Better ethics mean higher standards, which means better PR. And the whole communications industry can only benefit from that.

JANUARY 2011 | REGIONAL NEWS

IAA UAE chapter appoints new board Lance de Masi remains Association’s president

AD MEN. (Back row, from left) Hasbani, Harfouche, Haber, Khanna, de Masi, El Zein, Raad, Palau. (Front row, from left) Abouhamad, Boueri, Khoury, Tuqan Tuqan Dubai. In December the UAE chapter of the International Advertising Association elected a new board for its 2010-2012 term.

Lance de Masi, president of the American University in Dubai, was re-elected president for a second term, and Nassib Boueri, regional CEO of Y&R/Wunderman, was re-elected vice-president, also for a second term.

Gray Business Communications’ Barry Gray and The Brand Union’s Hermann Behrens are among the board members who didn’t stand this time. Newcomers include Flip Media’s Yousef Tuqan Tuqan, TBWA/ Raad’s Reda Raad, and Mindshare’s Elie Haber.

“There is a significant body of work to progress, and I welcome this additional term and the impetus of the new board members to further consolidate our activities,” says de Masi in a release. “The UAE chapter’s agenda is ambitious, and with the combined talents of our new board members, the UAE chapter will continue to deliver on its core objectives: to be industry advocates, provide guidance on best practice, foster talent and education, and deliver meaningful benefits.”

The new board members are: President: Lance de Masi (president, American University in Dubai); vice-president: Nassib Boueri (CEO, MENA, Y&R/Wunderman); treasurer:

Ghassan Harfouche (managing director, MEMS, Choueiri Group); general secretary: Faris Abouhamad (managing partner, Interone Resonance Middle East); board executives: Kamal Dimachkie (managing director, Leo Burnett Dubai, Kuwait & Lower Gulf); Rajeev Khanna (group advertisement manager, Gulf News); Marwan Kai (managing director, Media International Services); Douglas Palau (vice-president, Impact BBDO); Saad El Zein (chief communications officer, Baynounah Media Group, Abu Dhabi); Elie Haber (managing director, Mindshare); Nadim Khoury (managing director, Grey Dubai); Ziad Hasbani (CEO, Weber Shandwick, MENA).

ing in Paris, London, New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Since 2008, JC Decaux Dicon (a 75-25 joint venture between JC Decaux and local partner Dicon) has managed the outdoor at Dubai International – the fourth busiest airport in the world.

Dubai Airports owns and manages the operations of both Dubai International and DWC.

Decaux has also announced the launch of a year-long campaign for pharma company Gulph Pharmaceutical Industries (Julphar) in Dubai International’s Terminal 3 Arrivals area.

Decaux’s regional sales and marketing director, Yoann El Jaohari, says in a release, “As an advertising and promotion media, Dubai International Airport is the absolute choice for corporate communication for top brands.

“We have concrete statistics that prove the large and yet still fast-growing passenger base, the [spending power] of the passengers (which is higher than the nation’s average), and the public perception of airports as a prestigious environment.”

 I OUTDOOR Decaux bags DWC airport Dubai. Outdoor supplier JC Decaux Dicon has won a 10-year advertising concession with Dubai Airports for the Dubai World Central Al Maktoum International (DWC), the new airport being built in the Jebel Ali area of Dubai.

When finished, DWC will be the largest airport in the world, in terms of volume and size. It will feature five runways and as many as four terminal buildings. It will have the capacity to handle up to 160 million passengers a year. DWC’s first phase opened for cargo operations in June.

JC Decaux has concessions in many international airports, includ-

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 I AGENCIES Saatchi appoints new EMEA CEO

London. Ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi has appointed Robert Senior as its CEO for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). Senior, a founding partner of Fallon in London, is currently CEO of Saatchi Saatchi Fallon UK Group. He will replace Simon Francis, who is to head up holding company Aegis’ EMEA operations.

Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts says in a statement, “I am sure he [Senior] will bring his trademark drive, persistence, and energy to what is a critical growth role for [Aegis]. I have enjoyed working with Simon tremendously. We wish him well.”

Roberts adds, “Having the UK separated was not our long-term goal, and we will therefore take this opportunity to bring the UK into the heart of EMEA. [Saatchi’s London base in] Charlotte Street remains our soul, and with Robert continuing to lead our business there, it can only help all our clients and all our people come together as One Team One Dream (sic).” I DIGITAL D’pr and d’events become Dabo & Co Dubai. Dubai-based independent sister agencies d’pr and d’events are rebranding as Dabo & Co, which will also have a digital communications division.

The brands were launched six years ago by sisters Camilla and Lucy d’Abo, and now boast 35 staff covering 15 countries for clients including Visa, HSBC, BMW, and Hilton.

“The rebrand is perfect timing, as we’ve had a great year [d’pr won Agency of the Year at the recent Middle East PR Awards] and we have ambitious growth plans,” says managing partner Lucy d’Abo. “We’re always striving to offer the very best creative concepts and client servicing, and moving toward greater integration will allow us to provide an even stronger offering.”

Managing partner Camilla d’Abo adds, “Digital communications are going to become a key focus for us. We recognize areas such as social media are only going to grow in importance.”

AP-Michael Shumakher-eng-24x33.pdf

12/23/10

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JANUARY 2011 | REGIONAL NEWS

UM unveils findings of Wave 5

VERY BRIEFS Tahadi Games launches new gaming chapter AGFA named platinum sponsor for Sign and Graphic Imaging industry awards Al Arabiya holds second Media and Telecommunications Panel at Media and Marketing Show ADCB, Etisalat, Etihad Airways and LG win at Arabian Sponsorship Awards Flip Media wins DSF account, including app development and website relaunch

MAKING WAVES. Speakers at the Dubai launch of Wave (from left): Tom Roy, CEO of innovation, UM; Raghu Venkataraman, chief strategy and investments officer at du; Akanksha Goel, founder of Socialize; Dr. Baher Al Hakim, “master chief,” CloudAppers; Edward Poultney, editor, AMEinfo.com; Joe Nicolas, regional director, communication planning, UM; Katrib; Denh Dip, director, Lighthouse UM; Zubair Siddiqui, managing director, UM Dubai Dubai. Digital agency UM recently revealed the findings of its fifth annual social media tracking research program, Wave 5. Researchers polled 37,600 Internet users aged 16 to 54, from 54 countries. While UM bills Wave as “the largest and longestrunning dedicated social media study in the world,” this year was the first time the MENA region was included.

One headline finding was that, globally, we now contact more people in our personal life through social networks than through any other means (including e-mail, phone, and face-to-face contact).

A UM statement says, “The research showed that consumers in the region are not just finding info and shopping; they are contributing, writing, uploading pictures and videos, creating status updates, and live-streaming their everyday happenings.”

Paul Katrib, managing director of UM MENA, says, “Social media continues to change the way we interact with our peers and fundamentally makes an impact on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behavior. For marketing communication specialists, it is crucial to understand consumers’ social media usage, influence,

and motivation to help brands build equity, drive sales, increase loyalty, and create brand endorsement.”

Wave found that in MENA, 26 percent of regular Internet users have joined at least one brand community, compared with 57 percent who visited official company websites. Of those people who joined a brand community, 76 percent said they thought more positively of the brand as a result, 72 percent said they are more likely to buy the brand, 73 percent said they feel more loyal to the brand, and 63 percent said they recommended others to join.

Brag localizes Puma Creative Factory campaign Radio Spice gets makeover Re-brand-ing creates new look for Arabian Watches & Jewellery and Pen ME Emirates Printing Press honored in Sappi Elephant Magazines (Web) category Start appointed by Dubai Airports to develop 50th anniversary brand Al Jazeera Children’s Channel launches Fafa and Friends preschool book series in collaboration with Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Etihad guest loyalty program welcomes millionth member

Waseet classified newspaper celebrates 100th issue in Warsaw, Poland Yahoo Maktoob launches OMG Arabic Our bad Dubai. In last month’s cover story (see “2010’s most awarded,” page 27, Communicate, Dec. 2010), we ranked campaigns by the awards they won over the course of the year. We also ranked agencies according to the number of points their campaigns clocked up.

We mistakenly credited both GM’s “Confessions of corporate spies” and

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the same brand’s “Car wars: double agents” to Leo Burnett Dubai, when they were in fact executed by Starcom MediaVest Group Dubai.

“Meet Emirates” was also attributed to Leo Burnett Dubai, rather than SMG Dubai.

And we didn’t count GM’s “Shut down the recession,” which won a Silver at the Dubai Lynx.

The two GM campaigns were the same, but entered under different names. Combined, they scored 10 points – a Gold on our scale.

So Leo Burnett Dubai should have 16 points less, giving it a score of eight. SMG Dubai should have 33 points, putting it in third place in our agency rankings.

We regret the error.

Go to our Web site for the full stories: www.communicate.ae

JANUARY 2011 | INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Procurement execs get marketing, says new survey Marketers don’t see procurement officers as cost-cutting villains. According to research by the World Federation of Advertisers, their No. 1 goal is to build relationships, and the idea that procurement focuses only on cost is out of date and inaccurate.

The WFA surveyed 85 marketers responsible for spending a total of $50 billion on communications each year. They were asked to rank their procurement priorities from a choice of four criteria: building third-party relationships, optimizing processes, managing money well, and driving learning and improvement.

Respondents were given 100 points to allocate; most gave 32 points to building relationships and then split the other 68 points fairly evenly across the remaining three categories.

Steve Lightfoot, communications procurement manager at the WFA, says, “Procurement is not going to go away.

If agencies stick their head in the sand about it, then procurement is going to walk all over them. If you want to feel part of a client’s business objectives, you need to engage in procurement.”

Marketers like Procter & Gamble and Unilever do it well, according to

Struggling Kellogg names new CEO Kellogg Co. president and CEO David Mackay abruptly announced his retirement last month, handing the reigns of the struggling cereal giant to a company insider who is expected to continue the company’s new focus on innovation.

“The company didn’t really telegraph anything to indicate that

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© Corbis

In WFA poll, advertisers say building relationships is most important goal for procurement department

THIRD-PARTY PRIORITY. Procurement execs a P&G and other big businesses prioritize relationship building Lightfoot, but many companies admit they still have a lot to learn. Only 49 percent say their own procurement units are knowledgeable about marketing.

This is partly because the discipline is still relatively new: Five years ago, half of WFA marketers had procurement departments; now 95 percent do.

Lightfoot says, “We are keen to push forward the benefits of what procurement can be, and we wanted Mackay was considering retirement,” says Matt Arnold, an Edward Jones analyst. “Obviously, he had a pretty challenging year and that probably had something to do with his decision.”

Kellogg, the US’s largest cereal maker, has been losing share to No. 2 General Mills and earlier this year lowered profit forecasts, citing competitive pressure and lingering impact from last summer’s recall of some cereal brands because of odd smells.

Bryant, 45, was born in Australia.

He joined Kellogg in 1998, working with units in Australia and Europe in support of global strategic planning.

He had two separate stints as chief financial officer and is a member of the company’s global leadership team.

UK probes marketing of “sexualized” products to pre-teens British retailers could be banned from selling “sexualized” products aimed at children following a government inquiry into “age appropriate” marketing.

The review, started last month, is looking at whether new rules are

to wade into the debate because we have authority. It’s not about cutting costs, it’s about maximizing value.”

The WFA offers two important tips to help companies do procurement well. The first is to hire people with marketer or agency experience.

“You can’t buy what you don’t know,” he says.

The second tip is to involve agencies early in the process. He says, “Pro-

needed to prevent the marketing of items such as “porn star” T-shirts, pole-dancing kits, Playboy pencil cases and padded bras to pre-teens.

British Prime Minister David Cameron recently labeled marketers “irresponsible” and said he was shocked to find models of beds named “Lolita” targeted at six-year-olds. One of the government’s pledges when it came to power in May was to take action to protect children from what it referred to as “premature sexualization.”

P&G promo causes bomb scare in Brazil In a Procter & Gamble promotion gone drastically wrong in Brazil, the bomb squad was summoned after panicked residents called the police to report

curement has to be embraced by all parties, otherwise you get a good cop/ bad cop scenario between procurement and marketing. You can’t give [the agency] a carrot and then beat it over the head with a stick.”

