Communicate Levant | Oct 2010 by MediaquestCorp.

Levant Edition •The marketing and advertising resource • October 2010 • Issue N° 7 • www.communicate.ae Net gains: Flip Media’s Yousef Tuqan Tuqan on how best to maintain a corporate blog Page 22

TelevIsIoN It’s showtime Thanks to one special show, Ramadan and the summer turned out to be quite good for young Lebanese station MTV. We see how Bab al Hara has proved a seasonal success (Page 28) all round.

dIgITAl on location Do you Foursquare? Perhaps not, but you might want to soon. A slew of new phone apps can tell where you are and are putting locationbased marketing on the map. We see how to make the most of knowing where your consumer’s at. (Page 30)

Blogging a dead horse: Quantum’s Jihad Bitar on the rise of social Page 44 networks

Hot shot: Makram Fata on where Adrenalin came from and where it’s going Page 42

CAReless wHI HIs sPeRs loose talk can cost lives – or brand reputations, at least. we look at how to handle dangerous corporate rumors

dIgITAl speaking out We talk to a handful of young Lebanese bloggers to unveil how they have carved out a niche for themselves. We see how they got started, where they are headed, and how important it is to have a clear (Page 24) and distinct voice.

CAMPAIgN The engine room

(Page 47) Cover Image: Corbis

MediaquestCorp 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 T Tunisia ................ Td 2.5 U.A.E...................dH 15

Letter from the editor | OCTOBER 2010

Magnificent seven T

his is issue seven of Communicate Levant. I am told that, for children, seven is supposed to herald the age of reason. My youngest daughter (the loud and strong-willed one who loves flashy clothes and whom I wrote about in my first editor’s letter) has just turned seven too. Communicate Levant’s life is measured in months, whereas my daughter is seven years old. I’d like to think that magazines are like dogs or cats or elephants compared to humans in terms of aging, and that the metrics vary. So, let’s assume that a seven-month-old magazine is like a seven-yearold child. Does that mean we’re outgrowing the throes of early childhood to become more reasonable? And should we even assume seven is the age of reason to start with? We have a mouthful of teeth, albeit with gaps, leaving us with a weird, dumb, but cute, smile. We know how to run, climb, and sometimes fall. We know what we want – “Please, pretty please, let me watch TV a little bit more,” which in Communicate jargon would translate into “Please, pretty please, let’s push the deadline a little bit more.” And we know what we don’t want. “Not carrots at dinner again” translates as “Not incredibly badly written press releases again.” But what matters more is that at seven, a child starts to

have a social life, with all the trouble that this magnificent experience entails. It’s fun to be invited to your first sleepover. It’s even more fun to feel like you belong to a community; that you can actually start making friends. You also learn, at your own expense more often than not, that life has its downsides, and that you’d better learn to be careful who you trust if you don’t want to end up getting stabbed in the back. Because one of life’s realities is people love to talk. My daughter was taught this lesson the hard way. She confided in her new best friend that she was “in love” (it feels weird to write this) with a boy in her class. This was a big deal for her and true demonstration of trust – followed by a classic “cross my heart” pledge not to tell, especially not the boy in question. The new best friend didn’t tell the boy. She told her other new best friend. And, in a matter of hours, the whole playground had heard that not only was my daughter “in love,” but she was too shy (yeah, right) to tell the boy, so had asked her friend to speak on her behalf, so she was hoping to invite him to play at home some day, but was afraid he would say no because he was already “in love” with another girl who is prettier than she is, so she was very sad and kept love letters in her satchel and… From one child to another,

then another, the story got amplified, distorted, and enriched with details, and finally came a full circle back to my daughter – to her outrage. Our cover story on page 16 is about rumors. Whatever age we are, rumors have been, and will be, part of everyday life. We journalists – editors in particular – are at the forefront of this because we are in a position where we can choose whether or not to publish information, even when, as a rule, we are committed to releasing any information worthy enough and of interest to the public. That’s one big responsibility, because if the information turns out to be untrue or exaggerated the victim will not think twice before punching you in the nose – as my daughter’s ex-best friend knows only too well.

Nathalie Bontems, editor editor@communicate.vg

Communicate I 3

00-CLV07-letter-editor.indd 3

9/30/10 8:39 AM

Contents

October 2010 | Contents

COVER: Corporate rumors 16

Talk talk: Malicious gossip can break a company if it’s not handled well. But if it can be curtailed, contained, and counterbalanced, it can even be turned to its subject’s advantage

SPECIAL REPORT: Location-based marketing 30 32

NEWS 6 8 10 12 13 14 15

Marketing. Harley-Davidson opens new Beirut dealership Digital. Realestate.com.lb partners with MSN Arabia Marketing. Fawaz Holding launches new products Advertising. Impact BBDO unveils new campaigns Print. Communicate Levant’s publisher buys titles from The Media Factory Advertising. Memac Ogilvy appoints new creative director Marketing. Burger King brings branded royalty to the UK

FEATURES 22 24 28

Web Wisdom. A place to talk: Flip Media’s Yousef Tuqan Tuqan on how to blog better Digital. Blog standard: We look at how a handful of Lebanese bloggers have carved a niche for themselves online Television. Bab to the bone: How MTV is leveraging its rights to Bab al Hara

A sense of place: We check out checking-in to see what location-based applications are out there Experts mark the spot: We dip into the boiling pot of industry ideas to see what morsels of location marketing inspiration emerge

DIGITAL 35

Duke’s up: Duke Nukem Forever is here, but the long wait means big marketing challenges lie ahead

DEPARTMENTS 36 38 40 42 44 45 46 50

Review. Box clever: Dubai Islamic Bank’s “The man who gave” might be clichéd, but it looks good X-pert files. Libya on the edge: The Brand Union’s Duncan James on the state of branding in Tripoli Public Relations. Boom time: How social media is helping PR thrive Q&A. A shot at success: Adrenalin’s Makram Fatah explains the new agency’s relationships with one of regional advertising’s biggest names Guest Opinion. Social stand-off: Are Twitter and Facebook killing blogs Blogosphere. What the Web is saying Work. Selections from the regional and international creative scenes Drive-by. One blogger’s take on Beirut’s billboards

october 2010 Medialeader SAL, Azar bldg, 5th floor, Dimitri Al Hayek st, Sin el Fil-Horsh Tabet, Beirut, Lebanon, Tel: (961) 1 492 801/2/3

CO-CEO Alexandre Hawari CO-CEO Julien Hawari general manager Simon O’Herlihy CFO Abdul Rahman Siddiqui creative DIRECTOR Aziz Kamel Online DIRECTOR Rony Nassour Marketing Manager Joumana Haddad, joumana@mediaquestcorp.com Tel: (971) 4 391 0760 DISTRIBUTION & SUBSCRIPTION Manager JP Nair, jp@ mediaquestcorp.com Tel: (971) 4 391 0765 Country Managers Lebanon: Nathalie

Bontems, nathalie@mediaquestcorp.com, (961) 149 2801/2/3 Saudi Arabia: Tarek Abu Hamzy, tarekah@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: (966) 50 814 50 90 North Africa: Adil Abdel Wahab, adel@medialeader.biz, Tel: (213) 661 562 660

Founder Yasser Hawari Managing Director Julien Hawari editor Nathalie Bontems Managing editor Austyn Allison senior journalist Rania Habib senior sub editor Elizabeth McGlynn sub editor Salil Kumar contributors Ibrahim Nehme, Karah Byrns, Aline Sara creative DIRECTOR Aziz Kamel ART DIRECTOR Sheela Jeevan ART CONTRIBUTORS Aya Farhat, Alvin Cha, Jean-Christophe Nys External Affairs

Manuel Dias, Maguy Panagga, Catherine Dobarro, Randa Khoury, Lila Schoepf, Laurent Bernard Responsible director Denise Mechantaf 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 Peggy El Zyr, peggy@mediaquestcorp. com, Tel: (961) 70 40 45 44 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

4 I Communicate

04-CLV07-TOC copy.indd 4

9/30/10 3:01 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | Regional news

Harley-Davidson is rolling into Lebanon

Beirut. Seventy years after it first opened in Lebanon, Harley-Davidson, the famous American motorcycle brand, inaugurated its new official dealership in the country with a launch event held on September 23. Harley-Davidson’s main office will be based in Dubai, as the manufacturer is moving some of its operations from South Africa and the US to better meet growing regional demand for its products. The Beirut dealership (its new showroom based in Kantari, near downtown Beirut, cost $2.5 million) will cater to the 800 bikers that are living in Lebanon, in the hope that this community (the biggest

in the region) will rapidly increase in size. “For us, Lebanon represents a country that is renowned for its passionate people, the dramatic scenery, and wonderful climate. There can be few places better to enjoy a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and our initial experiences point to it being a wonderful place to do business,” says Paul de Jongh, country manager, Harley-Davidson MENA. Marwan Tarraf, the owner of the dealership, says “The new showroom will offer bikers in Lebanon everything they need to maintain their bikes. Advice, parts, latest bikes, services and technical support will be

available so that our riders in the region no longer have to go through the inconvenience of ordering in from abroad.” The showroom will serve as a base to run tours and events. Lebanon has become one of the biggest hubs in Levant for Harley Tours, attracting riders from across the region. The second edition of the yearly Lebanon HOG Tour kicked off on October 1, 2 and 3, bringing together a record-breaking 400 riders from all the Gulf states as well as Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. It is expected to become the biggest rolling road tour in the world.

and connecting to Mediacom’s website. During the first session Sir Martin Sorrell, the CEO of

WPP (the global advertising and marketing group that employs 141,000 people in more than 2,400 offices in 107 countries), and Mediacom’s strategy and freshness director, Matthew Mee, discussed the future of marketing, highlighting the various challenges and opportunities that advertisers will face – in the next five years in particular. The discussion was moderated by Charlie Crowe, CEO and founder of business publishing, events and technology company C Squared.

 I MEDIA Mediacom holds its first live webminar Everywhere. On September 28, 2010, and as part of the agency’s new program “The Insider,” which will deliver relevant information and perspectives to advertisers on a quarterly basis, Mediacom held its first live webcast. The online seminar, “The next five years in marketing: how not to be taken by surprise [much],” could be attended by registering

V I ADVERTISING Spinney’s launches new campaigns Beirut. Supermarket chain Spinney’s released several campaigns recently. The Red Cross Ad (designed in-house this September) was initially developed for a Red Cross publication, before being used as an awareness campaign; in August, Spinney’s back-to-school campaign (by Young & Rubicam) targeted mothers, the chain’s main target segment. Also in August, another in-house campaign highlighted Spinney’s new and exclusive range of products from French-supermarket chain Auchan.

M&C Saatchi and ABC reply to Communicate Levant Beirut. Following Communicate Levant’s news on creative agency M&C Saatchi’s and ABC mall’s split (see Communicate Levant, “M&C Saatchi loses ABC account”, page 6, September 2010), the two companies asked us to publish this joint statement: Dear Editor, In response to the recent insert in your good publication dated September 2010, about the rumors surrounding M&C Saatchi and ABC, we would like to clarify that both companies decided to part ways amicably. Syrian advertising conference postponed again Damascus. The first Syrian advertising conference, initially scheduled for July 26 and 27 in Damascus, and already postponed once to September 28 and 29 (see Communicate Levant, “Syria’s first advertising conference postponed,” page 6, July 2010), has been moved again to an unspecified date in January 2011. The conference aims to accompany and support the issuance of the new Syrian law on advertising (see

6 I Communicate

clv07-Regional news.indd 6

10/4/10 3:33 PM

January 2010 /N° 139

Add depth to your perspective through our uncompromising investigations and unbiased insights.

January 2010 /N° 139

Some people only see whatÕ s on the surface.

EGYPT

IRAN

Hijab-free zones spring up in Cairo

Wealth, family ties offer no protection

Running on Empty Gulf nations scramble to build a lucrative future from today’s oil wealth

West Bank Battle

This time the fight is over mobile networks

Lots of Hot Air

R WO

Al Gore messes with industrial giants

FO R M IC W NO PREVIE

ECSOPECIAL

A MediaquestCorp Publication

TRENDS

A MediaquestCorp publication

Canada ........................C$ 7.50 France ..........................€ 4.57 Germany ....................... € 6.14

Egypt ..............................E£ 10 Italy.............................. € 5.17 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

UAE .............................AED 15 UK .....................................£ 2 USA ....................................$ 5

Registered in Dubai Media City

OCTOBER 2010 | Regional news

Realestate.com.lb partners with MSN Arabia

Continued from page 6 Communicate Levant, “Great expectations”, page 40, September 2010), which has repeatedly been postponed. No clear reason for this new change in dates has been given.  I MEDIA

Beirut. Lebanese property directory Realestate.com.lb, which was launched in April 2010 managing around 4,000 property listings, including commercial and residential (see Communicate Levant, “Property website launches campaign”, page 12, July 2010), has signed a partnership deal with MSN Arabia. This agreement is the first of its kind between the digital network and a Lebanese company. Mohamed El Sayad (pictured top right), general manager of

MSN Arabia, says, “Since this is our first partnership with a Lebanese company, we are delighted to establish such a strategic alliance and are confident that it will stimulate and guide real estate demand to the Lebanese real estate market, and provide a larger platform for all real estate actors as well.” Onida Khoury, sales and marketing manager at realestate.com. lb, says “This partnership will help boost the Lebanese real estate market by directing all searches on MSN

Arabia to realestate.com.lb and increase awareness about the website, including selling, buying, advertising, as well as connecting bankers’ financial companies, brokers, and other industries on a global level.” Realestate.com.lb chose MSN Arabia due to the high demand from abroad on Lebanese real estate. “Since most investors and buyers are expats and foreigners, the chances to have access to the Lebanese real estate market is wider,” Khoury says.  I INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Microsoft opens doors in Beirut Beirut. On September 29 and 30, at the Beirut International Exhibition and Leisure Center, Microsoft held its “Open door” exhibition, its biggest event of the year in Lebanon. Some 1,500 IT experts, partners, decision makers, and professionals joined market-leading brands, such as Nokia and HP, to discuss the latest in the IT and telecommunications industry, ranging from mobile communication, developer tools and advanced solutions. The agenda, divided in three tracks (two for IT professionals and one for developers), featured discussions on topics such as how to power up your social network in the enterprise, how to transform the way people communicate, along with more technical issues.

TV’s Orbit and Cable Vision sign deal Beirut. Subscription television company Orbit Showtime Network (OSN) and cable operating company Cable Vision signed an agreement last month under the supervision of information minister Tarek Mitri, who says that this deal is “key to regulating cable distribution,” in that it could help organize the distribution of cable television channels and prevent piracy. The deal allows Cable Vision to broadcast OSN channels without harming the television company’s copyrights. Cable Vision director general Mohammad Fakhoury assures that no additional costs would be imposed on subscribers but would, in fact, allow them to benefit from a broader range of channels for reasonable prices and with HD technology.

