Communicate 67

Letter from the editor | July-August 2010

Words and pictures A

year ago, in July 2009, the front cover of Communicate’s summer issue bore a picture of a paper plane in flames, hurtling downward.

Our headline was, “The death of print.” In our cover story, we wrote about how print media outlets have been dabbling with digital. People are trying to work out how to monetize the written word again. We’ve followed those attempts closely over the intervening months.

In this month’s news pages, we carry news of one Dubai magazine publisher shutting titles, another one restructuring, and a newspaper under threat of closure, or at least serious reinvention. Print is still in crisis.

Last month I took part in a panel discussion about the future of content and who will pay for it. I argued – as a true fence-sitting hack – that no one knows what will happen.

Maybe advertising will continue to pay for content, or maybe subscription will. This goes for traditional print as well as digital media. Maybe there will be another model altogether, or a combination of ways to finance content. The media world is experimenting, and although it is in crisis now, when the dust settles there will still be good content, and media will survive. Somehow.

On page 32 we carry an article from Advertising Age, in which we examine how magazines are adapting to be read on the iPad. Predictably, they are adding technical bells and whistles of the sort that make Apple’s tablet the

geek chic gadget du jour. The surprise is in the pricing. Despite making savings on paper, ink, and petrol, publishers are charging more for digital versions of their magazines than for the print editions.

There is still value in good content, in enjoyable words and striking pictures.

I’ve been experimenting with the picture side of that pairing recently. Journalists will have to become more multi-skilled as media evolves, and I seized the opportunity to hone my photography skills at a workshop with Afghan Girl photographer Steve McCurry.

His advice was great, although the sum total of my success was a shot of a fellow attendee’s disembodied head (see page 28).

But I’m not disheartened.

It’s summer again, which means this is another combined issue, and I’m going on holiday.

I’ll take my camera with me and see if I can at least work out which button makes it go click.

In August we’ll be back, to work on the next issue of the magazine. It will still be hot out, and a lot of people will be watching a lot of television till the air becomes cool enough to leave the house.

Ramadan will be falling in the summer this year, and our cover story (see page 20) asks whether the seasonal heat will burn off some of the advertising spend traditionally reserved for the Holy Month.

The feeling we’ve got from the market is one of cautious

optimism. Last year Ramadan was bad for media; spend was down. But that had more to do with the financial crisis than the time of year. Many expats, myself included, will be away, but we’re not the target market for Ramadan programming and advertising.

For Arabic speakers, there will be a summer of great television ahead, and media should see more spend than in 2009.

The quality of Ramadan advertising is another matter, however. I’m bracing myself for a barrage of cliched crescent-moon ads, the same as every year.

Some things never change.

Austyn Allison, managing editor editor@communicate.vg

Communicate I 3

Contents | JuLY-AUGUST 2010

Contents

COVER: Ramadan feels the heat

20

24

26

Summer is traditionally a slow period for advertising in the Middle East, while the Holy Month is boom time. What happens when the two coincide?

Guest Opinion. A matter of taste: Two TBWA/Raad agency chiefs on the problems with advertising during the Holy Month Guest Opinion. The main message: Brands that ignore the spiritual aspects of Ramadan risk losing customers and credibility

SHORTS

6

8

10

Size does matter: Women’s spending clout is massive. And it is only going to get bigger Making a connection: Does online media need representation?

News you can use: A panel pits old journalism against new

NEWS

14

16

18

Print. ENG shuts titles as The Media Factory announces restructuring Public Relations. Holmes Report founder set for Beirut PR Forum Digital. Is Apple shutting Google out of iPhone and iPad?

FEATURES 28

32

Photography. Light and shadows: Communicate learns to take passable portraits with the help of legendary snapper Steve McCurry Digital. Premium content: Publishing houses are offering their mags on the iPad – for more money

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54

Digital. Take your pick: What happens when consumers are allowed to choose the ads they want?

Digital. Laying down the law: Twitter’s clampdown on ad networks hits startups, but users can still sell their own tweets Digital. There, there: Facebook tries to ramp up its entry into geonetworking, but the smaller players are putting up a fight Advertising. Rapid fire: New factors boost real-time advertising Digital. We’re sorry: The right way to make a social-media mea culpa Digital. Long and short of it: URL shortening sites are on the rise. But what’s their business model?

Advertising. Playing chicken: Can a new slogan save KFC’s marketing woes?

Digital. Happily ever after: Zynga and Facebook tie-up quell rumors of a split

DEPARTMENTS 56

58

61

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Interview. Feeling chipper: Nigel Dessau, CMO of tech firm AMD, on why the future is bright for his company Q&A. Balancing act: Georges Chehwan, founder of Plus Holding, tells Communicate about his gains, losses and plans in outdoor advertising and property development Media Work. Gum runners: Wrigley’s takes the law in its own hands for the release for its latest product Work. Selections from the regional and international creative scenes The Dish. Egos, errors, and egg on our face

JuLY-AUGUST 2010 Published by: Medialeader FZ/MediaquestCorp Medialeader, P O Box 72184, Dubai Media City, Al Thuraya Tower 2, Office 2402, Dubai, Tel: (971) 4 391 0760

CO-CEO Alexandre Hawari CO-CEO Julien Hawari Managing Director Ayman Haydar CFO Abdul Rahman Siddiqui creative DIRECTOR Aziz Kamel Distribution & Subscription Director JP Nair, jp@mediaquestcorp.com Marketing Manager Joumana Haddad, joumana@mediaquestcorp.com KSA GM Tarek Abu Hamzy, tarekah@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: +966 1 4194061 Lebanon GM Nathalie Bontems, nathalie@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: +961 1 492801 North Africa GM Adil Abdel Wahab, adel@medialeader.biz, Tel: +213 661 562 660 France Sales Director