The WFA’s membership includes major marketers such as McDonald’s Corp., Kellogg’s, Coca-Cola Co., Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, Microsoft Corp., L’Oreal, and Nestle. two large wooden crates abandoned in public squares in the upscale Ipanema Beach area of Rio de Janeiro.

The suspect crates were intended to be a teaser promotion for P&G’s biggest-ever sweepstakes in Brazil, called “P&G Faustão’s Airplane,” with draws by Fausto Silva, Brazil’s most popular TV host. Six winners would win the equivalent of an airplane full of prizes.

P&G quickly canceled plans to distribute more crates and issued this statement: “The boxes placed in parts of Rio de Janeiro were part of a P&G promotion. We profoundly regret any discomfort caused to the population. The promotion has been immediately suspended in Rio and other cities.”

© Corbis

JANUARY 2011 | OPINION

The Communiquestion

Good intentions

We ask the industry: What’s your new year’s resolution?

RONALD HOWES Regional managing director, Ogilvy One and Ogilvy Action It would be great if we skip 2011 and celebrate two years in a row putting all our learnings of the past three years behind us. Greater clarity will bring both simplicity and fun back into the business, to enable us to produce outstanding work.

MAYA KANAAN Associate media director, Starcom MediaVest Group, MENA I will take more risks. Calculated ones. By me. The first thing they teach you in risk management is to identify and assess threats, devise methods to reduce them, and put together a strategy to prioritize these methods, eventually aiding better decision making. I will not do this.

What I will do is go out of my way to inject a sense of reasonable adventure into my day-to-day life.

Being a media specialist, I will accelerate the rate of my clients’ adoption of new thinking and help them venture into alternative ways of reaching their audience outside their comfort zone (the 30 second TV spot).

And in my personal life, this simply means saying more “yes” and less “I’m not sure.”

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DAVID PORTER Media Director, Unilever North Africa & Middle East To better understand our consumers by going where they go: home visits, markets, salons and saloons, websites, public transport, cinemas, labor camps.

MONICA MOGAB Group manager for brand PR, P&G Gulf Here are my new year’s resolutions. They are all about toning. Running on the beach in the morning at least three times a week to tone the body. Sticking to a strict daily skin cleansing and moisturizing routine with Olay to tone the skin. Putting five minutes aside each day to reflect and tone the soul (inspired by the book The Monk who Sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma).

YUSEF TUQAN TUQAN CEO, Flip Media To run a sub-four-hour marathon. I’ve come as close as 4:24, but running is always the first thing to suffer when I have late nights in the office or business travel.

If I work smart, delegate well, and spend less time in airport lounges, I’ll get more time to run.

© Getty/Gallo Images

JANUARY 2011 | OPINION

GAVIN DICKINSON Executive director of publishing, Abu Dhabi Media Company Keep innovating in the print media arena, stop looking at my computer so much and get out and meet human beings in our fantastic industry. Keep looking for new, fresh talent while developing the team around me. Forget cost cutting and strive for more efficiency in all our endeavors.

FADI CHAMAT General manager, PHD Abu Dhabi Move to our new office in TwoFour54, Abu Dhabi.

After long months of waiting, we’re finally moving to our new office in Abu Dhabi, a spacious setup in twofour54 where we we’ll be much closer to the market and our clients, and will be able to support them hands-on.

I feel optimistic about the Abu Dhabi media market and feel that there’s still lots of untapped potential.

EDMOND MOUTRAN Chairman and CEO, Memac Ogilvy My new year’s resolution will be to help raise the selfesteem in our industry. I have thought about the fundamental principles you must stick to if you want to continue to succeed, and these are values, morals and ethics.

Fundamental principles you must stick to if you want to continue to succeed: Values are what we learn from childhood; the “stuff” we absorb from our parents and immediate surroundings. Morals are the intrinsic beliefs developed from

18 I Communicate

the value systems of how we “should” behave in any given situation. Ethics, on the other hand, are how we actually do behave in face of difficult situations that test our moral fiber.

Without this triangle of beliefs, business would lose its humane side and its end purpose of making a positive impact on lives.

MARWAN QUTUB CEO and co-founder, 3Points Advertising There’s not much time left to make history. 2011 has to be a turning point to reach new heights on a personal and business level. This will come as a result of making the time, not finding it.

ELIE HABER Managing director, Mindshare My new year’s resolution is to get rid of my BlackBerry’s red flash and better control my business and my life – not the opposite. The dilemma is we can’t live without our BlackBerrys but we can manage without the red flash.

That can save lots of quality time for ourselves, our families and friends.

TONY ORSTEN CEO, twofour54 I’ve spent three years living in Abu Dhabi and 35 years in the cynical media industry, yet I have never been moved by so many extraordinary acts of kindness as I have here. So my resolution is to try, try ever so hard to think more of others and to be kind and generous.

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ENVIRONMENT EXHIBITION

JANUARY 2011 | OPINION

YVES-MICHEL GABAY General manager, MEC MENA On a personal level I always have the same list of good resolutions: quit smoking, get back home earlier (19.30 would be great), do sports, lose 10 pounds, go to sleep earlier, etcetera, so I will continue with this list. I’m used to it.

On a professional level: try to convince my professional counterparts, media partners that we have to play the game as jointly responsible players in order to improve our industry in all domains – research, payment, fees, pitches, etcetera.

And on less serious note, I want to finish the decoration of our new office before the end of 2011.

20 I Communicate

HERMANN BEHRENS CEO Middle East, The Brand Union I don’t want to utter or hear the following words next year: do_n_u_n; r_c_s_i_n; c_un_h. What we have now is our new world. Fun, excitement and joy will move from temporary moments to being core to my existence.

I will travel to the Rugby World Cup to watch the mighty All Blacks crumble under home-country pressure.

I will find more time to love my family and my friends. Don’t wait until tomorrow to do what needs to be done today.

ZOYA SAKR Editor in chief, anaZahra.com Someone once told me, “The hardest work we do is the work we do on ourselves,” and those words stuck with me as I felt how powerful they were and how easily one can neglect personal development on both the professional and personal fronts.

This has inspired me to set my goal for 2011, which is to continue working on developing my knowledge and expertise in order to remain abreast of the everchanging consumer trends, behaviors and demands.

HUBERT BOULOS Regional planning director, JWT (Previously regional managing director, MAC DDB) 1. Move back to Dubai. That resolution will be fulfilled first, as I am leaving DDB in Doha and Joining JWT Dubai as regional planning director on Jan. 2.

2. As I will be moving from DDB to JWT, get to the bottom of the story of who really invented strategic planning (was it BMP, which is now DDB London, or JWT London?).

3. Spend more time with my dog.

4. Learn to kite surf.

IAIN JACOB CEO, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Starcom MediaVest Group Spend less time on airplanes; use videoconferencing technology. Get better at cycling.

DIMITRI METAXAS Executive regional director of digital, OMG Spend more time on and below the sea, as this is the furthest you can get from the corporate world.

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JANUARY 2011 | COVER STORY

HOLD THE LINE Communicate’s special report on the marketing strategies of telecom operators in the Middle East and beyond

22 I Communicate

Hello operator Page 24 Changing times Page 28

Š Getty/Gallo Images

Opportunities knock Page 30 Ringing in changes Page 32 Mobinil’s new horizons Page 34 Communicate I 23

© Corbis

© Corbis

JANUARY 2011 | COVER STORY

Hello operator

Telecom providers are moving away from traditional media and embracing the digital revolution

by Rania Habib

T

ALEXANDER RAUSER. CEO of Connect

ABDUL KARIM. Strategy director at Luciola DDB

24 I Communicate

he days of telecom companies being just tele­ phone service providers are long gone. Today, a telecom operator provides a consumer with a landline, a mobile line, Internet, data services, satellite television packages and, sometimes, even a virtual friend. No longer content with straightforward advertising, telecom operators are also moving away from being traditional marketers, while at the same time remaining the biggest advertising spenders in the region.

“Because of the dynamic nature of the busi­ ness and the ever-evolving technology, telecom brands are being constantly redefined,” says Abdul Karim, strategy director at Luciola DDB, ad agency DDB’s telecom brand strategy arm.

According to Alexander Rauser, CEO of Connect – the digital arm of Omnia, a Dubaibased integrated communications agency – if there was ever an industry that should lead the innovation pack, it is telecom.

“As a telecom provider, you have to set benchmarks when it comes to the use of tech­ nology,” Rauser says.

And that’s just what regional telecom providers are doing, to a certain extent. UAE-based du is lead­ ing the way, according to Karim, as the digital and social media boom has changed the way companies

market themselves. “Players such as du are at the cutting edge of marketing, as they’ve embraced digital media and the Web 2.0 culture,” he says.

“The world of marketing and communica­ tions has been evolving, and the social media boom has made a particular impact on the way we do things,” Karim says. “Obviously, Internet penetration is still low in some places in the region, so the shift hasn’t happened here yet in a big way. But that’s not to say telecom provid­ ers aren’t doing the same things here that they would do elsewhere.”

INTEGRAL PART. Ramzi Ghanem, general man­ ager at Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) in Riyadh, says digital is an integral part of the agency’s campaigns, “after a lot of effort across all telecom providers.”

“We did a lot of fighting to include digital in our plans, and now everyone is aware of how important digital is, especially Internet providers,” he says. “And we are going beyond the usual buttons and banners into engagement models and content. I would say that as an aggregate, digital constitutes about 8 to 10 percent of mar­ keting budgets now.”

JANUARY 2011 | COVER STORY

CONSUMER-ORIENTED. Vodafone has a clear promise with its “Power to You” campaign, according to Karim

MARC BOU HARB. Deputy managing director of Drive Dentsu in Saudi Arabia

26 I Communicate

In Saudi Arabia, three telecom operators dominate the market: Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Zain, and Mobily. Ipsos research shows that in 2009, STC was the biggest spender, with about $30.6 million spent on cinema, outdoor, radio, television, magazine, and newspaper ad­ vertising. And Ghanem says STC, the kingdom’s oldest telecom provider (and an SMG client), is now the most active digitally on the Saudi scene. “They have a dedicated team, and they’re always trying to recruit fans and open dialogue with consumers,” he says.

Other operators in the region have also adopted social media strategies. Mobily has set up a YouTube account, which broadcasts ads and interviews, and their chief informa­ tion officer (CIO), Medhat Amer, is on Twitter (@mobilyCIO). Marc Bou Harb, deputy manag­ ing director of Drive Dentsu in Saudi Arabia (one of Mobily’s two agencies, the other being Impact BBDO), says the rise of smartphones has allowed customers and markets to create a two-way dialogue, as opposed to the old-school one-way messages delivered through traditional media. “It allows customers to give immediate remarks and comment about any brand, anywhere, and at any time,” says Bou Harb.

“Internationally, marketers have adapted social media marketing and are reaping great benefits from it. Old Spice is a case in point [see “Did the new Old Spice ads strike gold?” page 14, Communicate, September 2010]. Region­ ally, marketers have been reluctant to jump on

the social media wagon, mainly because they perceive it as a tool that will give control to the customer.”

Bou Harb says Mobily’s policy is to listen to customers, and that the telecom operator has therefore adopted social media marketing. “We are still improving in the field, but results and feedback have been encouraging and we see a bright future ahead for us in social media marketing,” he says.

“Mobily’s YouTube and Facebook pages have been gaining more and more fans every day, and we always receive feedback from custom­ ers about new campaigns. This has helped us perfect our communication and make it more relevant to our target audience,” he adds.

In the UAE, du is active on both Facebook and Twitter. Connect has been working with du on its online marketing campaigns since 2009, the first of which was “Smart People.

Smart Choices.” It featured local and Bollywood celebrities such as Mohamed Sayed Harib, the creator of UAE cartoon Freej, and Indian actor Shahrukh Khan, endorsing du’s Elite plan for high-net-worth individuals, offering them special numbers, prepaid account benefits on a post-paid plan, and monthly rewards. The campaign focused on integrating social media tactics for the online campaign.