New Iranian entertainment TV channel available in Lebanon Beirut. IFilms, the latest addition to the Iranian state-run portfolio of TV channels, was launched this month and will broadcast to Lebanon, Syria, and the UAE. On top of Jam-e Jam (which airs Farsi programs for Iranians expats), Al-Kawthar (a mix of news, religious talk shows and Iranian soap operas dubbed into Arabic) and news channels Press TV (launched in 2007) and Al-Alam (launched in 2003 and broadcasting in Arabic), iFilms will air 24-hour-a-day entertainment programs (documentaries on making of films, film reviews, feature films, and short films) dubbed in Arabic. Ban on herbal medicine ads under discussion again Beirut. Health officials are still struggling to enforce law number 90, completely prohibiting herbal medicine advertisement in all media. “Parliament has issued a law and it should be applied… It was made

8 I Communicate

clv07-Regional news.indd 8

10/4/10 3:33 PM

haya_Eng_comm_33X24cm.indd 1

5/4/10 11:50:35 AM

OCTOBER 2010 | Regional news

Busy month for Fawaz Holding

Beirut. Lebanese distributor Fawaz Holding and its advertising arm Sogepub haven’t remained idle, launching no less than a dozen new products recently. The launches by Socodile (the group’s high-end brands distribution arm) included Paco Rabanne’s new perfume for women, Lady Million, a range of Dior novelties such as lipstick Rouge Dior (that was heav-

ily advertised all across Lebanon) in 32 different shades, anti-aging skin care Capture Totale Nuit and Eau Sensuelle Hypnotic Poison. Now exclusive distributor of Pernod Ricard in Lebanon (its portfolio includes Chivas, Absolut, Jameson, The Glenlivet, Ricard and Malibu), Fawaz Holding, through its subsidiary Nexty SARL, also launched this

month a range of Ballantine’s – that became part of Pernod Ricard in 2005 – whiskies: Ballantine’s 12-year-old, Ballantine’s 17-year-old, Ballantine’s 21-yearold, Ballantine’s 30-year-old and Ballantine’s finest. Also involved in home appliances, Fawaz Holding introduced this month Moulinex home bread baguette maker.

Continued from page 8 clear today that media institutions and their profits were not being targeted. The aim is to regulate the matter,” said Health minister Mohammad Jawad Khalifeh during a meeting early in September with various media owners and representatives. Khalifeh also said that a proposal to ensure ads would clearly state that the promoted products are not medications could be considered. According to the head of the parliamentary health committee, Atef Majdalani, 10 patients have already died after substituting their subscribed medications with herbal medicines they saw advertised on television. Majdalani also requested that media dedicate an hour a week to educational programs “that would raise awareness about false and misleading advertisements.” The next day, the General Directorate of General Security announced that it had taken measures to stop the advertisement of herbal medicines, insisting however that “satellite television channels [are not subject to] the law concerning the prior surveillance of advertisements.” The ban translated into the loss of a $6 million market for the advertising industry (see Communicate Levant, “Burning issue,” page 30, April 2010).

National Geographic al-Arabiya to be available in Lebanon Beirut. The monthly Middle East edition of American magazine National Geographic will be launched this month, in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Media Company (which is already involved with Arabic-speaking National Geographic Abu Dhabi TV channel), and will be distributed in Lebanon, as well as 15 countries throughout the MENA region. At least 20 percent of the magazine will be produced locally and an Internet website in Arabic is also in the pipeline. National Geographic al-Arabiya will be the 33rd addition to the magazine’s portfolio of regionalized editions.  I online Levant region lags behind in online shopping Dubai. Only two in 10 Internet users in the Levant and North Africa region shop online at least once a month,

10 I Communicate

clv07-Regional news.indd 10

10/4/10 3:33 PM

2010

gemas

mena

Prove it

Gala awards ceremony: 4th November 2010 Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai For more information, please contact: basma@mediaquestcorp.com GEMAS Marketer of the year sponsored by

effie teaser 2010 Communicate.indd 1

Grand Prix sponsored by

Strategic partner

Best Youth Marketing CSR category category sponsored by sponsored by

FMCG Non Food FMCG category category sponsored by sponsored by

www.gemaseffie.com

9/27/10 9:02 AM

OCTOBER 2010 | Regional news

Impact BBDO’s latest work

Continued from page 10 compared to 43 percent of GCC users, An Effective Measure/Spot On PR survey concluded. The September survey of almost 7,000 Internet users across the Arab world shows that the regional average of Internet users shopping online is a mere 32 percent, lagging way behind other developed markets but still representing a market of more than 20 million online shoppers across the Arab world. Cleartag signs up with MTN Syria Damascus. After having launched its Syrian operation last July (see Communicate Levant, “Cleartag expands to Syria,” page 8, August 2010), consultancy firm Cleartag partnered up this month with telecom provider MTN Syria as its digital agency. Cleartag is hoping to position MTN Syria as a world-class player catering to the needs of fast paced growth of Internet users in Syria. “We believe in design thinking, advanced interactivity, and technical superiority, and this is where Cleartag and MTN Syria are aligned,” said Omar Abou-Ezzeddine, senior consultant at Cleartag.

Beirut. Impact BBDO unveiled two main campaigns in Beirut last month. The first, for the Beirut Terraces residential building, was developed around one main message, “Live both sides,” as the tenants are invited to enjoy the views from both inside and outside the property, and experience both the architectural and natural living spaces of the multi-layered tower developed by Benchmark. Beirut Terraces was designed by Herzog and de Meuron in the

spirit of striking contrasts and complementary elements, a statement from Impact says. The aim was to highlight two of those elements, while putting forth the work of landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic. Two copy-based press ads were created to capture the essence of the “vertical village” living experience. The other campaign was for Bankmed to underline the bank’s understanding of consumers’ needs for reliable, fast, and flexible services.

Three films featuring three key product offerings that Impact says are the most demanded and thought of by the general public – car loans, house loans, and credit cards – depict common daily situations in which clients have been let down by their existing bank, whether through poor service, slow response or reliability, and found themselves in embarrassing but endearing and funny situations. Bankmed’s tagline is: “Avoid the embarrassment.”

Revamping of media law to include online media under consideration Beirut. The parliamentary commission for the Modernization of Laws has started this month discussing the revamping of the Lebanese media law, in order to tackle the issue of online media (news websites, magazines, blogs, and so on). The current law, dating from 1962, isn’t adapted to the modern media landscape and should be revised, according to Information minister Tarek Mitri. A proposal taking into account online outlets was distributed to a meeting held several weeks ago with various electronic media publishers. This proposal states, according to news website Now Lebanon, that “the creation of a new website would not require a license as long as the managing editor’s information is readily available, and that he or she has a minimum of five years’ experience in journalism and does not hold a post that excludes him or her from inclusion in the law.” The proposal also states that electronic media must follow the laws of intellectual property, including those on plagiarism.

12 I Communicate

clv07-Regional news.indd 12

10/4/10 3:34 PM

REGIONAL news | OCTOBER 2010

Mediaquest acquires The Media Factory titles Magazines among assets taken over by Communicate’s parent company

Dubai. Communicate Levant’s parent company, Mediaquest Corp., has acquired various print and online titles from Dubai publishing house The Media Factory. Mediaquest has taken over the publishing of legal magazine The Brief, insurance title Policy, football magazine FourFourTwo Middle East, and motoring titles Autocar Middle East and F1 Racing Middle East. The latter three titles were licensed to The Media Factory by Haymarket Media Group in the UK. Mediaquest has taken over those licenses, as well as the rights to Autosport.com, a motorsports website. The titles will continue to be supplemented by events such as Insurex and the Autocar Awards. Alexandre Hawari, co-CEO of Mediaquest (pictured above, left), says, “The titles we have acquired are all

market leaders in their respective fields. Mediaquest has a proven track record of publishing quality magazines and we believe we can develop these titles further by taking them to new markets to exploit fully their potential, particularly in the Arabic-speaking segment.” Tim Bulley, licensing director at Haymarket Media Group, says, “Haymarket is very excited to be growing its licensed portfolio with Mediaquest. We have enjoyed a strong relationship with The Media Factory over the past six years, which through its unrelenting commitment to editorial excellence has built highly successful local editions of our brands.” Andrea Slater, CEO of The Media Factory, says, “We have given these titles a good commercial start and we are more than confident that Mediaquest will continue to publish them to the same standard estab-

lished by The Media Factory. We wish Mediaquest a prosperous and beneficial future publishing these brands, as they move forward into an improving economic landscape.” Mediaquest’s other co-CEO, Julien Hawari (pictured above, right), says, “We are fortunate to have created a talent pool of multilingual and experienced professionals in our editorial, design, sales and marketing teams. This gives us great confidence to launch these titles into new markets, and provide readers and advertisers with a wider choice of quality media.” The Media Factory has closed a number of titles in the past 18 months, including the inflight magazines for Qatar Airways and Thai Airways. Mediaquest recently hired Simon O’Herlihy, who was previously with Dubai-based Motivate Publishing, as general manager for new business.

to $2.7 million – a $500,000 increase – making it the richest purse of the Tour’s “Desert Swing.” “This partnership ushers in a new era for the championship and golf

in Abu Dhabi,” says Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of ADTA. “It is in many ways a comingof-age for the championship and for Abu Dhabi’s ambitions as a credible golfing destination.” “Golf is a very important part of HSBC’s marketing program, and the Middle East is a key region to the bank’s business,” says Simon Cooper, regional deputy chairman and CEO of HSBC. “We feel ADTA has established a top-tier event of the highest quality that fits extremely well with our brand.”

 I MARKETING HSBC becomes title sponsor of Abu Dhabi golf event Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) and HSBC have entered a five-year partnership that sees the bank becoming title sponsor of the emirate’s PGA European Tour event. The partnership means the tournament, to be held in January at Abu Dhabi Golf Club, will now be known as the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, and its 2011 prize fund rises

 I MEDIA Starcom MENA wins M&M Campaign of the Year London. Starcom MENA’s “Hiroshi and Osamu – Confessions of Corporate Spies” campaign for Chevrolet has clinched the media agency awards for Best Use of Content and Campaign of the Year at the Media and Marketing Awards in London. The campaign, which ran across media platforms – primarily social networks – focused on two spies working for a Japanese car manufacturer, who are sent on a mission to see why Chevrolet’s vehicles are so much better. Fadi Ghosn, chief marketing officer at General Motors, the auto company behind Chevrolet, says in a press release, “This fully integrated campaign, led by social media, increased our ability to understand our audience and experience in real time what is being said about Chevrolet. The results were remarkable and included a significant shift in the brand attributes of ‘favorability’ and ‘fun-loving.’” Wael Hattar, head of Core, Starcom’s branded content division, says, “GM kept pushing the boundaries with us. When we did well in a medium we immediately tackled another, taking the audience through a full sensory experience.”

 I TELEVISION Melody launches new channel Dubai. Egyptian broadcaster Melody Entertainment has launched a free-toair 24-hour drama channel, Melody Drama 2, to complement its Melody Drama channel. The new channel will replace Melody Drama +2. Gamal Marwan, chairman and CEO of Melody Entertainment, says in a press release, “We are delighted to announce the launch of Melody Drama 2, especially after the huge success of both Melody Drama and Melody Drama +2, which reached the number one position in the specialized drama channels during the month of Ramadan in Egypt, and top 10 in Saudi Arabia less than eight months after their launch.”

Communicate I 13

00-COM70-Regional newsLEVANT .indd 13

10/4/10 3:31 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | REGIONAL NEWS

I PRINT

Retail ME to relaunch Dubai. Dubai-based business magazine Retail ME, which covers – predictably – the retail industry, is to relaunch as the first UAE title from Indian publishing firm Image Group. Delhi-based Image Group has recently opened offices in Dubai Media City’s Building Four, and plans to roll out other titles after Retail ME hits news stands at the start of October. Image’s flagship title is Images Fashion, and the group also runs the India Retail Forum, which was due to take place in Mumbai at the end of last month. Retail ME will continue to be edited by Lawrence Pinto.  I agencies

Memac Ogilvy appoints new creative director Steve Hough has been appointed executive creative director at advertising agency Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai. Hough has big shoes to fill, taking over from Till Hohmann, who left to become chief creative officer at JWT in Germany earlier this year. In a May interview, Memac’s CEO, Edmond Moutran, described Hohmann as “one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.” (See “All we need is love,” page 70, Communicate, May 2010.) Hough, who was previously executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi in Vietnam, acknowledges this legacy. “There are some terrific people here,” he tells Communicate Levant. “When Till was here, the agency made some great strides, and my job is going to be to continue that great work, build on it, take it forward, and to push and nurture the agency to be as good as we can be.” In a press statement, Moutran says, “Steve brings a tremendous amount of experience, having worked with such prestigious agencies as Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO, Young & Rubicam, and Ogilvy & Mather. We are extremely pleased to have Steve join the team in Dubai as he will no doubt help us raise the creative bar even further.”

Hough began his career as a copywriter with Saatchi & Saatchi in London. Eight years later he moved to M&C Saatchi in Hong Kong. He moved to New Zealand a year later, and in 2002 joined Ogilvy & Mather Singapore. With Ogilvy, Hough won awards including a D&AD Yellow Pencil, a One Show Gold Pencil, and two Bronze Lions. Then Hough moved to Saatchi & Saatchi in Kuala Lumpur, where he won a Gold Lion for his Amnesty International “Stamps” campaign. At Saatchi in Vietnam, he picked up three more Bronze Lions. Talking of his time in Asia, Hough tells Communicate Levant, “It was a great privilege to work alongside some incredibly talented, world-class people. I learned an enormous amount about big brands and about winning awards. I’ve got a huge passion for creating advertising, and world-class work, and I’m hoping to share that knowledge with the people here, to raise the bar in this department and to produce more work that’s world-class.” Of the Middle East, Hough says his initial impression is, “It’s a fascinating region, it’s growing very rapidly, and it’s attracting a lot more talent. The standard is already good, and now it’s a matter of getting more world-class work out.”

Amber announces account wins Dubai. Branding and communications agency Amber Communications has announced a series of account wins since the start of 2010. New clients include global luggage manufacturer Samsonite, local retail brand KM, Emirates Medical Services, Fujairah International Hospital, and Dreamdays Gift Experiences. In a statement, Amber says its services include advertising and PR, as well as branding. “The first six months of the year have been extremely rewarding and busy, implementing revised strategies for our existing clients and for our new clients. A paradigm shift in our approach during the last quarter of 2009 was the key to these new client wins and growth,” says Sudhir Nair, Amber’s CEO. Our bad Last month we erroneously titled a news article, “ENOC hands PR account to Entourage.” The article stated that “Emirates National Oil Company has signed Dubai-based Entourage Marketing and Events Management to develop a corporate communications plan for the company’s commercial interests in more than 20 countries.” This was inaccurate. That job, in fact, remains with ENOC’s PR company, Asda’a. A statement from Entourage clarifies the situation: “ENOC entrusted Entourage to support its corporate communication initiatives across a wide range of channels including, but not limited to, group corporate website, corporate brochure, and a host of BTL communication tools.” We regret the error.

Very Briefs Inca Tanvir Sunil Anand awarded doctorate Fifth Ring wins Emax PR account Ekadaa wins PR account for medical client Viva Ipsos introduces “Big Idea” service Hilton worldwide names Emma Corcoran as regional director of corporate communications Turquoise expands Dubai team Magnus Nystedt joins CPI on Macworld, PC World and GameWorld BPG Group and Blue launch joint venture Performance PR appointed by Abu Dhabi International Motor Show Standard Chartered and TBWA/ RAAD launch virtual Ramadan tent on Facebook Clement Dean joins Action PR as media relations manager Bonhams auction house appoints Z7 Communications as Middle East PR agency Al Aan TV appoints Pirana Advertising as creative and communications agency for Saudi Arabia and the UAE

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

14 I Communicate

00-COM70-Regional newsLEVANT .indd 14

10/4/10 3:31 PM

INTERNATIONAL news | OCTOBER 2010

All hail the King: fast-food giant’s bid to restore power Burger King campaign launches in UK following drop in sales Burger King is introducing the iconic King character in the UK as part of a new campaign with the tagline, “Taste is King.” The 60-second spot, created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, broke last month during a prime-time airing of The X Factor talent show. It launched just as Burger King confirmed it had agreed a $4 billion sale to 3G Capital Management. The commercial is part of an integrated campaign for the brand that will see the King making a tour of major UK cities this month. Residents of these cities, including London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, will be encouraged to follow the King, just as a growing horde of people do in the TV ad, to receive discounts and other offers at their local Burger King restaurants.

The promotion will also run on the geo-location-based social network Foursquare, on other

 I ADVERTISING Gap taps Foursquare co-founders for holiday ad campaign What do Foursquare co-founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai have in common with Lauren Bush? Gap, apparently. The clothing retailer is readying a new campaign with an eclectic mix of celebrities and social-media execs, including Selvadurai and Crowley, as well as Bush, tied to the upcoming holiday season. According to a source, the campaign will support various charitable efforts near and dear to participants. In the case of the Foursquare co-founders, Gap has agreed to promote and make a donation to CampInteractive, a non-profit that works with inner-city youth, in exchange for their participation. It’s not clear whether Gap is doing the same for all the other campaign participants, although it’s worth noting that Bush is the co-founder of the Feed Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to ensuring children have access to nutritious school meals.

Pepsi expands Refresh project Less than a year ago, Pepsi caught consumers and the advertising industry off-guard in the US with its announcement that it would bypass the Super Bowl in favor of a cause campaign, Pepsi Refresh Project. At the time, the effort was considered a social-media experiment, a test case that could shape the way other major companies approached marketing. Last month Pepsi officially moved past the experiment stage, with the announcement that it will expand the Pepsi Refresh Project to Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and will continue to fund the project in the US and Canada. “When you look at the powerful movement that we are creating, there’s no question that we have on our hands something big,” says Ami Irazabal, marketing director at Pepsi. “Good ideas need to expand. They cannot be encapsulated, especially when something is working for the brand.”

social media, and in online ads. The ad is also on Burger King’s UK website. In the US, $1.3 million per month has been allocated to the Pepsi Refresh Project – which allocates funds to worthy causes, voted for on the Refresheverything.com website – this year, and that figure will be carried into 2011, raising the question of whether Pepsi will pour additional millions into the Super Bowl TV spots it bypassed last year.  I MARKETING Corn syrup seeks rebrand High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) by any other name would taste as sweet. But it probably wouldn’t attract so much negative publicity. The Corn Refiners Association has petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration, asking it to allow manufacturers the option of using “corn sugar” as opposed to high-fructose corn syrup on ingredient lists. The move is the latest in the association’s battle to change the public’s perception and understanding of HFCS. “It is clear that the name highfructose corn syrup confuses consumers and is misleading,” says Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association. “It suggests it’s high in fructose, which it is not.” It has the same fructose content as table sugar. The FDA has 180 days to respond to the petition. According to Erickson, the FDA has only changed the

The King has made fleeting appearances in British ads for Burger King in the past but this is his first starring role. Previous campaigns for the fastfood chain have been product-led, promoting new sandwiches, special offers or old favorites such as the Flame-Grilled Whopper. The introduction of The King in the UK comes four months after Natalia Franco was installed as chief marketing officer of Burger King globally. In the UK, Burger King’s sales fell by 2.3 percent in the year ending June 30, 2010, while rivals McDonald’s and Subway saw sales grow during the same period. Crispin has done ads for Burger King in Europe, mainly the UK and Spain, for several years. name of an ingredient twice in history. Once was changing “prunes” to “dried plums” in 2000; the other was changing “low erucic acid rapeseed oil” to “canola oil” in the late 1980s. FTC summons 48 food companies over marketing to kids The US Federal Trade Commission is once again handing out subpoenas to companies that market food to children and teens. Three years after initially delivering “orders to file special report” to 44 marketers, the FTC last month began sending subpoenas to 48 firms in order to prepare a follow-up to its 120-page report issued in 2008, “Marketing Food to Children and Adolescents: A Review of Industry Expenditures, Activities and Self-Regulation.” “This is a follow-up to measure the effects that self-regulation has had over the past three years,” says Carol Jennings, spokeswoman for the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices and Bureau of Consumer Protection. “We are supportive of industry voluntary efforts to limit their marketing to kids and this will see whether more is needed.” Some have speculated that the new round of subpoenas was a prelude to congressional hearings and possible legislation, but Jennings denies that. “We are not proposing any regulation,” she says.

Communicate I 15

18-19-COMM 70-International news-aa.indd 15

10/4/10 3:30 PM

16 I Communicate

clv07-COVER STORY FIGHTING THE RUMOURS-aa.indd 16

9/29/10 6:29 PM

Cover Story | OCTOBER 2010

Wicked whispers

In Lebanon, perhaps more than elsewhere, rumors are part of daily life. But what’s to be done when your company winds up as the subject of gossip? by Karah Byrns

veryone has been the subject of rumor, and in a small country of close-knit communities such as Lebanon, everyone understands how damaging and painful that can be. Companies – whether large or small – are not immune, and just as precautions must be taken to protect a personal reputation, companies must work to guard their commercial reputations. In an environment ripe for toxic communication, dealing with this unsavory but inevitable aspect of business means making room for communication strategies that can nip rumors in the bud and help a company grow. Fall of an empire. “A rumor has the connotation of being false, but there is usually something behind it, which can lead to the fall of an empire,” says Rami Majzoub, former MENA media manager of Reuters and co-founder of JCI Lebanon, a non-profit that tries to make youths more active in society. As a mechanism of communication, rumors can pose serious threats to business, translating into losses of thousands of dollars to repair damaged brand equity. Commonly defined as an uncertain, unconfirmed piece of information, without a discernible source,

a rumor is usually spread by word-of-mouth. In Lebanon, susceptibility to rumors runs deep. Beyond its small size and complex sociopolitical character, cultural factors also pave the way for negative information to spread rapidly, says Chadi Farhat, managing director of media agency OMD. “Rumors can be very damaging in Lebanon because the public does not rely on facts, but on emotions,” he says. “We are not yet a digitally-oriented society. People become emotionally attached to a negative idea out of fear, and take precautions without doing any research. They don’t analyze. They don’t go online and investigate. They just believe it.” The impact of a rumor can be as strong as the emotion it provokes in the market, and that emotion is fed by a lack of information. “Rumors usually spread when there is a state of uncertainty,” says Leila Khauli Hanna, a lecturer in marketing management at the American University of Beirut. The financial crisis was one example, when people feared Lebanese expatriates would return in great waves, saturating the local job market. The recent death of ad guru Antoine Choueiri also sparked insecurities, giving rise to rumors that the advertising industry would collapse without a substitute for Choueiri’s guiding hand. In both cases, the fuel for the rumors was fear.

People also tend to talk when a company fails to deliver on a promise. One disgruntled consumer is enough to start a devastating rumor. “People talk positively if you fulfill their expectations, but if you over-promise and underdeliver, this generates negative word-of-mouth,” Hanna says. “If you under-promise, however, people won’t choose you in the first place. It’s a difficult balance to pull off.” “People” and “promises” not only refer to consumers, but also employees who feel the company is not delivering on its promises to staff. Their complaints can generate negative word-of-mouth that hurts the brand, whether it is true or false. Size matters. “The larger the company, the greater the potential damage,” Farhat says. People are more excited to talk about a person everyone knows, and the same applies to companies. “A smaller company can contain a rumor more easily, as it is relatively unknown and people care less,” he says. However, there is a catch. Although international firms are bigger and more often targeted by rumors, local ones suffer greater damages.

Communicate I 17

clv07-COVER STORY FIGHTING THE RUMOURS-aa.indd 17

9/29/10 6:29 PM

Sinking ship. If not addressed properly, rumors can sink a company

chadi farhat. Managing director of OMD

Leila Khauli Hanna. Lecturer in marketing management at the American University of Beirut

“The credibility of local companies is not as high; there is a perception that multinational companies are more professional,” Farhat says, emphasizing the need for local companies to treat rumors seriously. Competition is another vicious force. Starting a rumor can be a tempting way to discredit an opponent, especially if there is an element of truth to the gossip. “It’s a cheap way to bring someone down in order to take the lead, rather than investing in improving your own business,” Majzoub says. However, according to Farhat, “If competitors start rumors, it is usually out of emotion rather than any real, coherent strategy.” Having a plan for responding to rumors is, therefore, crucial. The media too bears some responsibility for spreading rumors. Although protecting sources is a positive practise, that principle can be abused to perpetuate rumors, intentionally or otherwise. And since consumers like spicy news, rumors can be eagerly passed on in print without proper fact-checking. “The absence of benchmarks facilitates rumors, along with unavailable or distorted data. There are no real local media watchdogs here, and this paves the way for rumors,” Majzoub says. Another problem is that many media providers have personal or political ties with companies, driving news sources to either protect or attack based on loyalty. “If you react emotionally, based on having a good relationship with a person, you tend to defend them, no matter what. The same logic applies [to companies],” Farhat says, who adds that in Lebanon, rumors are more difficult to sift through because the media works and plans according to politics and connections. For this reason companies bear an even greater responsibility to provide public information in line with a clear communication strategy that includes a framework for managing rumors.

getting the word out. In the mid-19th century, American novelist Mark Twain was quoted as saying, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” In Lebanon in 2010, it’s fair to say that a lie can gain so much mileage that the truth may never be able to catch up. “The best defense against rumors isn’t the law; it’s communication. Getting the word out – and getting it out fast – is key,” says Nadine Maalouf, director at public relations agency Cohn & Wolf. When deciding how to respond to a rumor, time is of the essence. Unfortunately, companies in Lebanon usually opt for vehement denial or stone-cold silence as a tactic for combating rumors. “In an emotional culture, when it comes to rumors, managers are using their hearts more than their minds,” Farhat says. Denial, verbalized or not, is an emotional response, based on ego. “Denial harms you from day one,” Majzoub says. “When not backed-up by facts, denial signals that the rumor is true,” he says. However, facts used to debunk a rumor must also be verifiably true. “The worst thing to do when responding to a rumor is to lie,” says Hanna. “When you lie to fix a situation, you’re actually digging a deeper hole.” An appropriate strategy can vary from ignoring the rumor to embarking on a complex strategy to counteract it. Choosing the right path depends on assessing the possible damage. Ignoring a rumor is only advisable if it is small and relatively simple to contain, but if it has the potential to travel widely, it must be addressed. “Knowing when to wait versus when you’ve waited too long to respond is more art than science. If you act too soon, you can help spread the rumor and inadvertently give it credence. Act too slow and you can lose the chance to get the truth to people,” Maalouf says. Each

18 I Communicate

clv07-COVER STORY FIGHTING THE RUMOURS-aa.indd 18

9/29/10 6:29 PM

Cover Story | OCTOBER 2010

rumor is unique, she says, meaning it must be evaluated promptly, and the risk of going public with information assessed. Another reason timing is key is that the longer a company waits, the more potentially sensitive information it will have to release to prove itself, and disprove its doubters. When a rumor is false, denial is the wrong course of action only if that denial is not supplemented with facts that replace the information being circulated. If there is any underlying truth in the accusation, it must be addressed immediately. Admitting accurate portions of a rumor is important to preserve brand equity. If consumers later learn of any dishonesty on behalf of the company, trust is shattered. That can be expensive, as brand equity is costly and difficult to rebuild. If a rumor contains elements of both truth and falsehood, Maalouf says, “lead with an apology, briefly explain, but don’t excuse the situation. Then move on to addressing the incorrect portions of the rumors.” When a company comes clean and offers compensation for damages where appropriate, it exhibits confidence, awareness, and stability, and adds positive human attributes to a brand, such as being responsible, reliable, and caring. “In cases when false rumors are spread, we can all sympathize with the desire to find who is responsible, to prove them wrong, publicly shame them, and make them pay. Unfortunately, this strategy isn’t always in the best interest of shareholders,” Maalouf says. “What is in the best interest of the brand is to ensure false rumors don’t stick in the minds of consumers.” Fortunately, says Farhat, the Lebanese have short memories, especially once a communication is issued that manages to assuage the fears or insecurities that are fueling the rumor. “How else would it be possible for us to live with each other?” he asks. “We are emotional people, and when you allow yourself to be carried by emotions, eventually you forgive and forget.” Tools to break the silencE. Companies in Lebanon tend to fall back on classic forms of direct communication such as press releases and press conferences when responding to rumors. However, there are many other PR tools within reach that can be used to communicate indirectly to the market and repair damages. One of the most effective is already a central part of companies. “Companies need to remember that they must face a rumor on two levels: externally and internally,” Majzoub says. Staff can be a powerful communication asset to spur positive word-of-mouth. Maalouf agrees, saying firms should give staff the right talking points, illustrate how it is in their interest to spread the information, and ask for their assistance in getting the word out. “Don’t tell them what to do, but be sure they are made aware of the importance of broadcast-

powerful asset. Staff can be key to spur positive word-of-mouth ing the truth and responding to misinformation,” she says. Actions speak louder than words when it comes to handling rumors. Sometimes words are not enough, and the only way to prove a rumor false is to act in a way that cancels its effect. Majzoub says during the July 2006 war, JCI Lebanon faced accusations of being politically aligned and pro-American. “We answered the rumors on the ground through our members, who acted as volunteers in neglected areas in the south,” he says. “We sent psychologists to families for group and individual therapy, providing moral support in addition to donations. People understood that if we were willing to perform all these activities, then the rumors could not be true.” Another tool that can be used indirectly to fight a rumor is good news. “Carefully selecting the right message – one that reflects the spreading of gossip – and broadcasting that message can permit you to fight rumors without directly addressing them,” Maalouf says. Showering the market with good news can overcome bad news, as long as positive messages counteract the rumor’s main negative message on key points. They also have to be relevant and smart. Prevention and controL. No one can predict rumors, but hiring a PR company to monitor the pulse of the market can help ensure the right mechanisms are in place to detect them and prevent them from spinning out of control. A PR company can add value for small, medium, and large companies, not only by implementing a communications strategy, but also by acting as a watchdog for the reputation of the brand. As communication channels multiply, having a PR officer to ensure outgoing communications remain consistent with each other and with the firm’s global message has become increasingly