“As a first initiative, the social media tactics proved to be a great success, driving traffic and being a vital communication channel with audiences,” Rauser says. “This has led to social

COVER STORY | JANUARY 2011

media becoming a vital ingredient for all online marketing campaigns such as ‘More Talk. More Music’ [whereby customers receive free talk time and entertainment content upon purchasing a pay-as-you-go line], and fully social campaigns on Facebook.”

DRIVING FORCE. So what happens to traditional advertising mediums when telecom compa­ nies start to focus on their digital and social media campaigns? With digital advertising spend still making up only about 10 percent of budgets, there’s no doubt that traditional media is still king.

Karim says, “For the time being, typical conventional media such as print, television, radio, and outdoor are obviously still the driv­ ing force here. In Saudi Arabia, for example, Internet penetration is only about one-third of the population, and the user base is still mainly youth. But telecoms is for everyone, and provid­ ers want to sell to everybody. So they’re still doing a lot of traditional advertising.”

Bou Harb says for Mobily, innovation and differentiation are key. “What we provide Mobily not only tackles having effective solutions for their products and services, but also looks at how these can be synergized with their corporate brand,” he says.

“Today, when agencies provide solutions, they always fail to recognize that these cam­ paigns can become legendary for their clients if, and only if, they are synergized with the values of the corporate brand. In other words, doing a 360-degree campaign spread over a longer duration and focusing on all the touch points, rather than heavy media spend based on a two-week outdoor or press campaign, is what we live by. We do all this to ensure that whatever Mobily launches is supported by in­ novative communication campaigns that are simple, creative, and effective.”

In Saudi Arabia, Ghanem says, the days of branding telecom operators have passed. “STC used to be government-operated and was pri­ vatized in 2000.”

“Then a license was awarded to Mobily, and then another license to Zain almost three years ago,” he continues. “That was the era of building the brand. Now it’s about competi­ tion, getting more market share and retaining clients. So what you’ll see are mainly responsedriven activities, promotions, etcetera. The battle is split into two now that the market is saturated: trying to gain market share from each other, and at the same time trying to grow revenue base by increasing valueadded services.”

TACTICAL PLANS. Karim says from what Lu­ ciola DDB has seen, most telecom providers in the region are still focused on tactical plans.

“They are not building on the larger promise, and they’re not emotionally engaging,” he says.

LEADING THE WAY. Du is setting benchmarks when it comes to use of technology, says Rauser “It’s all about messages and offers. They need to have a strong identity and strong offering.

[UK telco] Vodafone has a clear promise with ‘Power to You,’ while with [international pro­ vider] Orange, everything about their tone is clearly focused on branding.”

“Zain, for example, used to have a nice promise, but then it just became about a dif­ ferent look, and became tactical in nature,” he continues. “The UAE is a better market [in the region] in that regard, with operators such as du engaging with consumers really early on.

Consumers have a brand affinity to du, and it seems that in the world of branding, if the affinity with a brand is high and the market share doesn’t correspond, it’s only a matter of time until it does. That’s what we saw with du a while ago, but now it’s catching up.”

Ghanem says that as a market becomes saturated, individual operators will not have increased advertising and marketing budgets.

“So they’re trying to find ways and means to stay in touch and in proximity with consumers, at a lower cost,” he says.

“Digital is one of the biggest emerging trends, and it’s one of our main challenges at SMG to be 100 percent digitally enabled and reap that segment to benefit our clients. It’s the future of our communication,” he adds.

TACTICAL PLANS. As for the future of marketing for telecom operators, Bou Harb says social

media and the Internet will be the main play­ ers. “Traditional marketing methods will still be available. However, the emphasis will shift toward interactive media, since customers are slowly, but increasingly, discovering their ap­ peal,” he says.

Bou Harb adds that operators will have to move toward customization and niche target­ ing, with mobile phones increasingly becoming essential in people’s lives.

“Telecom services are for everyone, but since phones are part of people’s lifestyles, it is essential that communication reflects the various lifestyles. Therefore, we no longer mass communicate a product or service,” he says.

“We need to adapt each product’s unique proposition to various target audiences and groups. This helps us stay relevant with each niche, and helps us build a strong emotional bond with consumers, gaining brand loyalty in a market that lacks it.”

On a regional level, Karim says market­ ers need to “shift gears” in terms of moving with the digital trend. “There’s a lot of buzz coming from our clients about what they can do,” he says.

“Some are not talking about it at all, saying this is not for the region, while some want to do what du is doing,” he continues. “But I think change is happening. We have to restructure ourselves as advertising agencies and brand strategists, while clients need to start looking at digital and preparing themselves for that.”

Communicate I 27

JANUARY 2011 | COVER STORY

Changing times Mobinil’s boss discusses the challenges telcos face in Egypt

O

ne of the challenges facing telecom operators in Egypt is that the country’s government prohibits them from offering packages of, for example, landline, broadband Internet, and mobile services, as is seen else­ where in the world.

Speaking to Communicate, Hassan Kab­ bani, president and CEO of Egyptian telecom operator Mobinil, calls for change. “It’s time for more deregulation and liberalization. We need to open the different activities to allow joint

efforts. This will help provide better service to customers,” he says.

The Egyptian market is now reaching a point of maturity, he says. Service providers have begun competing on more than price. For the past decade, competing brands have been driving prices lower. “Price is not the only factor,” he says, “because you reach a level with your price where you cannot go below it. Services should be the real differentiator between competitors.”

He adds, “Previously we were focusing on growth and providing basic services in order to satisfy demand for telecommunications voice services. Now we are seeing that more appli­ cations and more content are needed by the consumer, and these applications and services will come to our environment.”

Consequently, says Kabbani, telecom providers are looking at developing their mobile banking, mobile Internet, and mobile advertising services.

TELECOM COMPANIES’ ADVERTISING SPEND TOTAL MONITORED SPEND ACROSS ALL CATEGORIES, RANKED BY TOTAL SPEND FROM 2007 TO 2009.

TOTAL MEDIA SPEND USD OPERATOR Spend in 000 $ 2007 2008 2009 2007 to 2009

HASSAN KABBANI. President and CEO of Mobinil

28 I Communicate

Etisalat STC Zain Mobily Vodafone Mobinil Du Q-Tel Telecom Egypt Wataniya Telecom Total

92,396 68,641 44,648 81,064 55,925 53,554 42,744 11,401 13,446 8,365 472,184

94,487 102,735 109,594 38,467 50,129 48,707 33,028 24,508 16,436 7,283 525,374

MARKETS: UAE,KSA,KUW,BAH,OMN,QTR,JOR,LEB,EGY,YEM,SYR,PAN

92,591 101,883 108,403 95,386 60,646 57,795 52,707 38,487 24,980 16,348 649,226

187,078 204,618 217,997 133,853 110,775 106,503 85,734 62,995 41,416 23,631 1,174,600

SOURCE: PAN-ARAB RESEARCH CENTER (PARC)

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X-pert Files

Opportunities knock Patou Nuytemans of Ogilvy Group tells Communicate how operators can engage with consumers in the digital age

T

PATOU NUYTEMANS. Chief digital officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Ogilvy Group

30 I Communicate

he first real opportunity for telcos is in creating more conversations around their brands. Based on the kind of world we live in today, and know­ ing that people trust each other’s opinions a lot, the opportunity to try to turn consumers into brand advocates is interesting: It’s about getting earned media, not just paid media.

They can use the power of an idea to make people really talk about their brand and share information about it. To make that happen, there needs to be a real reason for people to talk about them; a nicely wrapped communication message can’t do that.

A good example is (UK telco) T-Mobile’s “Life’s for Sharing” brand promise (pictured, above). Instead of just advertising, T-Mobile came up with consumer stunts, such as a flash mob at a train station, and a public karaoke event. Obviously, those stunts only reach a certain number of people, but they record that content and turn that into paid media execu­ tions; for example, they turned the karaoke into a three-minute television commercial.

They get the word out by making the brand idea come to life through some kind of experience, and feed it out and distribute it through traditional and social media. This is a real opportunity for telecom operators, but we only see a few of those.

The second opportunity for telecom operators is on the digital shelf. Before digital, you could only know a consumer was interested in a product because he or she came into a store. In the digital age, people are thinking about your brand because they’re searching for you on the Internet. So it’s not about pushing messages; it’s about picking up on consumer behavior. But that’s not enough, be­ cause people are increasingly looking at each other’s opinions on brands and looking for the experiences

they’ve had, certainly in the telco category. So what can you do to drive more constant conversation about your product?

Regional telcos are in the early stages of that.

They can do so much more. They’re opening channels in social media, such as on Facebook and Twitter, where people can ask questions and raise issues, and the telcos will respond in a public forum. It’s a combination of customer service, listening, responding, and asking people for ideas.

It’s a comprehensive approach that has an impact on people’s purchasing decisions.

In the middle – and you don’t see many examples of that – is the opportunity to give people something they voluntarily want to spend time with. Add some kind of value, be useful, be entertaining, or be cool.

Instead of just saying something, try to create an experience around it, and make consumers want to spend time with it because it’s interesting. This helps build conversation.

For telecom operators, and all brands, it’s about digital, it’s about 21st century marketing. In today’s age, it’s not about broadcasting messages, but about new marketing behavior with a new set of skills. And that’s why it’s really hard. It’s about applying new principles to create engagement, and that’s inspired by what consumers want: not to be talked at, but to be a part of building the brand.

As a telecom operator, you should use your own technology and medium to empower the message you want to get out there. If you look at the consumer uptake of anything digital or social in the region, it’s huge. But the spend on digital ad­ vertising is only a few percentage points, which is lagging behind the rest of the world. Consumer uptake, however, isn’t lagging.

JANUARY 2011 | COVER STORY

X-pert Files

Ringing in changes Telecom operators will need to create new revenue models as voice calls become less profitable in a rapidly evolving market, says Vivaki’s Rami Saad

I

RAMI SAAD. Director of emerging technologies at Vivaki in Dubai, Starcom MediaVest Group’s media wing.

32 I Communicate

t was right after I clicked the checkout button on Amazon.com some time ago – officially making a digital streaming device my own – that I realized I needed to extend my home network to my bedroom.

Despite my telecom operator being on speed dial, I opted to explore another option: powerline technology. A powerline adapter is a straightforward plug-and-play device that allows you to transmit data through a regular socket, essentially creating a data network minus the revolting gray cables pinned to your walls. My little experience demonstrates what’s happening to the telecom industry today.

A study by the IBM Institute for Business Value confirms that revenue generated by voice calls and SMS is diminishing. The UAE, for example, is taking serious steps to improve its capacity to capture the eventual shift to data revenue by switching to a nationwide all-fiber network by 2011. But sadly the majority of our regional players are too busy playing a tactical game.

They anticipate new device technologies to launch the most competitive accompanying data plan. They race to provide us with the most comprehensive bundles of services that include bandwidth (theoretically) capable of streaming 155,000 hours of video a month, not to mention the lavish features of IPTV. But in tomorrow’s world, being the digital world’s gatekeeper is not enough. You cannot survive for long by selling connectivity and communication.

We spent all of 2005 preaching “Content is king” to our brands, and now it is the telecom operators’ turn. It’s time to shake up the revenue stream.

One of the easiest methods of building content into your existing platforms is via video on demand (VOD). Du is doing a great job of packaging licensed and – somewhat – premium content in two forms of VOD service: one-time rent or an unlimited monthly viewing experience.

Sports enjoys a big following in the region.

Abu Dhabi Media Company’s decision to partner with UAE telecom operators to stream the English Premier League online is another great example of how offering mobility and content is a winwin-win formula – satisfying the operator, rights owner, and consumer.

The rapid pace of technological changes is allowing Web portals, content producers, music labels, and handset manufacturers to swallow a considerable slice of the traditional carriers’ pie by continuously launching innovative business models, applications, and communication services that not only alter current consumer behavior, but also create new “profitable” consumer needs.

A perfect example is the wave of outcry following some governments’ decision to ban BlackBerry services, which demonstrated a high level of reliance on BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for informal communication. BBM also happens to be a free substitute to SMS, which costs 60 fils (international).

And, speaking of free communication methods, I wonder if Skype’s announcement to open shop in Bahrain is a step toward fully legalizing voice over Internet protocol in the region.

The real enemy of telecom operators is unpredictability. Consistent competitive advantage will depend on operators’ ability to dynamically create and test new revenue streams, stay abreast of emerging technologies, and involve the consumer in putting solutions together and validating their ultimate purpose.

They must stop importing ready-made solutions from developed markets, because their consumers are different. They must also focus on building partnerships with strategic content owners and technology partners, and at the same time experiment.

There’s no shame in trying.

My grandfather always said, “Talk is free.” Two decades on, he’s about to be proved correct. Assuming data services and alternative revenue streams make up for the slack in revenue, voice calls should eventually become free. But will our operators move quickly while they have the network, the users, and the consolidated billing relationships?

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JANUARY 2011 | COVER STORY

Q&A

Mobinil’s new horizons The Egyptian telco’s head of digital comms, Rania El Bakry, tells Communicate what her team has learned from three years online by Austyn Allison

O

n the fringes of media agency UM’s recent Digital Boom summit in Cairo, we caught up with one of the speakers, Rania El Bakry, the digital and direct communication manager at Egyptian telco Mobinil, which has only been active in the online marketing space since 2007. We were keen to find out what El Bakry and her team have learned.

When did Mobinil begin using digital marketing?

I’m sure there were local ad placements on various sites, but in terms of consolidating the function, actually creating a department with a team accountable for it, that started in 2007. We started to consolidate it into a function of the company and have a properly placed infrastructure.

RANIA EL BAKRY. Head of digital communications at Mobinil

34 I Communicate

Who set it up?

The communication department, which is who I work for, started it up. I’m glad this job landed

on my lap because I like what I do. I’m one of those people who has to be passionate about what she does. So I’m glad I’m doing a job that I like, and that I can still get myself out of bed in the morning and say, “I’m happy doing this job that was assigned to me.”

What were the challenges to starting Mobinil’s online marketing?

The first challenge was for us to understand it.

What is CPC [cost per click] and what is CPM [cost per thousand views] and what is an impression and what is a click-through rate? These were all terms that were new to me, not coming from an IT background, not coming from a technology background – I’m originally a PR person.

It is important for us to understand it so we can be up to par with the suppliers we are dealing with. The second challenge was to sell it to

COVER STORY | JANUARY 2011

management. If management doesn’t pick it up then it is a wasted opportunity.

The third challenge was to educate procurement. Now these guys understand how it works for television spots versus half a page or a full page in the paper, and it’s their KPIs [key performance indicators] to reduce costs, to make sure that this money is well spent. So for us to get them to believe digital is worth it, we went through several sessions with them and the suppliers, explaining this new media to them. They were very accommodating and actually grateful for that.

Then there was the challenge of convincing the marketing and communications people that it’s not a matter of posting the press ad online – this isn’t how it works. You have to devise something that’s conversational and that’s interactive, and you get people talking. You click so this happens and then you click again and that happens.

It is also a challenge for people – as in consumers – to believe that we actually mean what we say. If I say, “Tell me on Twitter what is bothering you and I’ll take care of it,” then I actually have to take care of it, and I have to prove that I’ve been listening, and I’ve been paying attention, and your questions didn’t stay for a week unanswered, and I get back to you, and I answer you by name. That took us quite a bit of time, and that was actually my big challenge for 2010.

Who answers questions on Twitter?

I’m one, and there are a couple more people from the agency that is managing the page for us. These people have gone through extensive training about the products and services we offer, about our tone of communication, what we can and cannot say, our lingo.

Whenever they’re in trouble, they revert back to me.

Which agencies are you working with?

I diversify. I’ve got Facebook with Digital Republic, I’ve got Twitter and YouTube with Techno Wireless, and I’ve got Facebook with Connect Ads[too].

I’m not putting my eggs in one basket, and all three of them are competing to do their best, so I’m happy.

Did you consider putting technicians on Twitter to answer technical questions?

We’re not at the stage where we can get them to reply on Twitter, but they are my contactpoints. I don’t know every functionality in the company, so if a customer Tweets me with their line or with their bill, I might revert back to the customer service people. I could look into it, get their response and Tweet it back. Or people are given a call: “You’ve Tweeted to us about blah, blah, blah; what is the problem?”

You can only Tweet in 140 characters, so if it’s a big, extensive problem, you need to talk to the customer.

NEW TO THE GAME. Mobinil has only been marketing online since 2007 How many Twitter users are there in Egypt, and how many followers does Mobinil have?

There are 220,000 Twitter users in Egypt. We’ve got close to 2,000 followers now. Our account has been active since the end of June.

However, the kinds of people who are following us are active, alert and opinionated. They tell you how it is. You need someone to tell you, “Hey, you’re making something wrong.”

If I’ve got 2,000 of these, I’m happy. They are very addicted to Twitter; they Tweet us two or three times a day.

How much of Mobinil’s marketing budget goes into digital?

A decent percentage, which I cannot share. It is still the smallest share of all. However, I’m expecting that within the next five years this might change. In 2007 we still had to run around getting money from here and there.

But now we have a proper online budget, which has been working for us quite well. It’s still a small percentage, but not smaller than any other advertiser in this market; probably higher.

How do you split that budget between social ­networking, banner ads and websites?

By supplier, basically. I work directly with Google on some stuff, and I work with Techno Wireless again, and Connect Ads, and Digital Republic.

So it’s a matter of the match; who has better rates for me?

Knowing the talents of these three agencies – and they are all very talented – you’ll find one of them is very talented in a certain aspect.

You sit down and say, “I think this campaign would work if we did it in such and such a way. It needs to be really hip, so give it to that supplier because he’s really hip.”

There’s really no science to it, and it’s not luck of the draw either. It’s a matter of gut feeling.

I really believe in my gut feelings most times.

Communicate I 35

JANUARY 2011 | COVER STORY

What shifts are you seeing in your digital activities?

I’m seeing social media grow from 2009 to 2010; I think that’s our biggest shift. We’ve got one of probably two or three brand channels [on social networks] in Egypt.

A brand channel is different from a personal channel. You’ve got a lot more features in a brand channel. It can be upgraded into a contest channel. You can book and upload things to your channel and so on.

That’s where we’re really focusing and that’s where the biggest shift is. We’re really beyond the basic banner ad and gadget ad. We’re into interaction and making people believe that we’re really there like we say we are. So social media is where we’re heading for this year and probably the next.

Will banner ads go away?

No, banner ads won’t go, because although people do social networking – it is the No. 1 activity online – people still go and check their football sites as well. They still go to their news sites, they still want to download music, still want to download a movie. If I’m not in all of these media then I’m missing out. I don’t think the banner ad will go. It’ll evolve but it won’t go.

CLEVER COMPANY. The Mobinil building in Smart Village, Cairo

36 I Communicate

At the UM Digital Boom summit you showcased an online ad that asked users to “choose your mood.” Then the app would pick a suitable song.

Does Mobinil have quite a big music base?

Actually, we’re the entertainment people. We like music and movies, and that’s been our form for years, ever since we started. We’re the ones who bring the concerts to town; we’re the ones who do the movie premieres. It’s part of our identity, which is very Egyptian.

Egyptians like entertainment so we’ve stuck with entertainment. Other people have taken the niche of football or sports and so on, but entertainment has been our platform forever, so we wanted to engage the customer with that.

The service is called Calltone. You call up 9999, you download the song you want, and when people call you, they hear it. We wanted people to get to hear it because the service is based on the music. And if it didn’t have audio, this thing wouldn’t have flown like it did.

The online campaign gave us 160,000 subscriptions in two weeks. When we ran it there was no other marketing activity going on for that service.

Was the investment worth it?

It cost me approximately the price of two fullpage ads in the paper and it ran for two weeks on several sites. I think that is a really good return on investment.

It ran on YouTube, on Facebook, on Google search; it ran on a lot of the e-mail sites, sports sites, youth sites, music download sites. It was everywhere the audience for that service would go to surf.

y Agencear Y of the MEPrRdAs awa 2010

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JANUARY 2011 | PUBLIC RELATIONS

Raising the PR bar

The MEPRA Awards showcased good public relations work and should lead to more of it from the region by Sidra Tariq

T

REBECCA HILL. Executive director of MEPRA

GEORGE KOTSOLIOS. Managing director of GolinHarris Dubai

SANGEETHA UMAKANTHAN. Head of the consumer servicing team at GolinHarris

38 I Communicate

he Middle East Public Relations Association (MEPRA) recognized key players and best practitioners in the region’s public relations industry at its second annual award ceremony on Dec. 1.

Dubai-based d’pr emerged as the Agency of the Year, and bagged awards in two best practice categories. The Young Communicator prize went to Jamal Al Mawed, senior account manager at d’pr.

Camilla d’Abo, managing director of d’pr, says the independent agency won an award at 2009’s event, and this time took home four prizes from seven submissions. “It just demonstrates the high level that we work to and the quality to have competed again and won again against very reputable international agencies,” she says. The award should help showcase younger, independent agencies as an alternative to big-name shops, she adds.

Agencies from international networks also took away prizes on the night, though, such as Interpublic Group of Cos.’ GollinHarris Dubai, which won the award for Best Practice in Consumer Relations for its entry, “How Cheese Inspired a Region of Women.”

“We are extremely proud, especially because in only the second MEPRA Awards, we managed to land a winning entry in such a prestigious and strongly fought category,” says George Kotsolios, managing director of GolinHarris Dubai. “It’s a testimony to the team’s ability to take and digest complicated client consumer briefs and develop award-winning campaigns that provide tangible returns for the clients.”

GolinHarris’ “Spread Some Inspiration” campaign (“How cheese inspired a nation of women” was the title of the entry in the awards) was developed for

Kraft’s Philadelphia Cream Cheese and “was about celebrating unsung female heroes in the region,” says Sangeetha Umakanthan, head of the consumer servicing team at GolinHarris. The campaign aimed at raising awareness and market penetration, and was launched in conjunction with International Women’s Day alongside an outdoor advertising campaign. GolinHarris ran a competition in three markets – the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar – inviting women to share stories, and rewarding a winner.

GollinHarris is also the PR agency for the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council, which won the Best Practice in Government Communications at the MEPRA awards for its entry, “Capital 2030: Style Your Life.”

TO AVE AND AVE NOT. Rebecca Hill, executive director of MEPRA, says the awards witnessed an increase in submissions this year, and judges say there was a general improvement in terms of the quality of entries. “There was far less presence of advertising value equivalents (AVEs) as a metric, and this is something that we highly support,” she says. “The fact that we saw very little of AVEs is a clear sign that people are really moving towards far more strategic outcomes in terms of their evaluation and measuring techniques. That was a very clear positive trend.”

There were no submissions for the Communicator of the Year or In-House Team of the Year, and there was no winner in the Regional Campaign Category. “The judges decided not to have a winner [in the category] because the submissions did

© Getty/Gallo Images

PUBLIC RELATIONS | JANUARY 2011

not meet the entry criteria,” says Hill. “That is something we need to look out for next year: We need be clearer in terms of what we’re looking for from a campaign submission.”

PR is still not entirely understood in this region, says Hill, and people often see it as no more than writing press releases and running events. She adds, “We define public relations as really being stakeholder communications, that look at all of the key publics of organizations or institutions – employees, financial investors or government regulators. This [awards show] is an opportunity for the profession and for associations that represent the profession to say to such people that PR actually is a huge value-add discipline. It is something that every organization needs to be endorsing and implementing, and ensuring that it is very much integrated within all its management and operational disciplines, because without good communications there is no way that you are ever going to improve your performance, engage your employees, etcetera.

Communication is fundamental.”

PR deserves to be part of a wider communications plan, says Umakanthan. “We work with clients that do a lot of cross-agency work so we tend to work with advertising and media, and they tend to be very 360 campaigns,” she says. “A lot of the time, though, I have found that PR tends to get the short end of the straw and a smaller budget. But this award really is a demonstration to our clients that if PR is integrated into the full 360 plan from word go, from the time the brief is being developed, what you will get at the end of it is a very sound, very PR-able campaign, and obviously one that can win awards.”

EVERYONE’S A WINNER. Kotsolios says the MEPRA Awards benefit the whole industry. “They provide an incentive to think harder, be more creative, walk the extra mile, and improve competition between us – for the benefit of the clients and for the benefit of our clients’ budgets,” he says.