Rami Majzoub. Co-founder of JCI Lebanon

Nadine Maalouf. PR director at Cohn & Wolf

Communicate I 19

clv07-COVER STORY FIGHTING THE RUMOURS-aa.indd 19

9/29/10 6:29 PM

key principles. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil critical, especially in the event of a crisis. “When facing a crisis or rumor, there has to be a common line without any panic or drama,” says Majzoub. “Not everyone can be a spokesman for the company.” With PR support, a company can develop a strategic approach to rumors, put its staff through training for dealing with the media, and, above all, be prepared for the worst. A PR officer keeps all communications under control, defusing emotions and knee-jerk reactions. Although many companies in Lebanon seem to thrive on confidentiality and secrecy, this is counterproductive for communications regarding rumors. Because rumors stem from incomplete information in the market, transparency is the only way to stop them before they snowball. If a company makes information accessible to the public and is easily available for comment, rumors lose momentum. Transparency appeals to both rationality and emotions. When a company builds a positive relationship with a consumer based on facts, the consumer feels more secure, and is more

A double-edged sworD. If a rumor can cut deeply into the heart of a company, it can also help cut a clearer path to building a stronger brand. The old adage “There’s no smoke without fire” often rings true with rumors. “Look at where the rumor started, analyze where it came from, and resolve the issue lying behind the rumor, not just the rumor itself,” says Farhat. A rumor can be an opportunity to perceive a weakness,

replace it with a strength, and communicate on that improvement. Another positive aspect of rumors is that companies take greater care to guard their reputations when operating in a hotbed of word-of-mouth communication. When they realize the cost of negative feedback, companies strive harder to keep their promises to the market. When these expectations are met, Hanna says, rumors have little space to grow. “Rumors end when the market feels sure again about your products or services,” she says. Good or bad, the bottom line is that rumors may ruin a company but, if managed properly, they can also keep a business alive. And with professional help, can even be turned into an advantage, as an opportunity to connect with the public, reveal underlying problems, improve operations, address the market’s concerns, and build greater confidence through transparency. Although you can’t prevent all rumors from starting, ending them is where true expertise and strategic planning can make a difference. As Farhat says, “In the end, the best cure for a rumor is the equity of the company.”

as quickly as possible. If a Facebook group is being used to disseminate misinformation, get the facts posted in the group, and then contact Facebook to remove that group,” she says. A website statement for the public is a classic step, but Maalouf also recommends taking it a step further, with a more hands-on approach. Since rumors tend to lose truthful information and details as they are passed along from person to person, companies should use facts to fill in the gaps, helping the market understand the situation. When providing links to back-up these facts, directing consumers to objective third-party sources

gives greater credibility to the message than links to the company’s own website. For serious rumors, Maalouf recommends setting up a microsite that addresses the accusations, taking into consideration not only the company’s point of view, but also the concerns of society as a whole. Such a move is highly reassuring to the public, shows concern, relays critical information, and helps rebuild credibility. “With a careful link-building strategy that includes links from official brand and company sites, and from blogs and social networks, your site can attain great organic search-engine relevance, which can help increase traffic and disseminate information,” Maalouf says.

likely to show loyalty to that brand. According to Farhat, trust creates a buffer against rumors. “If the brand equity of the company is strong, consumers are unlikely to believe the rumor,” he says. “Their confidence in the brand allows them to dismiss the rumor as false.” Companies must also realize that consumers today are smarter than ever before, and the more information there is in the market, the less vulnerable a company is to negative wordof-mouth. “Facts kill rumors,” Farhat says. “If you offer facts, people have no choice but to believe them.”

DIGITAL COMBAT With the changes in communication brought about by the Internet, rumors today can travel widely – and at warp speed. Each new communication tool, be it e-mail or social media, is another road for a rumor to travel on. Matching traditional PR tools to modern-day rumors is not always appropriate, as some rumors call for more interactive planning. “The interconnectivity of consumers is too great to rely on traditional PR crisis management,” Maalouf says. Companies should use the same channels being used to circulate a rumor, to fight it. “If YouTube videos are spreading deceptions, then get a video response on YouTube

20 I Communicate

clv07-COVER STORY FIGHTING THE RUMOURS-aa.indd 20

9/29/10 6:29 PM

WE ALWAYS HAVE SO GIVE US A PIECE OF YOUR MIND ON THE MIDDLE EAST’S MOST LIVELY DISCUSSION FORUM

SOMETHING TO SAY News . Business . Investment . Society . Entertainment . Marketing . Innovation . Opinion . Blog

Kipp Ad "Sthg" COM-240x330mm.indd 1

A MediaquestCorp website

8/16/10 11:32 AM

OCTOBER 2010 | DIGITAL

Web Wisdom

Starting a conversation

How your corporate blog can help you take your first step into social media by Yousef Tuqan Tuqan

YOUSEF TUQAN TUQAN. CEO of Flip Media

or the past few years, I’ve jokingly said to clients and colleagues who were unconvinced of the need to invest in their digital strategy, “If you don’t think the Internet matters in the Middle East, just wait a minute.” While doubters have pointed to low spend, low penetration rates, and poor infrastructure, the reality is that we are home to the fastest-growing Internet audience in the world. Between 2000 and 2010, the Internet audience in the Middle East grew more than 2,500 percent, and if we look ahead to the coming four years, digital marketing spend in the region will grow from $93 million today to $467 million in 2014. In order to prepare for the future, it’s interesting to think just how much corporate communications have changed recently. In the summer of 2006, the iPhone had not been announced, Twitter had not launched, and Facebook was still a closed website for university students. Just by considering how these three inventions have fundamentally changed the communications landscape, it gives pause to anyone who thinks they can continue to swim against the tide and ignore the Internet. While it may be tempting to start a Facebook group or Twitter page to take advantage of the latest buzzwords, the most valuable thing you can do is think about how you plan to build a meaningful relationship with your audience. Over the next few months, we will provide you with a guide on how you can prepare for these changes and take advantage of these new media opportunities. They are not without risk, but by changing your mindset, you have already

taken the first step to success, because it’s now about much more than just your “website.” Any real consumer engagement now crosses every medium, but the Internet sits at the center. Your website cannot just be a static brochure, and brands need to recognize that the Internet is becoming the primary medium that consumers choose to do everything through. And it’s only going to get bigger. One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways for you to go beyond just a corporate website is to create a corporate blog. Blogs are easy to set up, practically free to create, and provide you with a wonderful opportunity to show opinion leadership in your industry, gain valuable customer feedback, engage with your stakeholders, and recruit employees. US technology company Hubspot’s recent study of 1,500 of its customers’ websites found that corporate sites that featured a blog attracted 55 percent more visitors, 97 percent more inbound links to their site, and 434 percent more indexed pages on search engines. These numbers reveal many of the benefits that a blog can offer. Increased visitors leads to increased sales; increased inbound links raises your visibility, and also makes your site rank higher on search engines, as does the increase in your website’s pages indexed by search engines. However, while creating a blog only requires a few clicks, making it succeed requires much more. But by following a few simple rules, you can ensure you create a successful blog – and even have fun doing it.

22 I Communicate

clv07 guide-blogs.indd 22

10/4/10 3:38 PM

DIGITAL | OCTOBER 2010

Corporate blogs: Five rules to follow 1. Add value: The only way you will attract repeat visitors to your blog is by offering them something that they can’t find elsewhere. Your blog should not be a press center, but should offer your visitors genuine and interesting information that gives them a reason to come back. For example, job site Bayt’s official blog (http://blog.bayt.com/) offers readers information about Bayt, but also about issues that would interest Bayt’s communities, be it women in the workplace, how to increase your productivity, or the best way to apply for a job. 2. Make a real commitment: The Web is littered with “cobwebs” – blogs that started as a good idea but quickly lost momentum because no one had anything to say. Make a schedule for publication, and appoint an internal champion who will ensure the blog is updated on a regular basis by different voices across your organization. Within Flip Media, we have made contributions to our website a mandatory requirement for all of our team leaders, who must submit at least one blog post or case study to Flip.me each month. This has ensured that we keep our content fresh This summer’s blog posts have included a wide variety of topics, from opinions on social media in the Middle East, a guide to building a mobile website, and a “behindthe-scenes-look” of our Dubai head office. 3. Be sincere: Humans relate better to humans than corporations. Ensure that your blog has a human voice and, if necessary, appoint someone to be the face of your company. While it may not be realistic for your CEO to sit down and write a blog post every week, they can still be its face. Bill Marriott (http://www.blogs.marriott. com/) brings a human touch to his hospitality group’s blog, and the high-flying life of Boeing’s vice-president of marketing, Randy Tinseth, provides a wonderful backdrop to stories across Boeing’s world on its official blog, Randy’s Journal (http://boeingblogs. com/randy/). 4. Create an editorial policy: It’s important to create content that is relevant and interesting to your audience, but not everything should be shared on a public website – readers will consider anything written on your blog to have been endorsed by your organization. Stay away from potentially sensitive topics, issues that may spark controversy, or attacks on competitors. However, this editorial policy should not only cover what you should not say, but also what you should say. Every employee has something to share, and your blog should

making connections. Your blog should offer visitors genuine and interesting information span the width of your organization, from product innovations and corporate initiatives in CSR, to personal interests of your staff, be they music, sports, the environment or juggling (the favorite pastime of Felix, one of our programmers). 5. Be social: Tools such as Twitter and Facebook offer readers the ability to quickly and easily share blog content. By placing these links prominently on a blog, users can easily amplify their voice across the Web. However, “being social” does not end there. By starting a conversation, you must be prepared for the response your visitors may have. You also need to consider that many of your readers’ comments may not be positive. You do have the right to moderate your content and offensive comments, but you should also make the effort to respond to every comment that is posted, and create clear internal guidelines on how you will respond. Timely and considered responses will generate real interest and deepen your relationship with your visitors. Blogs are like babies. They are easy to make, but they require a long-term commitment that will bring you great joy if given enough attention and care. Creating your blog will give you the chance to safely and conveniently start a conversation with your audience. And, as with all the best conversations, they could lead you anywhere… Next, we’ll talk about Twitter.

Communicate I 23

clv07 guide-blogs.indd 23

10/4/10 3:38 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | DIGITAL

Writing’s on the wall

A look at four young Lebanese bloggers and how they are making their mark online

number of Lebanese bloggers in their 20s are creating their own trademarks. We talk to four young creatives who, equipped with a keyboard, some imagination, and a little diligence, have been making themselves public through their websites. All four have built reputations within the ever-evolving blogosphere, but all insist there is no by-the-book “blogger strategy” to their success.

Nadine feghaly. Freelance illustrator and graphic designer

MAYA ZANKOUL. Graphic designer and illustrator of corporate logos and websites

by Aline Sara

Do you follow a strategy? There is no blogger strategy. I’m very spontaneous and moody in real life, and my blog is the same. When I get an idea, I just sit down and start drawing. When I have something to say, to share, a song, anything, I just post it. I never let my blog become a must-do. Why is your blog successful? Do you promote it through social media? People around me relate to Viola. I created her to explore a mixture of personal, social, environmental, and psychological issues. I always try to be positive in my way of thinking and have a sense of humor. I use Twitter and Facebook to share my posts and promote my blog.

Nadine Feghaly, 26 Freelance illustrator and graphic designer Violatre.blogspot.com Nadine Feghaly’s daily blog features hand-drawn character Viola. Feghaly has used Viola’s image on bags, tees, and other items that she markets through her blog.

Describe the reputation curve of your blog. How does it contribute to building your career? My blog became famous because of my character, Viola. People love her. When I started the blog, I never thought it would take that path, but it helped a lot in getting exposed to artists, publishers, and readers. Now I have my products: bags, T-shirts, and prints. I sell them through my blog.

When and why did you start your blog? I started blogging in 2006. At first the blog was for writing and sharing my thoughts.

What are the dos and don’ts for a blogger whose site may influence his/her career? What advice would you give to help build a brand reputation?

24 I Communicate

clv07-bloggers who made it.indd 24

9/30/10 2:39 PM

DIGITAL | OCTOBER 2010

There are no rules in blogging. A blogger should have consistency, harmony, and something unique and new.

Maya Zankoul, 24 Graphic designer and illustrator of corporate logos and websites Mayazankoul.com Maya Zankoul is only 24 but already has two books under her belt. Amalgam 1 and Amalgam 2 are compilations of Zankoul’s witty and lively commentary on Lebanese society. They are inspired by the daily thoughts, drawings, and recommendations from her blog, Maya’s Amalgam. When and why did you start your blog? Do you follow a strategy? I started it in February 2009 out of boredom. I wanted to have my own space to share my ideas. The strategy I follow is, “Be yourself.” A blog is a very human space. It has its moods, its ups and downs. I just let things flow. What is behind your blog’s success? Do you promote it through social media? The success of any blog depends on the quality of the content, and how regularly you blog. I don’t believe much in social media as a maker or breaker of success. True, it helps with spreading the word (I share my links on Facebook and Twitter whenever I can), but bad content promoted through social media does not necessarily succeed. How would you describe the reputation curve of your blog? How does your blog help your career? A big boost for me was an interview on Lebanese news website Nowlebanon.com when the blog was just two months old. This helped the blog gain many followers. Further media coverage over the past two years has also helped a lot. Blogging about hot topics helps too. The blog has enabled me get in touch with many people around the world. It also brought me many freelance projects and, to a certain extent, the job I am in at the moment [Zankoul asked us not to name her employer]. The media coverage of my blog and book also helped build the Amalgam brand name, which is represented by both the blog and my books. What are the dos and don’ts for a blogger whose site may influence his/her career? What advice would you give to help build a brand reputation? Be yourself, blog regularly, and interact with your

Do you ever worry blogging or tweeting could harm your career? No, not at all.

readers. Don’t spread wrong information or spam users. In my case, my blog rather happened by chance. All I can say is follow your gut. It was a very intuitive thing that happened with me. I had been blogging for two years before starting this blog. I used to just write, but I eventually started to include illustrations in February 2009. That was a whole different experience. Illustrations speak more to people because of the visual aspect, which is quicker to grasp. Do you ever worry blogging or tweeting can harm your career? No. I am very transparent in my blog, and any mishaps that might occur because of that would only be a boost, and probably a chance to find something better. Not necessarily a change of career or place, because I would keep doing what I am doing. Blogging and tweeting can cause issues, but cannot destroy a career.