“The more creativity is induced, and the more creativity is promoted, then obviously the better the campaigns will be that eventually see the media spotlight and make an impact on consumer behavior and attitudes.”

The Awards set benchmarks for the industry and encourages healthy competition, says d’Abo. It also gives PR teams something to work towards.

“If you have something in the back of your mind when you’re developing campaigns from scratch – ‘Is this award-winning?’ – it really spurs you on to do the best you can do,” she says.

MEPRA will use many of the entries for case studies, says Hill. “We can use them as teaching tools, not only for educational establishments and universities but also for entry level professionals and also as a benchmark for agencies and in-house people.”

The MEPRA awards had 95 submissions this year, which were shortlisted by a panel of judges composed of senior practitioners from agencies, corporate in-house teams and academia.

MEPRA AWARDS 2010 WINNERS MULTI-DISCIPLINARY CAMPAIGN: VLCC ANTI-OBESITY CAMPAIGN AGENCY: BPG PUBLIC RELATIONS

CSR & COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN: STAY ALERT. STAY ALIVE. BMW CSR ROAD SAFETY CAMPAIGN AGENCY: D’PR

RESEARCH-LED CAMPAIGN:THE ELITE: CREATING ABU DHABI’S “AL NOKHBA” SEMI-CONDUCTOR PIONEERS TEAM: ATIC

GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN: CAPITAL 2030 “STYLE YOUR LIFE” TEAM: ABU DHABI URBAN PLANNING COUNCIL

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT CAMPAIGN: INSPIRING EMPLOYEES AGENCY: WEBER SHANDWICK

CORPORATE IMAGE & REPUTATION CAMPAIGN: SHIFTING STRATEGY BUT NOT COMMITMENT AGENCY: FOUR COMMUNICATIONS

CONSUMER RELATIONS CAMPAIGN: HOW CHEESE INSPIRED A REGION OF WOMEN AGENCY: GOLINHARRIS DUBAI

FINANCIAL & INVESTOR RELATIONS CAMPAIGN: RAISING THE KNOWLEDGE BAR (FOR DU) AGENCY: CAPITAL MS&L

B2B CAMPAIGN: GESS 2010 AGENCY: D’PR HIGHLY COMMENDED: THE BIG 5 2009 AGENCY: FIFTH RING INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS

YOUNG COMMUNICATOR OF THE YEAR WINNER: JAMAL AL MAWED (D’PR) HIGHLY COMMENDED: SHADEN ABDELLATIF (HILL & KNOWLTON)

AGENCY OF THE YEAR AGENCY: D’PR

Communicate I 39

KSA

UAE

OTHERS

CHIEF DESIGNER

ART DIRECTOR

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Qualification: Degree in Design Engineering Experience: 5+ years Experience Skills: Excellent command of English & Arabic Strong creative skills Strong communication skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 5+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong creative skills Excellent teamwork skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 4+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong organizational skills Strong management skills

Job Reference:JB1597620

Job Reference:JB1599712

Job Reference:JB1598799

DESIGN MANAGER

DESIGNER

DESIGN MANAGER

Qualification: Degree in Journalism Experience: 7+ years Experience Skills: Strong networking skills Excellent communication skills Excellent leadership skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 2+ year Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent analytical skills Strong creative skills

Qualification: Degree in Engineering Experience: 2 - 4 years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent management skills Strong creative skills

Job Reference:JB1596628

Job Reference:JB1597974

Job Reference:JB1576115

INTERIOR DESIGNER

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

INTERIOR DESIGNER

Qualification: Degree in Interior Design/Architecture Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Strong creative skills Excellent communication skills EExcellent command of English & Arabic

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 4+ years Experience Skills: Strong command of English Excellent communication skills Ability to work under pressure

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 2+ year Experience Skills: Excellent creative skills Good communication skills Experience in a similar role

Job Reference:JB1574857

Job Reference:JB1580377

Job Reference:JB1385019

DIGITAL MEDIA SPECIALIST

INTERACTIVE DESIGNER

DESIGNER

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 2+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English & Arabic Strong motivational skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent command of English Excellent communication skills Strong software skills

Qualification: Degree in Graphic Design Experience: 2 - 3 years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong artwork skills Strong command of English & Arabic

Job Reference:JB1584716

Job Reference:JB1561769

Job Reference:JB1597315

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent creative skills Strong problem solving skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English & Arabic Strong leadership skills

Qualification: Degree in Graphic Design Experience: 0+ years Experience Skills: Excellent creative skills Excellent communication skills Strong computer skills

Job Reference:JB1576085

Job Reference:JB1541068

Job Reference:JB1585581

Moon Constructions Co.

Lavish Living Company LTD

Maya interiors

Al Wahda Express Saudi L.L.C

ORD

Noble Advertising LLC

EgyptNetwork S.A.E (Egypt)

Tiger International Armor

Big Boys Toys

Dar Al Mimar Group (Egypt)

Ali Abdulwahab Sons & Co (Kuwait)

Leo Burnett

Bayt.com Executive Search Division

Quantum Resources (Lebanon)

Maliks (Lebanon)

How to apply to jobs on Bayt.com 1.

2.

3.

4.

Visit our website at www.bayt.com If you are a new visitor, click on ‘Post a CV’ to create your Bayt.com CV Enter the job reference in the Search box on the homepage. Example, enter JB123456 When you view the job posting, click on “Apply to this job” and attach your Bayt.com CV. Your CV will go directly to the employer and they will contact you if you fit their job requirements

KSA

UAE

OTHERS

CHIEF DESIGNER

ART DIRECTOR

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Qualification: Degree in Design Engineering Experience: 5+ years Experience Skills: Excellent command of English & Arabic Strong creative skills Strong communication skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 5+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong creative skills Excellent teamwork skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 4+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong organizational skills Strong management skills

Job Reference:JB1597620

Job Reference:JB1599712

Job Reference:JB1598799

DESIGN MANAGER

DESIGNER

DESIGN MANAGER

Qualification: Degree in Journalism Experience: 7+ years Experience Skills: Strong networking skills Excellent communication skills Excellent leadership skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 2+ year Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent analytical skills Strong creative skills

Qualification: Degree in Engineering Experience: 2 - 4 years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent management skills Strong creative skills

Job Reference:JB1596628

Job Reference:JB1597974

Job Reference:JB1576115

INTERIOR DESIGNER

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

INTERIOR DESIGNER

Qualification: Degree in Interior Design/Architecture Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Strong creative skills Excellent communication skills EExcellent command of English & Arabic

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 4+ years Experience Skills: Strong command of English Excellent communication skills Ability to work under pressure

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 2+ year Experience Skills: Excellent creative skills Good communication skills Experience in a similar role

Job Reference:JB1574857

Job Reference:JB1580377

Job Reference:JB1385019

DIGITAL MEDIA SPECIALIST

INTERACTIVE DESIGNER

DESIGNER

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 2+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English & Arabic Strong motivational skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent command of English Excellent communication skills Strong software skills

Qualification: Degree in Graphic Design Experience: 2 - 3 years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong artwork skills Strong command of English & Arabic

Job Reference:JB1584716

Job Reference:JB1561769

Job Reference:JB1597315

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent creative skills Strong problem solving skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English & Arabic Strong leadership skills

Qualification: Degree in Graphic Design Experience: 0+ years Experience Skills: Excellent creative skills Excellent communication skills Strong computer skills

Job Reference:JB1576085

Job Reference:JB1541068

Job Reference:JB1585581

Moon Constructions Co.

Lavish Living Company LTD

Maya interiors

Al Wahda Express Saudi L.L.C

ORD

Noble Advertising LLC

EgyptNetwork S.A.E (Egypt)

Tiger International Armor

Big Boys Toys

Dar Al Mimar Group (Egypt)

Ali Abdulwahab Sons & Co (Kuwait)

Leo Burnett

Bayt.com Executive Search Division

Quantum Resources (Lebanon)

Maliks (Lebanon)

How to apply to jobs on Bayt.com 1.

2.

3.

4.

Visit our website at www.bayt.com If you are a new visitor, click on ‘Post a CV’ to create your Bayt.com CV Enter the job reference in the Search box on the homepage. Example, enter JB123456 When you view the job posting, click on “Apply to this job” and attach your Bayt.com CV. Your CV will go directly to the employer and they will contact you if you fit their job requirements

JANUARY 2011 | MARKETING

Mall change

How are the UAE’s shopping centers adapting their marketing? by Rania Habib

T

SHYAM SUNDER. Marketing manger of the Oasis Centre

42 I Communicate

hink of Dubai, and the image of sprawling, largestin-the-world, shark-infested-aquarium-hosting, ski-slope-bearing malls come to mind. But while the shopping destination emirate is known for its superlatives, Dubai also plays host to smaller, more modest malls. Like the Oasis Centre; a long-standing Dubai shopping destination, it made headlines when it was gutted by a fire in 2005.

Four years later, the Oasis Centre was relaunched, and it is now a no-frills mall, a quality that’s been emphasized in its latest advertising campaign; the ads bear slogans such as “Shop. Don’t drop,” “Choose.

Without being confused,” and “Crave. Yet save.”

“Since the Oasis Centre was relaunched 18 months ago, there had been no clear communication on its position and benefits,” says Shyam Sunder, marketing manager of the Oasis Centre.

“With the Dubai shopping market undergoing big changes, we felt the need for a campaign which repositions the mall.

“The new brand campaign attempts to communicate the three benefits of the mall: convenience, enough choice, and value,” continues Sunder. “The post-campaign feedback has been good, with shoppers appreciating the relevance and freshness of the approach.”

The Dubai shopping industry has indeed weathered massive changes over the past couple of years, suffering from the effects of the financial crisis. This led to a transformation in shopping mall marketing behavior, clearly influenced by shopper behavior.

“From a marketing perspective, let’s look at the shopper habits,” says Sunder. “They’ve changed dramatically, and what has happened to the shopper in Dubai is that he is more value conscious. He has traded down from luxury to more affordable brands, so malls are focusing more on affordable stores. We’ve seen a shopping behavioral change, especially in the last 18 months. Dubai thrives on the tourist population, but that has more or less stagnated. The tourist population hasn’t grown since the recession.” Sunder says that what has really changed is malls’ strategy. Their focus is no longer solely on tourists, but on residents as well.

LOCAL INTEREST. Today, large malls are talking to resident populations to get them to spend more. The period between 2008 and 2009 was a very difficult phase in Dubai, and most of the Dubai population has not become better off financially than they were.

Therefore, the sheer propensity to spend is under pressure. At the Oasis Centre, footfall is increasing month-to-month. But sales have not kept up with the footfall. That means that out of a family of four, only one or two spend. People have been very careful in spending on things.”

The Dubai Mall, the largest and arguably most leisure-oriented mall in Dubai – with an ice rink, a shark-filled aquarium, KidZania, and Sega Republic, among other entertainment options – still appears to be as busy as ever on any given day, with footfall

MARKETING | JANUARY 2011

making access to the mall nearly impossible during national holidays. Nasser Rafi, CEO of Emaar Malls Group, says The Dubai Mall has witnessed year-on-year growth in visitor footfall.

“Apart from consolidating its retail offering with the opening of [the UAE franchise of New York department store] Bloomingdale’s, one of the two anchor stores of the mall [the other being French department store Galeries Lafayette], The Dubai Mall also strengthened its leisure portfolio this year,” says Rafi. “Key among this was the opening of KidZania in January, and the addition of several new visitor attractions at the Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo, the ice rink, and Sega Republic.”

Rafi says that with the retail sector being the backbone of Dubai’s economy, he believes that there is room for all kinds of malls in the UAE, which can complement each other and contribute to the economy. “Our strategy is to position The Dubai Mall as a premiere lifestyle destination that provides an exclusive shopping experience for all,” he says.

CLOSE TO HOME. At the Oasis Centre, Sunder says that when the mall relaunched, the marketing team ensured the focus would be completely different from that of bigger malls. “We are a family mall,” he says. “Forty percent of our shoppers are locals and local expats, another 40 percent are Asians.

We don’t look at the tourist population at all; smaller malls live on resident populations. We are a very pure shopping mall; we really don’t have any entertainment or leisure for the shopper.

When someone comes to this mall, they are very sure of what stores are there, and they come for the shopping. In the larger malls, you will see eight out of 10 people with no bags, whereas at the Oasis Centre, you will see eight out of 10 people with shopping bags.”

Sunder says that according to figures on advertising spend from Ipsos (see box) the top 10 spending malls between July 2009 and March 2010 are mostly smaller malls, with the exception of two that fit into the large mall category: Ibn Battuta Mall and the recently opened Mirdiff City Centre. The top three spending malls are Burjuman, Wafi, and the Oasis Centre.

“The large malls never had to advertise too much in the past, because they were relying on the tourist population to come in,” says Sunder.

“But the trend is changing; I see Al Futtaim [Mall of the Emirates, Mirdiff City Centre. Deira City Centre] and Emaar malls [The Dubai Mall, Dubai Marina Mall, Souk El Bahar] increasing their advertising spend, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the top 10 spenders in the next few years. Finally, all the malls are targeting the same shopper, the resident shopper. But smaller malls are under pressure, simply because they don’t have enough for the casual or window shopper.

Smaller malls will have to keep finding ways to get shoppers to come to their malls, by coming up with activities and promotions. It’s really a challenge, everyone is fighting, and it’s very competitive.”

FAMILY FRIENDLY. Oasis Centre is an affordable option SHELF PROMOTION. At The Dubai Mall, Rafi says advertising spend has not changed dramatically since it opened in 2008, but that a significant shift has taken place, with a focus on belowthe-line activities. “Our campaigns are mostly related to the in-mall promotions that coincide with the key festivals,” says Rafi.

“The most recent campaign was the Beauty Bazaar promotion, which offered customers shopping for beauty products a chance to win a rejuvenating holiday to a luxury spa retreat in Thailand, Australia, or Mauritius, in association with Emirates Holidays. We are focused on setting new benchmarks in visitor experience by offering continuous promotions, festivals and celebrations that add value to their lifestyle.

Our campaigns reflect seasonal retails trends, as well as a concerted effort from our side to support our retailers.”

In a bid to do just that, the Oasis Centre likes to tie up with its various brands in order to

benefit both the mall and consumers. “Seventy percent of our stores are Landmark stores, and you’ll never find a Landmark store beyond the reach of the upper middle class,” says Sunder.

“People are looking at more and more value.

A part of our strategy is a promotion strategy, whereby we constantly offer value propositions to shoppers over and above what other malls offer with a 52-week promotion calendar. Hence you will see Oasis Centre topping-up a Dubai Shopping Festival or Dubai Summer Surprises with its own promotion, where we strike strategic tie-ups with different brands to offer incremental value to our shoppers.”

The recession may have affected the retail industry, but it clearly hasn’t stopped shoppers from shopping, retailers from promoting, or malls from tweaking their marketing strategies. With malls starting to focus as much – or even more – on residential shoppers as opposed to one-off tourists, mall marketing is coming home.

TOP 10 MALL ADVERTISING SPENDS (US$ 000) JULY ‘09 - MARCH ‘10

Source: Ipsos

Burjuman

1,615

Wafi

1,262

Oasis Centre

1,043

Sahara Centre

749

Dubai Outlet Mall

692

Arabian Centre

680

Ibn Battuta

661

Mercato

636

Mirdif City Centre

529

Sharjah Mega Mall

500 0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

Communicate I 43

©Corbis

JANUARY 2011 | QUIZ

Question time

Were you paying attention in 2010? Take our Communiquiz and find out by Rania Habib 1. When did the Beirut and Amman offices of Saatchi & Saatchi announce they would withdraw from the network? a) December 2009 b) February 1999 c) December 2010 (“Saatchi leaves Levant,” January 2010) 2. “Karl Marx is alive.” a) True b) False c) The headline Hubert Boulos, regional managing director of DDB, hoped to read in 2010 (“Talking ‘bout a resolution,” January 2010) 3. In which country does the following apply?

“On a newsworthiness scale, anything involving a prince or a member of the ruling family takes priority, followed by government news, positive business stories, and then news from companies that advertise with the publication.”

(One answer only, please.)

44 I Communicate

a) The United Kingdom b) Saudi Arabia c) The UAE (“Saudi goes public,” February 2010) 4. According to Graham Collins, director of Spine Consulting, what are the four key components of a successful sports sponsorship marketing strategy? a) Location, location, location, location b) Leverage, longevity, linkage, language c) Steal, cheat, lie, bribe (“A sporting chance,” February 2010) 5.“The 6.5 seconds that matter” is: a) A song by Neneh Cherry and Youssou N’dour b) An initiative started by Horizon DraftFCB to gather international trends into one database c) The length of conversation before Spot On’s Alex McNabb mentions his blog (“The trend of the world,” March 2010)

QUIZ | JANUARY 2011

6. How many Cyber Cristals were awarded at the 2010 MENA Cristal awards? a) 20 b) 0 c) 2 (“Must try harder,” March 2010) 7. What is the amount Rotana paid to obtain a private radio broadcasting license from the Saudi Ministry of Information and Culture? a) 67.35 million Saudi riyals b) 673.5 million Saudi riyals c) 67.35 million US dollars (“Sounds of Saudi,” April 2010) 8. Prior to becoming the creative director at Elephant Cairo, Ali Ali held the same post at which other agency? a) Leo Burnett b) FP7 c) Hippopotamus

9. Which anniversary did The National celebrate in April 2010? a) Second b) Fourth c) Twentieth (“Can posh be profitable?” May 2010) 10. When did Raja Trad, CEO of Leo Burnett group of companies in the Mediterranean, join the network, and in which position? a) In 1981, as regional account director on Philip Morris b) In 1981, as regional account director on Chevrolet c) In 1985, as a copywriter (“The-not-so-secret life of Raja Trad,” May 2010) 11. When asked what he would change about the advertising industry, who responded with: “I’d put more love between the agencies, and more respect between the agencies”? a) Edmond Moutran, chairman and CEO of Memac Ogilvy b) Ramzi Raad, chief executive officer of TBWA/Raad c) Kamal Dimachkie, managing director of Leo Burnett Dubai, Kuwait, and Lower Gulf (“All we need is love,” May 2010) 12. How many Facebook users are there in Saudi Arabia, according to Jazarah.com? a) 2,062,160 b) 1,000,000 c) 6,045, 343 (“Stats the way to research,” June 2010)

13. Women in the Middle East control how much of the region’s wealth? a) $246 billion b) $246 million c) $24.6 billion (“Rethinking size,” July-August 2010) 14. Which country spearheaded the region’s media cities movement? a) UAE b) Jordan c) Egypt (“Cities of gold,” September 2010) 15. Which luxury carmaker “has never and will never use advertising campaigns”? a) Porsche b) Ferrari c) Aston Martin (“Good old values,” September 2010) 16. What is Foursquare? a) A location-based social network b) A mathematical theorem c) A board game (“Where it’s at,” October 2010) 17. The best piece of advice Active PR’s Louay Al Sammarai ever received was: “Don’t walk into ____, Louay.” a. Meetings without knowing your client’s name b. Cupboards

c. The future without leaving a breadcrumb trail to the past (“Word to the wise,” November 2010) 18. UM invited 400 people to their inaugural Digital Boom conference in Cairo. How many turned up? a. 400 b. 80 c. 800 (“Boom time,” November 2010) 19. What will propel you at 240kmh to 52 meters in the air in less than five seconds? a. The Formula Rossa ride at Ferrari World b. FP7’s new TVC for Batelco, in the words of its creative director c. The elevators in Menacom’s new HQ (“Land of the Ferrari and home of the brave,” December 2010) 20. What was the most awarded ad campaign of 2010, according to our tally? a. Panda, by Elephant Cairo b. Stop the Suffering for Pert Plus, by Leo Burnett Beirut c. Arabic Films, the Mother of all Foreign Films for Melody Entertainment, by Leo Burnett Cairo (“2010’s most awarded,” December 2010) Answers: 1:a; 2:c; 3:b; 4:b; 5:b; 6:b; 7:a; 8:b; 9:a; 10:a; 11:a; 12:a; 13:a; 14:c; 15:b; 16:a; 17:b; 18:c; 19:a; 20:c

©Corbis

(“Elephant in the room,” April 2010)

Communicate I 45

© Corbis

JANUARY 2011 | MEDIA

10 trends that are shaping global media consumption Ad Age has the stats – from the TV penetration rate in Kenya to the number of World Cup watchers and more by Ann Marie Kerwin

W

hile Advertising Age, the US ad industry weekly from which Communicate takes some of its articles – including this one – about the global advertising market, has been obsessed with the carnage in American media markets for the last couple of years, the global media landscape has mirrored the broader economic one.

That is to say, developed nations are fragmenting while developing ones are booming.

This is as true for TV and newspapers (newspapers!) as it is for online video and mobile phones. The latter are poised to become the most ubiquitous media device in history.

Ad Age Insights’ latest white paper, Global Media Habits 2010, by Greg Lindsay, is a look at how media is actually being consumed around the world, divorced from business considerations.

Here, we’ve pulled out 10 trends that are shaping media consumption in traditional and emerging media markets.

46 I Communicate

1. Even relatively poor populations now consider TV a necessity.

In 2010, nearly half of Indian households had TV, up from less than one-third in 2001. But in urban areas, that figure jumps to 96 percent.

(Compare that to 7 percent of Indians who use the Internet.) In Kenya, the TV-penetration rate rose from roughly 60 percent to 70 percent from 2005 to 2009, even as the number of households measured increased by nearly half. Even in the slums of Sao Paulo, TVs are the top seller of Brazilian retail chain Casas Bahia, despite the fact that residents tend not to have electricity or running water.

2. Despite the Internet, we’re watching more, not less.

The average American watched 280 minutes of TV each day in 2009, more than four-and-ahalf-hours worth and a three-minute increase compared to the year before. A similar rise can be seen around the world, where the average hu-

MEDIA | JANUARY 2011

man being watched three hours and 12 minutes worth of TV a day.

3. What is the world watching? Football, American Idol-like contests and telenovelas.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the most watched TV event in history, broadcast in every country (including North Korea) and garnering an average audience of 400 million viewers per match.

More than one-third of Afghanistan tunes into Afghan Star, that country’s version of American Idol. And Brazil’s Globo network has broadcast locally produced soap operas since the 1970s, many of which reach 80 million viewers.

© Corbis

4. The US and Western Europe are losing newspaper circulation, but the rest of the world is experiencing a newspaper boom.

In both number of titles and circulation, Asia, Africa and Latin America are climbing at an annual double-digit pace. And China and India are now home to nearly half the world’s top 100 dailies, with the average newspaper boasting a circulation of 109,000 or more. In India alone, the number of paid dailies has surged by 44 percent, to 2,700 titles since 2005, accounting for more than one-fifth of all newspaper titles on the planet.

5. Here’s why you need to keep an eye on Facebook.

When it comes to time spent on the site, Facebook crushes all rivals, with six hours versus less than half that time for every other site in the top 10.

Facebook’s user base is 517 million people, 70 percent of whom live outside the US. According to a DDB study of 1,642 international Facebook users, the average self-avowed fan is 31 years old and follows nine brands. Three-quarters (76 percent) have already pressed “like” to signal they are a fan of a brand. In return, they expect special treatment (95 percent) and are willing to advocate for the brand if necessary (94 percent).

6. Cyber cafes are the entry for emerging market populations to get online.

The innovation of cyber cafés has helped spread Internet use in emerging markets. In South Korea, people can rent broadband access for roughly 80 cents an hour, eliminating the need for costly monthly subscriptions, and leading to Koreans’ embrace of social networking and multiplayer online gaming. Cyber cafés or “warnets” have since spread to Indonesia, where only 5 percent of homes have a PC; and to Brazil, where the cafés are known as “LAN houses” and have hourly rates as low as $1.

7. BRIC leads for online video consumption.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and Indonesia are home to the most avid consumers of online video.