Samer Karam, 28 Founder of Seeqnce.com, a “start-up catalyst” for regional Web start-ups Bloggingbeirut.com Blogging Beirut’s Samer Karam takes a more political angle than some of his peers. His account

of “the other Lebanon,” as he calls it on his blog, includes real-time updates, an intricate list of links, calls for activism, and advertisements. When and why did you start your blog? Do you follow a blogger strategy? I started it in 2004 to reconnect the Lebanese diaspora with their home country, primarily through photography and photoblogging. The context determines my strategy. In times of frenzy (such as summer, war, and political instability) a structured strategy with timed updates is necessary to keep eyeballs glued to the blog. On any given Sunday, though, the blog is natural and spontaneous. Why is your blog successful? Do you promote it through social media? On the Web, even with the right ingredients, a catalyst is generally necessary for success. In the case of Blogging Beirut, the tragic events of February 14, 2005 (when prime minister Rafik Harriri was assassinated), the demonstrations that followed, and the summer 2006 war with Israel, drove viewership to a peak of 400,000 hits daily. These were the catalysts, but it was the quality and uniqueness of the content that pushed Blogging Beirut to be the number one blog in Lebanon and has kept it there ever since. What you find on Blogging Beirut you cannot find anywhere else; that’s what keeps people coming back for more. I have no social media strategy. Blogging Beirut pre-dates social media. Today, all new blog posts are broadcast on Twitter, but that barely scratches the surface of the 40,000 hits a day I get now.

Communicate I 25

clv07-bloggers who made it.indd 25

9/30/10 2:39 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | DIGITAL

Do you ever worry blogging or tweeting can harm your career? Anything you let out of your mind can harm your career. Just be ethical and moral, and use common sense. This applies to blogging, tweeting, and talking.

Ghassan Salameh, 25 Assistant creative director for Cleartag, a Web design and development firm Kibot.blog.com Ghassan Salameh transmits his emotions through an endearing and mysterious little creature, the Photoshopped and faceless Kibot.

How would you describe the reputation curve of your blog? How does it contribute to building your career? Today it is still one of the top three blogs in Lebanon, if not the number one. It remains well known due to the highly visible nature of the content, which I achieve through search engine indexing and linksin. Much of the Blogging Beirut photography is unique; I take the photos myself specifically for the blog. Many other sites have attempted to steal Blogging Beirut’s copyright content, forcing me to use watermarks to protect my images. Blogging Beirut has, for the most part, been for and of itself. For the first four years I remained anonymous, using the alias Finkployd. Even then, Blogging Beirut provided me with many opportunities to appear in the media, in newspapers, magazines, on TV shows, and news broadcasts (camera and lighting tricks allowed me to remain unidentified). My visibility increased once I revealed my identity in 2008. The social capital I accrued through these appearances lent a hand to my entrepreneurial activities in Lebanon and Europe, such as my attendance at Le Web (an annual Web business conference in Paris) as a journalist, and my credibility with social media-conscious Lebanese. Ghassan salameh. Assistant creative director for Cleartag

samer karam. Founder of Seeqnce.com

What are the dos and don’ts for a blogger whose site may influence his/her career? What advice would you give to help build a brand reputation? Use common sense. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do in the physical world. Don’t say anything you would not say to someone’s face. Remember that the physical and virtual worlds have all but merged over the past couple of years. If you’re going to be provocative, try to remain anonymous, or at least understand the risks of your actions and words. Be consistent, unique, different, and genuine. The rest will come.

When and why did you start your blog? Do you follow a blogger strategy? A couple of years back I was trying to compile all my posts on Facebook in one place. The blog was always a visual expression of personal daily thoughts, feelings, and frustrations. It is a collaboration with a friend. Why is your blog successful? Do you promote it through social media? The key is in the nature of the posts, and the form they take. There is not a lot to read. They are simple, with one idea each. Of course, people also relate to Kibot’s loving and caring nature. He is great, you should meet him. How would you describe the reputation curve of your blog? How can it contribute to building your career? I started with regular posts on Facebook. Then I wanted to collect them all in one place with one identity, so I chose to make a blog. Success rose with people’s curiosity about the blog and the posts. I never intentionally used the blog to promote myself, but the fact that the posts relate to certain aspects of the field I work in made it possible for people to see what lies behind the ideas and execution. What are the dos and don’ts for a blogger whose site may influence his/her career? What advice would you give to help build a brand reputation? There should be no restrictions in the posts and expressions of your thoughts. After all, a blog is a very subjective expression of a certain point of view. Tell the same story from a different point of view, with no constraints. Do you ever worry blogging or tweeting can harm your career? No.

26 I Communicate

clv07-bloggers who made it.indd 26

9/30/10 2:39 PM

GIVE YOUR BRAIN A YOUR DAILY QUICK FIRE ANALYSIS OF EVERYTHING AND ANYONE THAT MATTERS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

10 MINUTE WORKOUT News . Business . Investment . Society . Entertainment . Marketing . Innovation . Opinion . Blog

Kipp Ad "BRAIN" COM-240x330mm.indd 1

A MediaquestCorp website

8/16/10 11:27 AM

OCTOBER 2010 | TELEVISION

Bab al Hara : the door to success?

MTV has taken on the Ramadan programming might of MBC – and it’s competing using the same show by Nathalie Bontems

his Ramadan’s television success story is arguably MTV Lebanon’s airing of soap opera Bab al Hara. The show’s sky-high audience ratings have given the young station a welcome boost. It was only a month before its scheduled airing that MTV Lebanon – owned by the wellknown Murr family – started negotiating with Dubai-based broadcasting powerhouse Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) regarding the rights to the fifth season of Bab al Hara (“The Neighborhood Door”). The Syrian soap opera, produced by MBC and directed by two brothers, Bassam and Mo’men Al Mulla, was first shown in 2006 and depicts the life and woes of Syrians during the French occupation in the early 1920s. The show’s main characters struggle to uphold old, virtuous values and traditions. Bab al Hara proved to be a big hit during the unique Ramadan period. “Not only is the show’s production quality very high, it also advocates a return to more authentic values, which fits with Ramadan perfectly,” says Christian Gemayel, MTV Lebanon’s director of programs. “Many have tried to imitate Bab al Hara – there’s something special about it.” Bab al Hara has earned high ratings in the Arab world for the past four years, and in 2009 – along with Turkish series Noor – it was on the list of top-

10 TV programs, according to the annual report “One Television Year in the World,” produced by Eurodata TV Worldwide. Previously broadcast on Al Manar TV, the series moved to MTV this year, which contributed to a massive surge in its audience ratings – to between 30 and 40 percent of audience share – during the Holy Month. The show was broadcast every night during Ramadan. It was also aired on MBC, in accordance with an agreement between the two channels. Grid is key. “The deal was that we weren’t allowed to broadcast Bab al Hara before MBC, so we played around this limitation,” Gemayel says. MBC aired the hour-long soap opera at 10pm. MTV took over at 11pm, running the same episode. In part, this strategy was to end every Ramadan evening with a flourish. The primetime grid started with the talk show Bil Hawa Sawa (see Communicate Levant, “MTV brings Dinner in the Sky to the TV screen over Ramadan,” page 6, September 2010), followed by another popular soap, the Egyptian Qadiyet Safiya. But that programming alone wasn’t reason enough to particularly attract viewers who could watch their favorite show on MBC.

28 I Communicate

clv07 bab al hara.indd 28

9/30/10 9:04 AM

TELEVISION | OCTOBER 2010

So, starting the second day of airing, the Lebanese station started re-running – between 10 and 11pm – the episode from the night before. “A second broadcast in 24 hours does not count as a re-run, and is within the agreement that we have with MBC,” Gemayel says. He adds that executives of pan-Arab TV giant MTV were amazed by the idea. “They admitted that they had never thought about doing this,” Gemayel says. Indeed, Bab al Hara fans were able to watch two episodes in a row, and viewers who missed one episode on MBC had a chance not only to catch up the next day on MTV, but to see immediately what would happen next. Gemayel says the key to MBC’s success was in not only broadcasting two episodes in a row, but also in the time slot itself. When the show was aired on Al Manar, its audience ratings weren’t that high. Gemayel says Al Manar only had a 20 percent audience share last year. “Al Manar used to start airing Bab al Hara half an hour after it started on MBC. That was a mistake, in my opinion,” he says. “It is always better if shows start on the hour, and besides, nobody would stop watching a show right in the middle to zap to another station. So Al Manar ended up with an audience only for the last half hour.” Gemayel adds that, unlike Al Manar, which only broadcasts the show locally, MTV also airs by satellite, which translated into much more expensive broadcasting rights. He wouldn’t disclose the precise amount. “The production cost of one season is $3 million, so you can imagine the broadcasting rights are expensive too,” he says. The station had to make sure that it was not going to waste money, which gives MTV all the more reason to rejoice at the show’s success on a difficult time slot. “In Lebanon, prime time is from 7pm to 11pm. After that people either sleep or go out, particularly in the summer. On Lebanese TV stations, 11pm is a dead time slot. This is the first time audience ratings were that high between 11pm and midnight,” says Gemayel, adding that the series was such a hit that viewers would watch episodes repeatedly – on MBC, MTV, or both. What next? MTV enthusiastically raked in advertising money during August, a month that’s usually very slow in Lebanon. Even so, Bab al Hara also brought benefits elsewhere. “We were expecting this success, but what we’re most happy with is the fact that the show opened up new areas for us, with audiences who were not even tuned in to MTV,” Gemayel says. MTV had a high-end image that kept it from reaching some of the Lebanese public, he says. “Today, our audience bracket is wider.” The broadcaster made the most of its exceptionally large viewership in August, promoting its new programs designed for the back-to-school season, a time when TV stations traditionally launch new shows.

big hit. Bab al Hara depicts the life of Syrians during the French occupation in the 1920s “It’s also the time when most advertising budgets are prepared and allotted,” Gemayel says. “So when media planners are looking at the figures in August and see MTV’s place, with an audience that has doubled, with no competition whatsoever because nobody thought about doing anything special during this time slot, of course it helps.” MTV succeeded in leading audience rankings over the average evening time slot during August. The top spot was shared with New TV, a station that also aired a successful Syrian soap opera, Ahl el Raya (“The Flag’s People,” featuring Abbas Al Noury, a former Bab al Hara star), from 9pm to 10pm. “New TV would come first in the early evening and then the audience would move to MTV after 10pm. So the average audience during the course of the evening was in MTV’s favor. LBC came in third position,” Gemayel says. The question that remains to be answered is whether or not MTV’s surge in audience rankings will last now that the show is over. Audience numbers have predictably dropped after Eid, and have been further brought down by the fact that school is about to start. “It’s hard to say how rankings will evolve. Every station is working on its new grid, and before November, nothing will be really clear,” Gemayel says. However, he adds that MTV plans to come on strong in the coming months. Among other shows, the station will run two new Lebanese series. “We have to make sure that viewers’ loyalty is sustained,” he says. It would be a shame to let the fruits of the summer go to waste.

Communicate I 29

clv07 bab al hara.indd 29

9/30/10 9:04 AM

OCTOBER 2010 | MARKETING

Where it’s at

Location-based social networks could revolutionize the way brands market themselves in the region by Rania Habib

“ am at the Emarat gas station on Sheikh Zayed

Lina Vasiloudis. Abu Dhabi Beach Rotana hotel’s director of marketing and communications

Yousef Tuqan Tuqan. CEO of Flip Media

Road.” “I am at Choithram’s, The Greens.” “I am at The Dubai Mall.” Communicate asks, “Who cares?” If we thought Facebook and Twitter were dangerous outlets for people prone to TMI (Too Much Information), we now have the likes of Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Places to tell us when our acquaintances are at home, work, or play, and where we can find them. Location-based social networks are the new “It” thing, complementing more traditional networks such as Facebook and Twitter. But back to the question of “who cares?” Marketers, that’s who. Location-based marketing, still so much in its infancy in the region that it’s considered über-niche, gives marketers the ability to geo-target advertising messages to consumers, depending on where they are. And with the recent launch of Facebook Places, location-based marketing is poised to take on huge proportions. While Foursquare and Gowalla combined have a few million users worldwide, Facebook has more than 500 million. So integrating a location-based service to the popular social network is likely to make the trend explode. However, Facebook Places is currently only available in America, where it has not yet given marketers and developers a way to utilize it. This is soon expected to change (see “David versus Goliath on location,” Page 42, Communicate, July-August

2010), and will bring a host of perks to locationbased marketing. Back to the existing, worldwide, marketerfriendly location-based services. Foursquare is the most popular location-based social network in the region. Baher Al Hakim, “master chief” at Cloud Appers, a Dubai firm that creates Web applications, says that so far a handful of UAE-based companies have experimented with location-based marketing, and that they have done well to move in early on the trend. But, he says, others should be wary. “The estimated number of Foursquare users in the UAE is 6,000 to 7,000, and out of those, only about 2,000 are active,” says Al Hakim. “That’s really nothing. It’s a new field that doesn’t have enough people, and even in the US they are still trying to figure out a way to monetize it.” According to Ad Age, Coke Zero in the US created a Foursquare account to promote its sampling tour and street-team events on university campuses and at sporting events by sharing updates with its Twitter followers. Starbucks, the History Channel, and New York Magazine have also invested in locationbased social networks early, by using them to reward loyalty and provide insider information. Starbucks rewards loyal customers in the US with a “Barista badge” and went nationwide with its promotion, offering whoever unlocks the mayor badge a $1 discount on a frappucino.

30 I Communicate

20-27-COMM 70-Location-based marketing.indd 30

9/29/10 6:10 PM

MARKETING | OCTOBER 2010

Early mover. In the UAE, Dubai shawarma restaurant Wild Peeta was one of the first brands to jump on the Foursquare bandwagon to market itself using the network’s gaming services, whereby any user who checks in to a location a certain number of times becomes that location’s mayor. “Once we filled out the Foursquare forms detailing our promotion, whereby we offered a daily free beverage to the mayor of Wild Peeta, and it was approved, all Foursquare users in the UAE received a message saying that we were having a promotion,” says Mohamed Parham, co-founder of Wild Peeta. “In terms of visibility and word of mouth, it was tremendous.” Wild Peeta currently counts 82 followers on Foursquare. While that may not be many, Parham says that thanks to Foursquare’s open application programming interface platform, which embeds information into Facebook and Twitter, the promotion had a domino effect. “The exposure we got was very broad, and it was a very unique promotion for this part of the world,” he says. Another brand that has ventured into location-based marketing is the Beach Rotana Hotel & Resort in Abu Dhabi. “I’d read a few articles about restaurants and bars in the US that use location marketing to boost business, so I thought we’d give it a try for Finz, our award-winning seafood restaurant,” says the hotel’s director of marketing and communications, Lina Vasiloudis. Like Wild Peeta, Finz too wanted to elect a mayor. “Whoever became the mayor had to present a certain number of restaurant bills to prove they were actually there [one location-based social network flaw is that people can check in to a place without physically being there],” Vasiloudis says. “We received lots of feedback, both verbally and via Twitter. Nevertheless, the promotion was not as successful as we’d hoped, but it generated a lot of buzz. People in this region are just starting to

get on to sites such as Foursquare. So hopefully the next promotion will be a lot more successful than the first one.”

in but not show people where you are, so you can still collect points and become mayor even though you’re hiding.”