Internet users in China and Indonesia, for example, were 26 percent more likely than the average user globally to watch online video, while Indian viewers were 21 percent more likely and both Russians and Brazilians were 11 percent more likely. Increasingly, the Internet will become TV. In 2009, one third of all Internet traffic was video.

SHOW TIME. TV viewership is on the rise in India This year, that figure will climb to 40 percent, on its way to a projected 91 percent by 2014, according to Cisco.

8. Internet usage and penetration rates are hobbled by access costs. Mobile isn’t.

Only 81 million Indians (7 percent of the population) use the Internet, but six times as many (507 million) have mobile phones. The same pattern is playing out worldwide. Witness PC versus mobile penetration rates for China (20 percent versus 57 percent); India (4 percent versus 41 percent); Brazil (32 percent versus 86 percent); and Indonesia (5 percent versus 66 percent).

9. Netbooks, e-readers, tablets will drive growth of Internet use.

The proliferation of new screens – netbooks, e-readers, and tablets – is expected to quadruple global IP traffic by 2014, according to Cisco. By then, the equivalent of 12 billion DVDs will be crisscrossing online monthly. The biggest growth driver is video – data-rich 3-D and HD streams delivered to computers, TV sets and phones, which will lead global mobile traffic to double every year for the foreseeable future.

10. For the foreseeable future, the forecast for the planet’s media habits is, in a word, more.

Time spent with computers has tripled over the past decade among kids age eight to 18. The bulk of this group’s time is spent on social media, followed by games, video sites and instant messaging. The average kid packs a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into a daily seven and a half hours of media exposure.

Just think how this group will consume media in 10 years when they enter the work world and start consuming in earnest.

Communicate I 47

© Getty/Gallo Images

JANUARY 2011 | MEDIA

Ten lessons from 2010 Media Mavens Honorees share wisdom at annual luncheon by Michael Bush

A

d Age honored its 2010 Media Mavens last month at a luncheon of nearly 300 people. This year’s honorees were a mixture of agency executives, marketers and media owners who, in one way or another, each touched upon the dynamic changes taking place in the landscape and the impacts those changes are having on their businesses.

Here’s a sampling of 10 insights from this year’s Mavens on everything from rebundling media and creative and upcoming buying trends to how to sell ads on all platforms and the biggest challenges facing marketers and agencies in 2011.

STEWART ATKINSON Vice-president of global brand-building purchases, Procter & Gamble Co., on media-buying trends: “It’s more important to think less about spending and more about investing. I like to think about us getting away from the cool idea and spending and working more closely together on investments. Digital is a major area for us to invest in,

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as is developing content. But there’s one investment I’d like to have all of you think about, because it becomes the source of all innovation for anything, and that’s relationships. We’re going to be investing more and more in purpose-inspired and idea-driven marketing in the future.”

JOHN MOORE Chief media officer at Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Mullen, on rebundling: “The best ideas emanate when creative and media are locked together at the beginning of the process. I know why unbundling happened and it made a lot of sense way back when. As a media guy I always felt like I was way back in the caboose. But can a standalone media company work together with a media agency as well as an agency under one roof? In my personal opinion, I don’t think so. I don’t think it works the same when you have media and creative under one roof on one profit and loss driving towards the same place.”

MEDIA | JANUARY 2011

BILL KOENIGSBERG CEO of Horizon Media, on the biggest media issue marketers and agencies will face in 2011: “It’s about the environment. The consumer is living in a self-service ecosystem and is getting media wherever and whenever he wants. And we are in a motional environment and media has moved outside the home. There are also thousands of balls dropping from the sky from new technology, new media capabilities and new ways to engage consumers. So the biggest challenge we face is connecting all of those dots from a planning standpoint.”

© Getty/Gallo Images

COLLEEN FAHEY RUSH Executive vice-president of strategic insights and research at MTV Networks, on challenges to building out a holistic view of how people are consuming media: “First we need to make a commitment to consumer research, making it part of the strategy team and giving it a seat at the table. Research needs to be as upstream as possible so it can inspire development, ideas and strategy. Innovation research is also critical to driving towards a holistic view of a consumer. You can’t use the tried and true methods of just surveys and focus groups.”

CHRISTOPHER BATTY Formerly head of sales at Gawker Media, on the gulf between time and money consumers spend on a site: “I see a tremendous inequality with regards to what publishers and audience aggregators have available to them in terms of publishing tool sets and what advertisers have available to them in terms of entertaining and engaging consumers. And whatever my next job is, the focus is going to be on this area.”

BARBARA BLOOM Head of daytime programming at CBS Entertainment, on what audiences are demanding of their daytime content: “The first thing we have to do as content providers is to make sure we maintain the loyalty and connection consumers have to the shows they watch. We have to make sure we maintain what drives the audience back. On the other hand, we have to straddle this new world, which engages new media, social platforms and new technologies and that makes our audiences want immediacy, instant gratification and the ability to engage in a dialogue with their shows.

It’s about finding that balance between connection, immediacy, and gratification. The content doesn’t exist without all the other platforms, and platforms don’t exist without the content, and what’s exciting about the years ahead is how we build that and fulfill the needs of our audience.

The demands aren’t new, but it’s a redefined world we are working in.”

BRIAN MCMAHON CEO of Interpublic’s Orion Trading, on how the recession has made an impact on the barter sector: “If you look at the economy as a sine curve, in good times people make too much product and in bad times they don’t have the ad spend. We run in the middle of that curve. The business is growing. The key is to make sure it’s the right deal and that it works for the client.”

CARRIE FROLICH Managing director of digital for North America at WPP’s MEC, on trying to distinguish new technologies that have the opportunity to scale and those that are a flash in the pan: “We have different criteria and try to separate out a fad from something that has cultural significance. But every single day it comes down to confidence and, to a certain extent, you have a gut instinct about something, and on some level that instinct is driven by experience. So you have to be in it and play the game to find those diamonds in the rough.”

DAVID LEVY Head of ad sales, distribution and sports at Turner Broadcasting System, on how TV networks and advertisers can sell and run advertising on all platforms: “It’s about keeping the media ecosystem that’s in place healthy. And in order for that to happen we are rallying around TV Everywhere [a service that allows US broadcasters to verify that those accessing their content have paid a subscription]. Consumers want content across multiple platforms and in order to provide that, the distributors want to be able to execute that; and in order to provide them that opportunity, we want to be able to monetize it across the three platforms.”

BRYAN WIENER CEO of 360i, on developing an effective program for clients: “It’s about how we bring everything together for marketers and make sure we are coming up with programs that hit all of the consumer touch points, and allow them to be culturally relevant. We are focused on how we develop those core ideas that serve as that focal point, and at the same time making sure we have the expertise to bring those ideas to life.”

Communicate I 49

© Getty/Gallo Images

JANUARY 2011 | MARKETING

Going, going, gone

Once-famous and not-so-famous brand names fetch between $1,000 to $45,000 at auction by Matt Creamer

C

ollier’s, the weekly magazine that published investigative journalism, essays and fiction from the likes of Hemingway, Cather, Lewis, Salinger and Vonnegut, was shut down in 1957.

Now it exists as brittle, yellowing copies and, more abstractly, as a trademark that, last month, was purchased for $2,000 in an auction held in a chandeliered meeting room at the WaldorfAstoria hotel in New York.

After emerging from a quick bidding process that opened at $1,000, the buyer, a babyfaced man wearing a navy-blue blazer and khakis, slung a backpack over a shoulder and strode to a table to the right of the auctioneer to sign the paperwork and hand over a cashier’s check that would hold the onetime icon of muckraking journalism until a closing date later in the month. Later, he identified himself to a reporter only as a third-party representative for a publishing company.

Secrecy was the watchword at an auction of more than 100 brands that have gone unused in

50 I Communicate

recent years and were bought up by a company called Brands USA Holdings. Those on the block ranged from once near-household names, like Meister Brau, Braniff and Old Nick candy bars, to much lesser known ones.

The 50 or so bidders and spectators were largely those representatives equipped with precise bidding instructions and closed lips. Some of them worked for entities unknown even to the organizers. Brand promoters and food and beverage manufacturers were also in attendance, but their reluctance to jump into the mix may have been due to the auction’s novelty, says John Cuticelli, CEO of Racebrook, the real estate investment firm that organized the event.

DUTCH AUCTION. The main format used was a Dutch auction, which begins with a high asking price and goes lower, with each bid barked out in the typical auctioneer’s rapid-fire, rodeo style (“Ten thousand bid. Fifteen thousand? Ten

MARKETING | JANUARY 2011

thousand, once, twice ...”) and the occasional folksy interjection: “Just bid 50,000 and you’ll never forget what you paid.”

Three “spotters” roaming the audience identified bidders with a yell and tried to gin up interest. All the men from Racebrook wore dark suits, red ties and a single carnation to match.

After a practice round, bidding began. Shearson, a financial brand unused since 1994 when it was bought by Citigroup’s predecessor and merged with Smith Barney, was the first to go, fetching $45,000 from a proxy buyer who was not only unknown but unseen, phoning in his bids.

Next went Meister Brau, essentially the prototypical light beer, for $32,500, and Handi-Wrap for $30,000, the latter to a surly man in a trench coat who refused to give his e-mail address to the auctioneers and told a reporter, upon handing him a business card, to back away because the corporation he represents has a strict policy of not speaking to press.

From there the bids plummeted, with Shower Mate, Sun and Surf, Continental Illinois and other vaguely familiar-sounding bits of American business history going for less than $10,000 a piece. For $2,000, a pair of intense-looking men in navy suits sitting in the front row made off with The Linen Closet, Infoseek, Sports Heroes and the regrettably named clothing brand Big Yank. Computer City and the Financial Corp. of America went for $1,000.

STILL ON THE MARKET. But by the end of the hour-long auction the vast majority of the brands listed Jeopardy-style on a large grid were still available, including Annie Hall, Cocomalt, Kitten Soft, Kool Shake, Nudit, Permastrate, Pharmhouse, Party Tyme, Relaxacizor, Hot Pants, and Seniority.

In an interview afterward, Cuticelli says he was surprised by what he saw as the attendees’ timidity. “I wondered what they were waiting for,” he says. He adds that after the bidding was finished, he was approached by a number of people who wanted in, including a media group that wanted to buy the whole lot, including those brands already auctioned off. He attributed the delayed reaction to skepticism about the process and his company’s coming to grips with the possible consumer for this sort of thing. He says that Racebook is open to hosting another brand auction. “I’m not disheartened by this,” he adds.

One disappointed attendee was bothered by a format that had bidding begin at $100,000, only to drop quickly. “That set a negative tone,” this person says, adding, “There wasn’t a lot of respect for the value of the brand. There was a lot of opportunistic buying going on.”

Cuticelli says the winners receive rights to the trademark free and clear of any historical issues. “All the buyers have to do is back it with a product.”

How exactly they’ll do that remains unclear.

Some, like Meister Brau, don’t reside too deep in the collective memory, and it’s easy to im-

agine someone taking the Pabst Blue Ribbon tack with it. If there’s one thing PBR has taught us, it is that grassroots marketing done on the shestring, a nostalgia brand, and a beer that’s cheap to buy, cheaper to make and tastes terrible can yield a marketing success story.

The attendee who agreed to speak off the record came in with an eye to buying Meister Brau for between $20,000 and $25,000 with plans, inspired by PBR, Rheingold and others, to sign a manufacturing agreement with a contract brewer, put together a distribution plan, and then market it to younger (legal) drinkers.

Instead, Meister Brau was picked up by thirdparty representative who looked more like a well-heeled courier than a dealmaker, dressed in green Adidas with white stripes, a quilted Burberry coat and a messenger bag.

The new owners of the painfully general Financial Corp. of America or, say, the generally painful Homestake Mining have their work cut out for them. Happily, recent years have shown us that so-called zombie brands can indeed walk the Earth. The Ford Taurus, Commodore computer, White Cloud, and Tab are all examples of oncedead brands that have been resurrected in some form or fashion. Now we’ll see if someone can make it work for Big Yank.

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JANUARY 2011 | DEPARTMENTS

Q&A

Connecting Cairo

UM’s Dina Hashem on the state of digital in Egypt by Austyn Allison

A

t September’s Digital Boom summit in Cairo, hosted by Universal Media, we sat with the agency’s managing director to discuss the state of digital in Egypt, and how it can work with other media.