Great opportunity. Yousef Tuqan Tuqan, CEO of Flip Media, a Dubai-based digital agency, is not keen to use Foursquare for personal purposes (such as informing people of his every move), but he does believe location-based social networks present a great opportunity for marketers. “I think location-based social networks are amazing and scary,” says Tuqan. “Smartphones have changed everything. We now carry phones that always know where we are and are always connected to the Internet. So there’s a real revolution that’s taken place in the past two years with the concept of location-based marketing. The interesting thing is that with location-based marketing, brands are not just looking at us like ‘34-year-old male, works in advertising, Arab;’ they now look at who your friends are, where you are… and so the marketing messages become much more relevant, and brands can sell things to people more immediately.” As with other marketing strategies, location-based networks have some challenges ahead. “The first is communication,” says Vasiloudis. “You can’t communicate your promotion effectively using only the application. It needs to be combined with Twitter, other social media, and even traditional media to reach the audience [in order to endorse promotions and encourage people to join]. Another challenge is that it is still too easy to check in to a venue while not actually physically being there. This results in people becoming mayor even though they might have never even set foot in a place. And, obviously, privacy is an issue too. Not everyone wants friends or even strangers to know where they are all the time. But luckily, some applications have the option whereby you can check

Measurability. Vasiloudis says the biggest challenge with location-based marketing is measurability. “You can see how many people have checked in, but you don’t know much about them, you don’t know what they do or why they visited. This is very important information for us marketers, and hopefully there will be ways to receive this or similar information at some point in the near future.” Tuqan says one challenge with location-based marketing, as with any other marketing strategy, is staying relevant. “Everyone is just going to jump on it, but where can you create value and produce interesting, useful things? There are good opportunities, and people have to do them well and not jump on everything.” At Wild Peeta, Parham says they are aware of location-based marketing’s current limitations, but that the buzz it creates presents a great opportunity for the local chain. “It’s a terrific public relations opportunity for us,” he says. “Whereas the sales may not be tremendous from this sort of a promotion, the PR is. It’s very valuable to any business, particularly a small business like ours.” So what does the future hold for location-based marketing? Al Hakim says it needs a couple of years to really take off in the region, and that by then, technology will have advanced to the point of “geofencing.” “That can be done through any smartphone, where the GPS will always be on and will always be broadcasting your location, so when you are in the vicinity of a restaurant you go to regularly, it will ping you with promotions from around your location,” says Al Hakim. “This will take location-based marketing to another level.”

Communicate I 31

20-27-COMM 70-Location-based marketing.indd 31

9/29/10 6:10 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | MARKETING

Industry address

We asked a cross-section of experts what uses they could think of for location-based services (LBS). Here’s what they said. Rayan Karaky Regional general manager of digital operations at Publicis Groupe Media While social networks and search are eventual e-commerce funnel drivers, location-based services will yield most advantages in the offline world with actual transactions. Before any businesses in our region kick-start their LBS discount coupons, they should encourage users to build their content on LBS platforms. Think about tips and to-dos; a dull and empty page with “ice cream shop” on top will not cut the mustard. 1. Aggregator apps will flood into the world of LBS, allowing users to make better sense of the current versions of basic check-in. Imagine a tool that gathers all the deals in Dubai Marina and spills them out on your map, categorized and rated (or checked into) by your friends. Another version of that might be posting pictures of a certain venue by utilizing this app. 2. We don’t live in the land of coupons and freebies. While I wish the discount voucher was a carrot to our consumers, it isn’t. With that thought in mind, self-promotion is a very tempting angle to take. Picture More Café naming a plate in your honor because you maintained

mayorship for a month. That would drive not only sales – through the winner and his entourage frequenting the café – but also exposure from this obviously savvy, wired, digital dude. Everybody wins. Anna Gibbons Business director of Neo at OgilvyOne Middle East A brand’s message is so much more relevant when it takes into account not just what you are doing, but where you are doing it. All of a sudden, the digital, virtual space we communicate in on our computers, iPads and phones now has a link to reality. The trend toward location-based marketing offers many situations where a brand can be useful, rather than interrupting consumers’ day-to-day life. Moving away from push advertising to create a value exchange is where brands automatically generate deeper engagement. At a basic level this might be a bank showing me where the nearest ATMs are, or property consultants and real estate agents providing me with information on nearby properties including pictures, video, and specs without me even having to go into their offices. And visiting a new city becomes easy

32 I Communicate

20-27-COMM 70-Location-based marketing.indd 32

9/29/10 6:10 PM

MARKETING | OCTOBER 2010

with maps, walking tours, what’s on nearby, restaurant offers and gigs – all tailored to what I am interested in.    This trend works across all marketing and comms disciplines. Getting live feedback from attendees at an event via a quick poll or survey makes event planners’ jobs much easier – and as a reward they can pass on vouchers or coupons to those who participate, and help make next year’s event even better. Kamal Dimachkie Managing director for Dubai, Kuwait, and the Lower Gulf at Leo Burnett Directing customers to a nearby physical location is getting more sophisticated, thanks to mobile devices and emerging technologies – known to marketers as location-based services. Traditionally, one-to-one marketing was about targeting the right person at the right time. Location-based marketing has added one more very important layer: the right place. In that sense, location-based marketing is now the ultimate one-to-one form of marketing. In actuality, this form of marketing has been in practice for some time. The technology today may be new, but the concept has been around ever since the first phone book listed only the businesses in a particular town or region. However, the arrival of cell-phone technology and, later, Bluetooth has given further top spin to location-based marketing. Smartphones and location-based social networks allow users to interact, share, meet up, and recommend places based on their physical coordinates. This real-world connection to social media means more foot traffic and profits for business owners. Additionally, with the introduction of Foursquare you can now even identify people individually. Foursquare enables any business with a physical location to not only communicate with customers online, but get more of them to actually walk in the door. This platform is wonderful for time-bound promotional activities and events. It is a great way to capitalize on specific surges of individuals who may frequent certain locations at regular and specific times. Here are three interesting applications of such a tool: 1. It allows customers who check in or check in most to benefit from special promotions and discounts, or to access exclusive events during particular periods. 2. It allows customers who check in first to receive special discounts. The objective here is to encourage early arrival to stores to better manage traffic or offload stocks. 3. It widens distribution by running collect-and-trade initiatives of virtual products. This way, the customer who collects the most virtual products gains a discount or freebie. Azhar Siddiqui General manager at Magna Global, UAE Location-based marketing is still very new in our region. I think the familiarity with lo-so (location-based social) networks is just picking up among people here but the networks’ use for effective marketing purposes is still very, very limited. For me, three categories can clearly benefit from lo-so networks. 1. Retail. Location-based marketing has proved to be most effective in increasing traffic to retail outlets. It increases awareness and popularity, and helps pass out key information such as specials, promotions

and new lines instantly to social network users. Of course, how a marketer uses these networks makes a difference. 2. Restaurants and bars. This category has historically been most influenced by word-of-mouth. Marketers have always struggled to find a device or a vehicle to influence or drive word-of-mouth but there has not been a concrete model that has been proven to do this. Social networks are now emerging as a powerful influencer of word-of-mouth and something marketers can finally participate in. Tom Roy, our digital guru at Middle East Communications Network, likes to say the world today is about “word of mouse,” and marketers finally have the device to influence this: social media networks. Restaurants and bars can benefit from lo-so networks through appropriate promotions, specials, and incentives (for example, check in 10 times and get a free dessert). 3. Service-related businesses. The local barber, laundry, and supermarket can all use location-based marketing to increase loyalty, making the customer experience more rewarding, and allowing them to track and analyze their customers’ habits and movements. These personalized one-to-one businesses that depend on customer loyalty will benefit the most from this kind of new marketing technology. David Porter Media director for the Middle East and North Africa at Unilever A precursor to marketers using this technology is that it needs to offer some scale, and location-based software hasn’t yet taken off in the region. Facebook Places is a USA-only service at present. Foursquare today had four people checking in in Abu Dhabi, and one in Dubai. There seem to be three barriers: 1. The cost of mobile digital is significantly higher than in Western markets, and using one’s data plan overseas is prohibitively expensive. The region is a long way from affordable, always-on mobile Internet. Consumer pricing is a consistent barrier to the uptake of many digital technologies in this part of the world. 2. Western markets with more independent and mobile teenage populations have a greater chance of achieving scale. For example, New York dating agency members can use LBS to find dates in their area. That’s less likely to take off in GCC markets. 3. In a mall culture such as ours, consumers will not check in if they are going to get bombarded with unsolicited retail offers every time they stroll through their favorite mall. So commercial services will need to be opt-in and subscription-based. With expensive bandwith virtually a given, it will probably need to be advertiser-funded. Locally, location-based devices could help to locate lost or separated off-roaders, particularly if Garmin and the like provided an interface with their GPS hardware. Retailers are likely to be among the biggest users: Borders is already active in Australia, offering discounts to shoppers who check in to Foursquare in their bookstores. Shopkick is pioneering a similar approach in seven American cities. Unilever is a committed early trialist of new technologies and moves are under way to build our brands’ know-how in this space, in markets that offer scale and affordability.

Communicate I 33

20-27-COMM 70-Location-based marketing.indd 33

9/29/10 6:11 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | MARKETING

Jassim Ali Regional director of digital development at Omnicom Media Group The proliferation of smart mobile devices with location intelligence and Internet capabilities, such as the iPhone, Android handsets, and BlackBerrys, along with locationsensitive platforms such as GPS, RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and Bluetooth, has opened new avenues for marketers to connect with their audiences. Location and device capability has added that missing cherry on top: relevance. Three uses for location-based marketing might be: 1. Driving footfall to retail points. For example, telecom operator du’s Foursquare campaign in June and July rewarded the most ardent football fans visiting the du World Cup tents at Dubai Mall and Dubai Media City. 2. Building consumer engagement. For example, the award-winning real-life Monopoly game played out on the streets of London in 2005. (It was put together by Tribal DDB to promote the 70-yearold board game.) 3. Enhancing user experience with applications such as Shopkick. Zubair Siddiqui Managing director, UM Dubai 1. A consumer sentiment tracker. A real-time customer feedback tool to gauge what consumers are saying about your brand and enable an appropriate brand response. 2. A virtual reward program tool. Continuous – even

real-time – tool for dialogue with consumers, capable of providing real-time gratification through point-of-sale offers. These can act as customer relationship management tools for businesses. 3. A replacement for Yellow Pages or classifieds. As a short-range provider of business information. 4. A tool for journalists. To identify a source for “What’s Hot” columns, identifying the places people like and visit. 5. A viral tool. Location-based tools are now connected with other social media platforms, enabling ideas to get viral. 6. A tool to deliver SMS advertising shots. Advertisers are always looking for opportunities closer to point of purchase or consumption, where the consumer is more receptive. 7. A data analytics tool. Companies can use tagged information to profile consumer tastes, preferences, and personas. 8. A geo-shopping tool. Adding digital info to bar codes will enable consumers to get more information about products they are buying online. Fadi Zubeidi Account director, Promoaction DDB One great idea that can work anywhere in the world is an in-mall application. Phone users will simply download a free app, and once they walk into a mall they start receiving all sorts of discounts and offers from shops. This application will help increase sales, and will definitely help the users get the best offers.

34 I Communicate

20-27-COMM 70-Location-based marketing.indd 34

9/29/10 6:11 PM

DIGITAL | OCTOBER 2010

Duke Nukem ready to do battle After 13 years in development, video shoot-’em-up is back in action

by Beth Snyder Bulik

In the interim, Duke has survived through online fan tributes and forum chats, as well as hundreds of online videos. Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox and a developer on the original Duke game, says that was the reason he chose PAX, a conference of video-game players, as opposed to the more well-known E3 conference for industry insiders in June, to announce Duke’s return. “This is not a game one can make promises about,” he says, thanks to the many years of unfulfilled promises. “We knew we would get attention no matter when we announced, but attention alone is not helpful for this title. We had to convert it from being a joke to a triumphant moment we all want to get behind.” Unlike typical rollouts, which start with an announcement of the title followed by demos months later, DNF had to be announced with demos and real game play at the same time, he says. The first stage of marketing will be to instill confidence. For the second, Pitchford won’t be specific about plans, but says that Gearbox, working with publisher 2K Games, intends to get demos into players’ hands, before launching what he calls a traditional “large-scale” media campaign. The message: Duke Nukem Forever is real this time.

o Kevin Costner, Axl Rose and Duke Nukem walk into a bar ... It’s no joke – at least we don’t think so. In the entertainment industry, there are a few properties legendary for cost overruns and lengthy delays – among them Waterworld in 1995 and Guns N’Roses’ Chinese Democracy, which was finally released in 2008 after a 15-year gestation period. Now add to those one of the gaming world’s most-anticipated titles, Duke Nukem Forever, which might actually be coming to the market after 13 years in development. Duke Nukem, for those who managed to escape the firestorm of chatter on social media and blogs last month, is a crass-talking, womanizing macho action-hero stereotype and the lead character in a first-person shooter game from Gearbox Software. On Sept. 3, within an hour of the developer announcing at gaming show PAX that the title will be launched for PS3 and Xbox 360 next year, Duke Nukem was a top-trending Twitter topic. Duke racked up tens of thousands of blog postings along with hundreds of digital and mainstream media news stories, many among them not quite believing that after more than a decade – a lifetime in the gaming world – Duke would actually blast his way onto the modern-day console.

The original Duke Nukem was a shoot-’emup PC game that appeared in 1991 and went to the top of shareware lists (where players could download a free trial) and stayed there for two years. Duke Nukem II for the PC was released in 1993, followed by Duke Nukem 3D in 1996. The last game has endured and even became available on Xbox 360 via its Live Arcade in 2008. This latest incarnation, Duke Nukem Forever, was first announced in 1997. At the time, Titanic was in theaters and the first Harry Potter book had just been published in the UK. What’s been the hold-up? 3D Realms, the original developers of Duke Nukem, certainly intended to release the title. More than half-adozen dates were announced – and blown – over a decade, and sneak peeks were shown at the E3 gaming show a number of times. However, both the perfectionism of the game creators, who changed game engines at least twice at the cost of significant cash and development time, and their inability to “lock down” the game – that is, stop adding to it and start polishing it for release – ultimately sealed the game’s fate as perennial vaporware, according to a Wired article last year.

Communicate I 35

46-47-COMM 70-AA-duke nukem.indd 35

9/30/10 2:10 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

Review

Outside the box Dubai Islamic Bank’s giving-driven ad may not have broken free of all Ramadan clichés, but at least there are no crescent moons to be seen by Austyn Allison

top us if you’ve heard this before: Ramadan ads tend to be clichéd. You’ll be lucky to find a promotion during the Holy Month that isn’t wrapped around a crescent, lantern, or table laden with dates. Dubai Islamic Bank’s (DIB) head of corporate communications, Salah Al Hashimi, agrees. “With Ramadan, you are right in terms of it being too clichéd,” he says. “Advertisers use the crescent for every single product I’ve seen.” “And also, recently, there are social messages,” he adds. “A lot of companies have started doing social messages.” Al Hashimi is speaking at a round table held by DIB to discuss advertising, and also to plug its new television commercial, “The man who gave.”

“We wanted to differentiate ourselves,” he says. “The man who gave” ran during Ramadan in a lengthy 90-second format, although at the round table we are treated to the three-minute director’s cut. The director is there, as is the producer, as well as representatives of the bank. The ad shows a man in a dishdash driving an expensive pick-up truck around Dubai and leaving packed-lunch-sized boxes on doorsteps in poor areas of the emirate. When he returns to his villa he finds one last box in his car and sets off again. We don’t clearly see the man, and we never see what’s in the box. Ramadan isn’t mentioned. “From a cinematic point of view we were trying to put out the message that Dubai Islamic Bank cares for others,” says Moneer Barakat, the

36 I Communicate

68-71-COMM 70-DIB Review.indd 36

10/4/10 3:24 PM

DEPARTMENTS | OCTOBER 2010

film’s director. “We wanted to put it across in a cinematic way that was very engaging, very different. How can giving to others – which in a way is a Ramadan cliché – be done differently from a cinematic point of view? From an Islamic point of view, the best way to give is anonymously.” Al Hashimi agrees that “giving” ads can be as tired as those with crescent moons and lanterns. “The social message is a cliché, but the question is: How do you differentiate yourself?” he says. “The differentiation happened through the way we produced the ad, the way we projected the concept.” Giving isn’t just for Ramadan, it’s for life. Kashif Moosa, DIB’s senior vice-president and head of corporate communications, says the ad shows that. “It’s not about harping on about a bank’s achievements,” he says. “It’s actually about something that is part of the bank’s DNA, that is ingrained in the bank: the concept of charity, the concept of people giving anonymously. We will probably do that for years to come, but it’s not just our domain; we want other people to realize that as well, and hopefully spread the word.” The move away from flogging a company’s core products and services is not unique to DIB, says Barakat. “Big brands are saying, ‘Why don’t we do DNA films? I will do a film about what I stand for,’” he says. “The DNA film is about a big brand or a big client who will define himself and say he stands for this or that. During the year he will communicate in unexpected ways – maybe a short film, maybe even product placement.” The film was shot in Dubai by Michael Brierly, the cinematographer behind the 2010 film City of Life. It was produced by Milkshake Media. Barakat says it had to be shot in Dubai for the locations the emirate offers. “The storyline clearly needed a place that has glamor, that has wealth, that has everything,” he says. “The film needs to dramatize a character that has all this but still decides to go and help the needy.” Dubai is starting to find its role in regional cinema, he adds. “Dubai right now is trying to find its position when it comes to cinematography, when it comes to filmmaking. Because it is not Europe, but is more expensive than Beirut and Cairo, Dubai really has to find a Brand Cinematic Dubai, to find a niche.” Dubai still has to find that niche. “When you go to Cairo, it’s because you need actors – this is the hub of acting. You go to Beirut because Beirut has glamour, it has the best models,” says Barakat. “Dubai has to find a clear reason for you to be in Dubai. Is it location? Is it crew? Once you find that, you become a hub and people will pay a premium. People pay a premium to go and shoot in London and New York because they are well defined as cinematic hubs.” “The man who gave” is stylish but saccharine. But it doesn’t mention the Holy Month and is designed to run all year. Because it’s not timedependent, the film should help the bank stretch the half-million dirhams it spent on the ad. Dev Vaswani, executive producer of Milkshake Media, says that was “kind of a restrictive budget,”

Collaborators. (From left) Barakat, Al Hashimi, Moosa, Abas Amir Fidri (DIB’s corporate development manager), and Vaswani but that it was used well, “given the scope of all that we did with two cameras and the location moves and the post-production – there was quite a lot involved in post-production.” The production timeframe was also limited. The ad was shot over two days, using a professional model, and local people as extras. It took just three weeks to wrap, in order to get it on air after the first week of Ramadan. With a bit of shelf life, the ad is set to run for a while and is part of an ongoing series of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, says Moosa. “CSR is something that is very much a part of DIB’s culture, and we have been doing it; it’s just that we’ve not been very actively announcing it,” he says. “We want to do it in the manner that we have done [with “The man who gave”], which is not to publicize the bank and the bigness of it, but rather to try and influence others.” Longevity may have been a motivator in losing the crescents and lanterns this time, but Barakat says the main reason for Ramadan advertising being clichéd is a lack of imagination. “Ramadan is such a rich territory for ideas, for emotions, for content. The fact that year after year the scene is full of clichés is because people are lazy,” he says. “It’s a huge mistake to blame it on Ramadan. Ramadan as a month, as a pool of thoughts, of ideas, is so rich. Every year you can come up with a film for Ramadan that no one has thought about before, but is still very Ramadan.” This film promotes the spirit of the Holy Month, but is also evergreen. It may not be entirely fresh, but it’s a welcome relief from all those crescents. It looks good, and it should be around for a while. Maybe it’ll even keep till next Ramadan. – “The man who gave” can be viewed at dib.ae.

Communicate I 37

68-71-COMM 70-DIB Review.indd 37

10/4/10 3:24 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

X-pert Files

The case for brands in Libya

Brands in the country should help to contribute not only to economic growth, but also societal regeneration, says The Brand Union’s Duncan James

ibya is a country that is opening up. In 2003 Tripoli voluntarily renounced terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and shortly thereafter Western sanctions on the country were lifted. Having shed its pariah status, Libya is now seeking a place on the global stage via multilateral organizations like the United Nations, and is committed to opening its economy. Libya has large deposits of oil and gas, and is currently experiencing a boom in construction, healthcare, tourism, and financial services. A new airport is coming up in Tripoli and cities are being built on the outskirts of the capital. The country’s per-capita gross domestic product is one of the highest in Africa – $15,200, according to the 2009 CIA Factbook. And the sentiment among Libyans we have spoken to is that the country is ready for growth, and to provide a good standard of living for its people. We will explore in this short piece two key challenges that brands face in Libya, based on our experience in the market, and see how, if overcome, they can contribute to the re-emergence of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (to give Libya its full title) on a regional and global stage.

Duncan James. Consulting director at The Brand Union, a branding agency with regional offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi

The role of brand education for practitioners. The first challenge we found is one common to emerging nations whose ambition outstrips the current supply of market knowledge – that

of brand education among practitioners of the brand. It is a general rule (judging from our experience) that many markets, as they emerge and look to create new infrastructure, and energy, financial, and social projects, turn to management consultancies. Across the world the likes of McKinsey, Booz and BCG are well known and need no introduction. Too often, then, marketers are handed a robust business plan that shows them how the business will make money, but all too often that plan is then worked on by the marketing team and the communications agency. Not to take anything away from them, but this results in a brand born out of a communications idea, not a brand that can inspire and direct retail design, staff service styles, uniforms, in-store experiences, product innovation, and quality assurance of build on the ground – for example, of a new bank or hospital. For brands to be truly successful, this “middle step” must be considered. It is clear that in Libya, due to sanctions and social factors, much of the talent, although extremely proficient, is simply not exposed to global learnings, which must be tailored to the local market and not merely followed blindly. Brands shouldn’t be just a logo, a “face” for something that does not deliver on a promise. Brands in Libya should help to contribute not only to economic growth, but also to societal regeneration. This can only be done through “walking the talk,” not more communications without action. The role of brand Libya for consumers. Emerging nations often encounter a wave of nationalism, which, if tapped into, can really propel the brands being created. In the United States and Europe, many institutions have been built to commemorate people behind key political movements, religions, and battle victories. The famous Trafalgar Square in London, built to commemorate the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, a British naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars, is one such example. In Libya we have seen people – from chief executives to marketing managers to taxi drivers – express a sincere and deep-seated optimism for the future, for the opportunity for the country to stand up and be a global player. At this early stage of development, brands can be created that tap into this optimism; brands that help to create the social fabric of the new society, brands that make Libya’s citizens proud to be Libyans and proud of their hospitals, roads, banks, and schools.

38 I Communicate

58-59-COMM70-Libya.indd 38

9/30/10 9:06 AM

00-COM-Template Article.indd 10

5/7/10 9:04 AM

OCTOBER 2010 | PUBLIC RELATIONS

How social media is helping PR thrive

Unlike after the last big downturn, the industry is experiencing a much quicker rebound by Michael Bush

n 2009 Katie O’Brien was looking for an agency partner to help her launch a major digital effort. The global digital marketing manager at ice-cream company Ben & Jerry’s issued a brief to a traditional digital shop and a traditional PR agency, Edelman. The plans they brought back were, in O’Brien’s words, “night and day.” The biggest difference, she says, was that one understood social media better than the other – and it wasn’t the digital shop that got it. “The shop didn’t try to understand what we were trying to accomplish with the campaign,” says O’Brien. “What Edelman brought back was extremely strategic; it told a story and took into consideration all of the different spaces – earned, owned, paid, and social. It hit on everything. I felt like they got our voice, and maybe because their roots are in PR, it was never just about buying banner ads with Edelman.” Like every other marketing sector, the PR industry took a beating in 2009. But unlike after the last major downturn in the PR business, which was brought on by the dot-com bust and the September 11 attacks in 2001, the industry is experiencing a much quicker rebound this time around – and a good part of the credit goes to social media. With marketers looking for both social media and digital guidance, PR has seen increased business. And there are broader assignments from current clients, closer relationships with chief marketing officers, and a much bigger pipeline of new-business pitches. PR, up until now, “wasn’t central to a corporation’s overall branding strategy,” says John Suhler, co-founder and president of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private-equity firm that publishes annual reports on the state of the PR industry. “There is now an

opportunity for the PR profession and practitioners to use these [digital] tools and make PR a more important part of the communications arsenal.” In their second-quarter earnings calls, Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group of Cos. reported increases in business of more than 7 percent for their PR divisions. Tom Harrison, chairman and CEO of Omnicom Group’s Diversified Agency Services, which oversees the holding company’s PR shops, including Ketchum, Fleishman-Hillard, and Porter Novelli, says part of the improvement in business is because of the dual role PR plays for marketers. “PR can prepare a brand or product for its target market while also preparing the market for that new brand or product,” says Harrison. “There isn’t another discipline within the communications services that can do that for a brand.” “More and more it’s being taken for granted by marketers that social media and digital fall in the PR space,” says Harris Diamond, CEO of Interpublic’s Constituency Management Group, which oversees Interpublic’s PR shops such as Weber Shandwick, Golin Harris, and MWW Group. “And the whole engagement concept and lack of trust people have in authority figures, or characters telling them what to buy or where to invest, plays to our strengths.” PR shops have played major roles in developing, creating, and executing digital and social efforts for key clients. Ketchum has worked on efforts for Kodak, Dr Pepper, Best Buy, and FedEx. Weber Shandwick has helped clients such as Pepsi and KFC, while Edelman has handled efforts for eBay and Quaker. PR agencies within WPP were behind Ford’s highly praised Sociable Drive campaign. ConAgra tapped Ketchum to work on the

digital effort for Chef Boyardee’s Club Mom, launching in December. While many marketers have automatically given this type of work to digital shops because social media largely lives online, digital is really just the way social media is distributed, says Brett Groom, vice-president of content activation at ConAgra. “The space is about listening and understanding what has impact with consumers,” he says. “PR agencies are more fundamentally aligned with the social-media structure, and [know] how to figure out what things might resonate with consumers far better than a digital shop, which is more about the technology.” Edelman CEO Richard Edelman admits that the digital shift is critical to the business increase, but says companies have never faced more challenges to their reputations than they do now, which has resulted in even more work. “We’re seeing the combining of corporate reputation and brand marketing, and that plays to PR’s strengths,” he says. MaryLee Sachs, worldwide director of marketing communications at WPP’s Hill & Knowlton, says internal communications work is also driving new business. “Marketers are beginning to realize that the consumer is not the be all and end all, and that there are a lot of other stakeholders that can influence the business, most of all employees,” she says. The fact that there’s debate over whether marketing and PR should remain separate is evidence of PR’s growing importance, says Ray Kotcher, CEO of Ketchum. “You are going to start seeing decisions about whether marketing should report to PR,” he says, adding that he’s witnessed significant budgetary shifts from creative agencies to PR shops at some clients.

40 I Communicate

42-43-COMM 70-AA-How Social Media Is Helping Public-relations survive and thrive.indd 40

9/29/10 6:13 PM

Progressive Publishing in Action .ae

Al Tasweeq Al Arabi

500 million impressions

Watch this space Con s u m e r P u b l i s h i n g Contract Publishing B2B Publ i s h i n g L i c e n c e Publishing Yearbooks Awards Conferences Online Media Representation

France I Lebanon I Tunisia United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia I Algeria

UAE I t: +971 4 391 0760 I f: +971 4 390 8737 I P.O.BOX 72184 Dubai Media City I Thuraya Tower II I 24th Floor I Dubai www.mediaquestcorp.com

MEDIAQUEST NEW OK COMM 240x330.indd 1

KSA I t: +966 1 419 40 61 I f: +966 1 419 41 32 P.O.BOX 14303 I Riyadh 11424 www.mediaquestcorp.com

LEBANON I t: +961 1 49 28 01/2/3 I f: +961 1 49 28 01 Sin El Fil-Horsh Tabet I Dimitri AL Hayek Street I 5th Floor I Azar Bldg. I Beirut www.mediaquestcorp.com

9/28/10 6:08 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

Q&A

Pulse-racing advertising

Makram Fata, executive manager of nine-month-old advertising agency Adrenalin, spoke with Communicate Levant about the agency’s background, its links to a well-known name in advertising, and why there’s still room for newcomers by Nathalie Bontems Adrenalin’s website says the agency has 20 years’ experience. But it was only established in 2009. Can you clarify? When we say 20 years, we talk about the experience of our staff. Adrenalin was launched in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2009, then in Lebanon in January 2010, followed again by Saudi Arabia – this time in Jeddah. We have had an office in Syria since June 2010, and have associates in Dubai and Jordan. We will soon open in Kuwait, Qatar, and Cairo. One of our strengths was that we were able to open directly on a regional level; we did not have to go city by city. This is our power today. We were able to directly create a regional network.