DINA HASHEM. Managing director of UM Cairo

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Why are you hosting this event?

We asked a question at the beginning here, which is: Are your consumers way ahead of you? And we meant to ask that question because we know consumers are ahead of us in Egypt. There are millions and millions of Internet and digital media users in the country, but we don’t know anything about them. And that is what inspired this event.

We were hoping to gather experts in the digital field to come and give insights and information about the present and future plans and developments of digital media in Egypt. It’s the first to

happen. Everybody – marketing, media, clients – complains we don’t know anything, but nobody actually does anything about it. Nobody has tried to gather everyone in one room at the same time to say what’s happening when it comes to digital media.

What themes have you seen?

We were hoping to answer some of the questions on people’s minds about what consumers are doing online, how they are consuming digital media. What’s attracting them? What are the dos and don’ts when we think about digital planning?

How can we link digital planning or online and offline together? A lot of our clients think online has totally isolated them from offline. That’s due to the lack of education about new media. They think digital is something and all the other ways of advertising are something else.

DEPARTMENTS | JANUARY 2011

What stage is digital at in Egypt?

We are actually still at the beginning stage, which is, “Shall I have a banner or shall I have a viral on YouTube?” This is where we are now.

We are at the stage of education and gathering information and doing the proper research needed to understand, first, usage and habits of using the Internet and online and digital media, and the likes and dislikes consumers have for this media.

Also, how do we develop the creative message of this media? Finally, everybody has discovered that we can no longer take the caption from a TV ad and put it on a website and expect that to do the job. Now we are at the stage of educating and gathering information.

A year on from now, I think we will be at the stage of developing the industry itself.

But now we are in the very early stage of education.

What sort of clients are using digital, and how are they using it?

The multinationals are using it now, mainly, because they are seeing it used with their brands in other countries. So they already have case studies and are benefiting from the learnings their colleagues have from other markets. We are talking beverages, telecoms, and some of the FMCGs such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble.

Can you copy international digital executions?

I don’t think you should, because you are talking to a different consumer. Maybe you can copy the technique or the concept, but the message and the way of doing it has to be tailored to Egyptians.

They are a bit of a different target and different culture from other countries. So I think no, we shouldn’t. I think we should come up with our own way of doing digital.

How much are people spending on digital here?

It wouldn’t exceed 5 percent. It wouldn’t exceed 5 percent of any client’s budget, and we are even talking about the big budgets.

Clients are still only at the stage where they want to test it. They are not at the stage where it is essential to have it in their plans.

© arabianEye.com

But globally, because they are way ahead of us – and even regionally when we talk about the GCC and Dubai, specifically – they have discovered after a lot of trial and error that they have to work together. The best and most impactful campaign is where online and offline complement each other and go hand-in-hand.

In very rare cases, and for very specific objectives, you find that online needs to be separate or you have only an online campaign or digital campaign.

But, in general, the global learnings are that they have to go hand-in-hand, they complement each other, they reinforce the message and they surround the consumer so that he is attracted to the message through each and every medium that you are giving to him.

SWITCHING ON. Clients in Egypt are starting to look at digital media Doesn’t television have much more reach and return on investment?

Television is the safest and, so far, the most efficient media agent. Yet clients – I am talking multinationals – are realizing that the Internet is more targeted and online is more targeted.

TV has a lot of wastage, and they are hoping to have the best of both worlds.

Yes, I have to have TV, but maybe my second option would be online or digital. So TV is important, but now online is also getting attention from some clients.

What has changed over the past year in the Egyptian market?

Digital is getting the attention you see today, getting the smart crowd interested. This is one change. I don’t see any other major changes.

The scene is more or less the same: TV is the major media leader; politics is very much involved in the media scene; competition is very vicious between government-owned and privately owned media.

And who is spending?

Pepsi has shown an increase in spend – to the same level as telecoms. And Coke as well, of course, because Coke has to compete with Pepsi.

There is a big increase on that front. But there has been a huge drop on the real estate and banking front as well. So overall I don’t see an increase. Brands that were not very big are becoming big, and brands that were very big and active are becoming inactive.

So which brands are becoming inactive?

Real estate, specifically, and banks. They were huge in 2008 and 2009. In 2010 they are nearly nonexistent. Beverages and telecoms are becoming more active.

Communicate I 53

JANUARY 2011 | DEPARTMENTS

Regional Work

Don’t let your car get in your way. Pass by for a check-up.

Advertising Agency: Impact BBDO, Beirut, Lebanon. Executive Creative Director: Walid Kanaan. Creative Director: Joe Abou-Khaled.

Art Director: Georges Kyrillos. Copywriter: Chris Jabre Photographer: Steve Kozman

Talk. To someone else. Don’t encourage domestic violence.

Advertising Agency: FP7, Oman. Creative Director: Noufal Ali. Copywriters: Sree Rekha, Noufal Ali. Art director: Noufal Ali. Graphic Designer: Sanoop Ramachandra These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

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DEPARTMENTS | JANUARY 2011

International Work

Original Juice.

Advertising Agency: DDB, Melbourne, Australia. Executive Creative Director: Grant Rutherford. Creative Director: Brendon Guthrie Head of Art: Tim Holmes. Art Director: Ian Bear. Copywriter: Michael Mulcahy. Illustrator: Stuart McLachlan

Land Rover Defender: The best tool for the job.

Advertising Agency: RKCR/Y&R, UK. Copywriter: Adrian Lim. Art director: Steve Williams.

Photographer: Andy Green These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

Communicate I 55

JANUARY 2011 | DEPARTMENTS

International Work

Salvation Army: With your donation a sense of dignity is within reach.

Advertising Agency: Grey, Canada. Creative Director: Carl Jones.

Art Directors: Rick Mayzis, Dylan Moggey. Copywriter: Chris Tropak

Gain a deeper perspective with the New Straits Times Advertising Agency: McCann Erickson, Malaysia. Executive Creative Director: Szu-Hung Lee, Hwa. Creative Director: Jules Tan. Copywriters: Szu-Hung Lee, Primus Nair, Zaidee Zainal, Benjamin Ng Art Directors: Jules Tan, Jerome Ooi. These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

56 I Communicate

DEPARTMENTS | JANUARY 2011

International Work

Perrier: Melting Car. Advertising Agency: Ogilvy France, Paris. Creative Director: Thierry Chiumino.

Copywriter: Benjamin Bregeault. Art Director: Eve Roussou Photographer: Jean-Yves Lemoigne

This can be your next vehicle if you drink and drive.

Advertising Agency: Ageisobar, S達o Paulo, Brazil. Creative Director: Carlos Domingos.

Art Directors: Cristiano Rodrigues, Tales Lima, Fuku, Henrique Mattos.

Copywriters: Charles Faria, Daguito Rodrigues These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

Communicate I 57

JANUARY 2011 | OFF THE RECORD

The Dish Literally watch “Lastly any US extradition request lodged with either Britain or Sweden in the event Assange is transferred there, should be denied on the grounds that he cannot receive a fair trial as various US politicians and newspapers have literally been baying for his blood.”

– Linda Heard on the hunting howls of government and media, writing in Gulf News.

The Muddling Maths Show The Domus Group’s Media and Marketing Show arrived last month with the optimism we’ve grown accustomed to, and free – as always – from the confines of mathematical certainty.

“A record increase in confirmed exhibitors for this year’s Media and Marketing Show has been confirmed, with over 90 exhibitors surpassing last year’s attendance by over 30 percent,” we are told cheerfully in a press release sent by the Show’s regular PR company, Tamra C2.

Compare that to last year’s release, which was “pleased to announce that exhibitor participation at this year’s event is at an all time high.”

And to 2008’s, which bragged, “With over 200 exhibitors from 55 countries and representing 600 regional brands, the Media and Marketing Show 2008 will offer visitors a unique and once-in-a-year perspective of the incredible range and diversity in the region’s media spectrum.”

So the exhibitors have gone from “over 200” in 2008 to “an all-time high” in 2009, then increased 30 percent to “over 90.”

We queried the PR agency. They checked with the Domus Group.

Apparently, “The figures for 2008 represent the full raft of exhibitors, sponsors, partners, etcetera. The 2010 figures represent the actual physical show exhibitors.”

Media types may be bad at maths, but at least we know how to put a positive spin on things.

Coupon keeping on Cobone is a Groupon-style coupon site that offers daily deals on anything from restaurants to… outdoor advertising, apparently.

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Dec. 15 brought two deals to Communicate’s inbox. One was for 70 percent off a yacht cruise (we’re strapping on our peg leg and pulling down our eye patch) and the other was for 50 percent off outdoor advertising.

The rate card for a six-meter-by-13meter billboard on Dubai’s Diyafah Street would have you paying 99,000 dirhams for two months. But if you book through Cobone, you can get it half-price. It’s an innovative way to sell outdoor inventory in a down market.

And we suspect that the fact the billboard is currently hosting a Cobone ad might have something to do with the deal.

Limited release “Am I right to find a little irony in this message?” asks Communicate’s spotter of the following: “I work at d’pr and we sent out a press release announcing the list of awards we won at the MEPRA Awards held recently.

“Unfortunately I sent out a wrong image with the release. It was an internal version that should not have been distributed to the public.”

Fruit loops Communicate has reason to doubt the release sent to us (we’re not sure why, either) by PR agency Asda’a, entitled, “Arkan to set up first-of-its-kind lime plant in region.”

We’re sure we’ve seen one in Ras Al Khaimah. Wait, perhaps that was a lemon tree.

It’s out there Thanks to auditing firm BPA (which monitors Communicate’s circulation, among others) for sending an e-mail containing the image below.

Communicate’s editor is flattered, but suspects the sender would be tempted to change the headline if he found out Austyn is a journalist.

Poet’s corner Chaps, spurs, cowboy hat, and a bull whip, David Heydlauff is not only a very special guest to the 2010 Dubai Media and Marketing Show, but is also boarding an Emirates 777 and leaving his Alberta Ranch for the very first time. Joining Mark Mennie, a commercial photographer and exhibitor at the MMS 2010, David is a tried and true cowboy, who has never been more than 500 miles from home. David is also the living inspiration to Mennie’s timeless “Altawan” personal photography project.

Beginning as a chance meeting one hot summer day in 1990 over a broken down tractor and a cold beer, Mennie was intrigued and further initiated a passion to document the passage of time and the effect on the people of “Altawan” – the namesake of an abandoned rail line of the region. David joins Mark in Dubai this year to give a firsthand glimpse to attendees of the MMS 2010 into the life of a cowboy. The highlight for David will be visiting Burj Khalifa, where he hopes to snap some shots of Dubai’s breathtaking skyline to use as bragging rights back home.

“Altawan”, referenced as a place in between, is nestled in the southern corners of Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada and shares the international border with Montana USA. The desolate prairie, which stretches further than the human eye can see, lays a forgotten and abandoned railway line. The portraits on display capture some of the descendants of the early settlers 100 years ago, the pioneers that believed in the original visions of possible dreams, riches and adventure that the new railway promised to those willing to risk it all. The future generations that transcend in “Altawan” now toil on their farms, which is a stark contrast of what was once envisioned for this place.

Mark, displaying this pictorial for the second time at Dubai Marketing and Media Show, will bring that vision alive for attendees; all the while David will carve out a special place in your heart with his stories and Alberta perspective.

Spanning the globe, Mark Mennie has been specializing in commercial photography, more specifically with on­site medical trauma/helicopter EMS documentary photography, for close to 20 years. Uniquely documenting “code blue” on-the-job emergency medical situations or the “airside” of high security airport environments, Mark is unique in his field and approach. In addition to numerous affiliations and volunteer work with the MedEvac Foundation International and the Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS), Mark has also been a part of exhibitions such as the Dubai Heli Show and AirMed Congress in Europe.

“Altawan” is a personal project that he only recently began to print and display formally.

– From a press release we picked up at the Dubai ­Media and Marketing Show. (There really was a befuddled looking cowboy on the stand.)

Communicate cannot guarantee the accuracy of the rumors, innuendo, and idle gossip that appear on this page.

Send your anonymous Dish tips to editor@communicate.vg

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