How did you expand so fast? Gathering a good team enabled us to rapidly expand operations. We now have more than 60 people in Saudi Arabia, 16 in Lebanon, and six in Syria. It’s all about the people who got engaged with this agency. They have more than 20 years of experience in this field, and several team members had lots of contacts with clients. And, as you know, sometimes clients follow the agency. That’s how we started mushrooming everywhere. Which team members are you referring to? Well, the shareholders to start with: Hicham Maksoudian, Wissam Fatayarji, Tarek El Mokdessi, and his son Elias El Mokdessi. Most of

42 I Communicate

CLV07-makram Q&A.indd 42

9/29/10 6:32 PM

DEPARTMENTS | OCTOBER 2010

them had contributed to the growth and success of some erstwhile Team Holding Group brands [THG rebranded one year ago as Menacom, and its founder and former CEO, Talal El Mokdessi, is Tarek’s brother]. Obviously, the name El Mokdessi rings a bell. And rumors that Adrenalin has been poaching staff and clients from THG have been flying. One of them even claims that Talal El Mokdessi is now silently involved with Adrenalin. There’s no relation whatsoever with Talal El Mokdessi. As for the poaching issue, we pitched to the clients. True, most of the team that’s working now with Adrenalin had a lot to do with what Talal was doing before, but it has nothing to do with what Adrenalin does today. Talal was a leader, so it’s normal that people who worked with him learned everything they could from him and are now applying that knowledge. What matters is that we have a job to do, an agency to grow, we have clients to serve. And rumors being the topic of discussion, I just want to punch in my view about them in general: “A rumor is an absurd form of distraction.” How many of the Lebanon’s office staff are coming from THG? With the latest recruitments of new team members, the former 50 percent ratio drops to less than 30 when it comes to the staff from the previous agency. For example, I’m not from there and I’m managing this office, so it means something. The trend in Lebanon now is to have boutique agencies. What’s your edge? Why would clients want to come to you? I was amazed when I came back to Lebanon [Fata used to run the operations of Al Waseet newspaper in Poland prior to joining Adrenalin] to see how many agencies there were. There are boutique agencies, big agencies and baqqala [grocery stores] agencies that communicate really bad creative work to the consumers, which hurts the industry. It’s not about having an edge. What we believe in is that there’s a market today, clients are always looking for something better to grow their brands, and to empower them to build new brands. Our philosophy is that we focus a lot on our top line – by that I mean us, the team, the people in the agency, make sure that the bottom lines of our customers are met. We don’t look at our bottom line because if you grow your client’s bottom line, yours will grow too. We are very selective on choosing who’s in the agency. This is something we hear all the time these days – the return to values and personalized service. You can say that, but when you hear a client say during a pitch that this is the first time that he has seen such a team or such a mood, it makes you proud of what you’re trying to achieve. What is this mood you’re mentioning? I think it’s in our name. But I cannot say that you

Client satisfaction. Adrenalin’s ad campaign for the Central Bank of Lebanon can recognize today an Adrenalin ad, because it depends on what the client wants. Sometimes we’re limited. The years to come will show people what we’re capable of. You seem confident the future holds many promises. Times have been tough for the advertising industry in the region. Why is that? What we really focus on are local clients with regional ambition. Today we have a lot of Lebanese clients who are looking to grow outside of Lebanon or elsewhere. And we try to support them outside of Lebanon. We are only going for these clients. There is a lot of room for real advertising in Lebanon because of all this baqqala. Too many agencies are cluttering the market, working on a day-to-day basis. But clients have realized that they must look for an agency to partner with for a long-term relationship. We receive a lot of proposals to work on a project base that we decline. We are not only here to work on a brochure or catalogue; we’re here to create brands. Besides, we are not just a creative agency – we’re a fully-fledged agency, with media, strategic planning, and so on. We specialize in different fields that we tackle very specifically. So there is a lot of room for us.

Industry players often complain that Lebanese clients can easily drop some agency for another just because they know someone who knows someone, or the offer is better. So how do you build a loyal relationship with clients in this context? We try as much as we can to be close to our client. There is always a probability that your client might go for somebody else, but that’s where you come in and when you need to fight for it and keep it. It’s harder to lose a client than gain one. Would you have been interested in the Lebanese market if you weren’t backed by a regional network? No, I wouldn’t have opened only in Lebanon. In the region? Yes, for sure, because we help each other at the end of the day. The Lebanese market is expanding, but it’s always treading a thin line that might go bad or go well. That’s why you need a regional network. You never know what might happen in the Lebanese market. On the advertising side, there’s still a lot to be done in terms of creativity. We have lost a lot of talent. We need to bring back the creative minds that fled the country because, if you put aside politics, Lebanon will always be the trendsetter in the region, no matter what.

Communicate I 43

CLV07-makram Q&A.indd 43

9/29/10 6:32 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | GUEST OPINION

Read or dead?

Jihad Bitar, head of knowledge at Quantum Communications, asks whether Twitter and Facebook are killing off blogs

hen the editor of this fine magazine contacted me for this column, the first question she asked was, “Why haven’t you been updating your blog?” Even though the true reason was laziness, I noted that my “blog monitoring” business had gone down by 50 percent in the past two years, while my Facebook and Twitter listening revenues were up by 400 percent. So, are blogs dying? What is certain is that the worldwide population of bloggers is a large – 190 million – but declining one. The number of blogs created has gone down significantly in the past three years. And of the 190 million blogs out there, only four percent (source: Technocrati) were updated in the past four months, indicating a slow but certain erosion. Instead of creating a blog to post ideas or comments about the neighbors, user X now prefers to open a Facebook page (much faster) and/ or Tweet on the predicament of having noisy neighbors. A typical blog cannot match the unique strength of Twitter and Facebook: they both need less content. Creating and updating content is probably one of the most annoying thing user X has ever done.

The Economist magazine put it best in its June 24 issue, when it quoted a researcher – a self-proclaimed “blog archeologist” – describing his research platform as a “vast field of dead blogs.” In the past year, growth of Blogger and WordPress, the world’s two leading blog-hosting platforms, have stagnated. In the same period, Facebook surged 66 percent and Twitter 47 percent (source: Nielsen Research). In the Arab world, reliable figures are harder to find. I estimate the number of blogs at around 500,000 (of which an estimated 50 percent are in English). But, like all other Web users, Arabs are slowly moving away from blogs and heading to Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace (and even BlackBerry messenger). Egypt is still the main provider of blogging content (no surprise there, as Egyptians are known to be the most talkative of Arabs), but Gulf countries are slowly catching up. Lebanon and Jordan (thanks to Maktoob’s platform) benefit from their “more liberal” cultures, and are hosts to a number of very opinionated blogs (which is how they should be anyway). As in life, Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution also applies to the blogosphere. It is constantly evolving, and only those who adapt to Internet changes will survive. Blogs with access to fresh content are thriving, and who better to create content than both the corporate and political worlds (The Huffington Post, a US political commentary site, is number one)? Technocrati’s list of top 100 blogs (by number of visits) shows the strong lead corporate blogs have. The blogosphere is being slowly eaten by brand-builders; they have the money and time. Blogs are not dead, they are just getting older and more capitalistic. The question now is: Will Facebook and Twitter follow their “old” (born in 2004 – roughly 200 years in Internet age) cousin’s fate? I would say watch out for the corporatization disease; it has no known cure. Here is a list of my favorite Lebanese Blogs: http://beirutntsc.blogspot.com: Don’t agree with the author on many issues, but the blog is well written and entertaining www.bloggingbeirut.com: Great pictures and videos. The king of Lebanese blogs (by number of visits) http://mayazankoul.com: A must-see http://www.hummusnation.net: Very ironic www.beirutbeltway.com: An immigrant’s perspective www.michaelyoungscolumns.blogspot.com: If you like politics http://www.arabdemocracy.com: Not really Lebanese, but very interesting

44 I Communicate

CLV07-Guest opinion bitar.indd 44

9/30/10 2:26 PM

DEPARTMENTS | OCTOBER 2010

Blogosphere L

ebanon’s blogosphere is probably one of the most vibrant digital scenes in the region. Lebanese bloggers are many, dedicated, and very, very outspoken. Agencies are now turning to social media and online communities, listening intently to this direct feedback on how they are perceived. Here is what increasingly influential Lebanese bloggers – inside and outside our borders – have to say about local work and news. They’re listening, and watching. The summer is all but over, although it seems nobody in Lebanon is in a back-to-school mood just yet. But the high season ended with a flourish: Besides the predictable Eid extravaganza, various outdoor festivals, events, and launches captivated the Lebanese blogosphere (otherwise depressed and aggravated by the severe tourist boom and heat-induced power shortage). And yet another summer passed by. So for all of you who missed the party, here is the chance to see what all the fuss was about. One cannot help but wonder if the organizers of the Maraya 2010 Hamra Street Festival, which ran from September 10 to 12, expected the event to be such a blast. What is certain is that Lebanon’s bloggers covered it extensively, Dutch blogger Sietske being one of them. A good example of how the blogosphere can provide strong networking and enthusiastic communication free-of-charge. http://sietske-in-beiroet. blogspot.com/

Like many other bloggers, Blogging Beirut featured the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange project. Held on September 13, it aimed to help people discover nightlife from around the world by having 14 cities pair up and exchange party tips. Pairs will be announced on October 22. Smirnoff clearly scored a point with Lebanese clubbers. http://bloggingbeirut.com/ archives/1720-Smirnoff-NightlifeExchange-Project-launchesat-B018.html

“Shock and awe part 2!” is on This is Beirut, a follow-up on a post about failed anti-smoking campaigns. This American globetrotting and currently Beirut-based blogger came across an Egyptian pack of cigarettes featuring a strong warning on the effects of smoking. Debate on how far Health ministries should/will go is open. http://thisisbeirut.wordpress. com/2010/09/06/shock-andawe-part-2/

Blog Baladi doubts the results of the MyCrest Smile contest (See Communicate Levant, “Femme and Crest seek the perfect smile,” page 12, June 2010). A follower of the pageant, Najib doesn’t recall seeing the winner in the top 20 on the votes list and feels “this whole competition is fixed. Her father is a dentist too and he uses Crest. What a coincidence!” http://blogbaladi.com/najib/ lebanon/crest-cover-winneris-mira-zeidan/

Ux Soup is fed up, not with the new tendency within ad agencies to ask bloggers to post reviews on their sites, but with the seeming incapacity of said bloggers to provide honest opinions and their fear of being requested to actually come up with praise. Soupy hits the nail spot-on: “Duh! They are inviting us to review it. Period! (…) Social media, that’s how it works, embrace it.” http://www.uxsoup.com/gettingasked-to-review/

To end this month’s blogosphere section, here’s a bonus provided by Adon, aka Tony Saghbini, on Ninar blog: the first book on “the Lebanese blogosphere and the future of freedom in Lebanon.” For Arabic speakers only, but an interesting take on the bloggers’ realm nonetheless, and, to top it all, available for free download. http://saghbini.wordpress. com/2010/09/14/-‫البلوغوسفير‬ ‫الكتيب‬-‫اللبناني‬/

Communicate I 45

00-CLV07-Blogosphere.indd 45

9/30/10 9:10 AM

OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

Regional Work

Never say No to Panda Advertising Agency: Advantage Marketing & Advertising, Cairo, Egypt Creative Director: Ali Ali/Maged Nassar Copywriter: Ali Ali/Maged Nassar Production Company: The House, Cairo, Egypt

Red-Logistics: Move it as is. Advertising Agency: Promoseven, Riyadh. Executive Creative Director: Ahmad Beck. Art Directors: Ahmad Beck, Ramero Firmeza. Photographer: Steve Kozman. Copywriter: Ahmad Beck. These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

46 I Communicate

74-81-COM70-Work.indd 46

9/30/10 2:34 PM

DEPARTMENTS | OCTOBER 2010

International Work

Volkswagen: Imagination. Volkswagen Dialog Response: know in advance what will be done to your car. Advertising Agency: DDB, Milan, Italy. Creative Directors: Luca Albanese, Francesco Taddeucci. Art Director: Salvatore Zanfrisco. Copywriter: Daniela De Seta. Illustrator: Mcbess.

Burger King. Advertising Agency: Interone GmbH, Munich, Germany. Executive Creative Directors: Marco Mehrwald, Thomas Pakull. Creative Director: Shin Oh. Art Director: Christopher Grouls. Copywriters: Christopher Grouls, Bernd Nagenrauft, Lars Haensell. Illustrator: Serial Cut, Spain. These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

Communicate I 47

74-81-COM70-Work.indd 47

9/30/10 2:34 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

International Work

WWF Earth Hour. Stickies. Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Manila, Philippines. Executive Creative Directors: Richard Irvine, Raoul Panes. Creative Director: Alvin Tecson. Art Director: Mela Advincula. Copywriters: Candice Madamba, Cey Enriquez.

Save a life. Put out your cigarette. Advertising Agency: Shoot The Shit, Brazil

These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

48 I Communicate

74-81-COM70-Work.indd 48

9/30/10 2:34 PM

DEPARTMENTS | OCTOBER 2010

International Work

Anything for a creative spark. Advertising Agency: Sparkfury Creative Consultants, Singapore. Creative Director: Perry Goh. Art Director: Perry Goh, Leo Apinan. Copywriters: Llyon Lim, Joseph Seah. Illustrator: Zeus.

Tide. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let your colours mix. Advertising Agency: Vitruvio Leo Burnett, Madrid, Spain. Executive Creative Director: Rafa Anton. Creative Director/Copywriter: Francisco Cassis. Art Director: Sergio Lobo. These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

Communicate I 49

74-81-COM70-Work.indd 49

9/30/10 2:34 PM

OCTOBER 2010 | departments

Drive By One anonymous blogger critiques Beirut’s billboards. All of these examples and more can be found at beirutdriveby.blogspot.com

It’s a wrap Can I get a side order of McHummus or McTabouleh?

The road less traveled …is not the road you happen to be on.

Au Revoir We’ll take back special items too, like what’s left of our electricity. Our clogged Internet will return to pre-summer inefficiency. Our waiters will smile again. Guest drivers hell-bent on outdoing the locals will be replaced by normal chaos. As you take away your criticisms of Lebanon, along with your comparisons of your home/ host country, we’ll stop defending Lebanon and get back to our national pastime: complaining and criticizing Lebanon.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Reading takes you places.

Promises, Promises All we really want is better service and better rates. Keep the crown.

East Meets West A French diploma in Japanese Kabuki theater make-up?

50 I Communicate

00-CLV07-DRIVE BY-October.indd 50

9/29/10 6:42 PM

www.menacristal.com 31 Jan. / 4 Feb. 2011 - Mzaar Kfardebian, Lebanon

Call for entries!

Competitions are open for the MENA Cristal Festival Enter your best campaigns to the “Cristal”

BEFORE FRIDAY 22ND OCTOBER: Cyber Media Direct & Promo International Production

BEFORE FRIDAY 7TH JANUARY: Film Radio Outdoor Daily Press Magazine Print Craft Corporate Integrated

BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept Car

www.bmw-me.com

Sheer Driving Pleasure

JOY DEFINES THE FUTURE. Everything we at BMW do every single day is done to ensure that the Joy of driving lives on. With 262 kW/356 hp, this concept car has the power of a high-performance sports car and pulses from 0 to 100 km/h in 4.8 seconds. We not only use less energy, but we also even create our own. Presenting the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics. Combining hybrid and electric, it’s the ultimate example of how cars might take shape tomorrow using technologies already on the road today. Every BMW is created with EfficientDynamics. It’s our way of maximizing the Joy of driving using fewer resources. For more information, visit our website: www.bmw-me.com.

BMW EFFICIENTDYNAMICS.