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

4 I Communicate

Founder Yasser Hawari Managing Director Julien Hawari editor Nathalie Bontems Managing editor Austyn Allison creative DIRECTOR Aziz Kamel ART DIRECTOR Janett Kheil senior journalist Rania Habib sub editor Salil Kumar ART Contributor Aya Farhat ART CONTRIBUTORS Alvin Cha, Jean-Christophe Nys, Aya Farhat External Affairs Manuel Dias, Maguy Panagga, Catherine Dobarro, Randa Khoury, Lila Schoepf, Laurent Bernard PRINTERS Raidy Emirates Printing Group (Lebanon) ADVERTISING The Gulf MEDIALEADER, PO Box 72184, Dubai Media City, AlThuraya Tower 2, Office 2402, Dubai, Tel: (971) 4 391 0760, Fax: (971) 4 390 8737, sales@mediaquestcorp.com Lebanon Walid Ramadan, walid@mediaquestcorp. com, Tel: (961) 339 9087 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tarek Abu Hamzy, tarekah@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: (966) 1 419 40 61, Ghassan A. Rbeiz, ghassan@mediaquestcorp.com, Fax: (966) 1 419 41 32, P.O.Box: 14303, Riyadh 11424, Europe S.C.C Arabies, 18, rue de Varize, 75016 Paris, France, Tel: (33) 01 47 664600, Fax: (33) 01 43 807362, Lebanon MEDIALEADER Beirut, Lebanon, Tel: (961) 1 202 369, Fax: (961) 1 202 369 WEB SITE www.communicate.ae

JULY-AUGUST 2010 | SHORTS

Rethinking size

Women’s spending clout is massive, and it will only get bigger, we discover at GMR’s Marketing to Women Conference by Rania Habib

C

hina’s big. So is India. But they are not as big as women.” Being part of the fairer sex, we couldn’t help but feel slightly insulted every time we received the promotional e-flyer for our sister publication Gulf Marketing Review’s (GMR) 4th Annual Marketing to Women Conference: Were they calling us fat? Did they think our bums look big in those jeans?

We put our insecurities aside, put on a skirt, didn’t worry about being called bigger than China and India, and headed to the day’s event with a feminist spring in our step. And we were certainly delighted as the opening remarks included, “Women want to be treated as equals, not sequels. We believe they should be treated as prequels.” Ladies certainly have control over spending.

The conference saw a full house, with many men, but more women – of all ages, nationalities, and professions. They wanted to hear about what appeals to them, and what makes them such a critical part of the population to market to.

According to Marti Barletta, the “

6 I Communicate

conference’s first – and most prolific – speaker, CEO of the US-based TrendSight Group, and author of Marketing to Women, women are a social good, in economic terms.

“Other than pizza, men – in the US – aren’t buying much,” she said, much to the amusement of the audience.

Barletta’s anecdotes and jibes at the men in the room were, however, fully backed up by a solid, close-to-two-hour presentation about women’s purchasing power, how to reach a time-starved segment of the population, and how in spite of the power and influence they now wield, women’s top two values remain love and family. Barletta went on to discuss what kind of advertising appeals to women, and how focusing on people rather than product is most effective. While we theoretically agree with her statement, the examples she produced had us wondering if we were, in fact, female.

We found ourselves cringing at some of the examples Barletta used, including a happy couple on a box of cereal, and a pretty and wholesome girl smiling while licking

some cheese spread off her finger.

Sure, we love people as much as the next woman, but that definitely did not appeal to us. Still, Barletta’s energy and enthusiasm, and use of regional examples, kept us hooked till the end.

Then Stuart Campbell-Morris, a consultant at TNS MEA, took to the stage to share some findings from ARAC (The Arab as Consumer), the research company’s look into the impact and influence of developments in Saudi Arabia on the Saudi female psyche and behavior.

Campbell-Morris described the findings as “Carl Jung meets Girls of Riyadh,” and explained that results showed six key personality types with different aspirations within Saudi females: freedom, drive, power, control, reassurance, and belonging. While the kingdom is progressing slowly but surely, Campbell-Morris says the Saudi women’s market is full of opportunities, as women take on less subservient roles in their conservative society.

Robert Taylor-Hughes, managing director of Beiersdorf Middle East,

tackled the female tween market, all the while focusing on how “cool everything is when you’re a teenager,” and how “uncool” men wearing ties are. Taylor-Hughes directed his presentation to women by stressing that while teenagers may be a group on their own, it’s important to treat girls and boys differently. “Wow the girls and rock the boys,” he said. He wasn’t wearing a tie.

With women buying seemingly everything these days, and keeping love and family as their top two values, Barletta was right: Women are a social and economic good . When we read past “China is big. So is India. But not as big as women,” we saw that women in the Middle East control $246 billion of the region’s wealth, a figure that is expected to climb to $383 billion by next year.

And according to the World Bank, the global earning power of women is forecast to reach $18 trillion by 2014, almost twice that of India and China, combined. That is big; and if women are that powerful, it shouldn’t matter if their bums look big in those jeans.

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | SHORTS

The Connect answer

The company that sells space on MSN Arabia and Facebook tells us why online media needs representation by Austyn Allison

R

ecently, Communicate met up with Mohamed El Sayed (pictured, right), general manager of MSN Arabia, and Mohamed El Mehairy (pictured, left), managing director of digital media representation company Connect Ads. Both men were in Dubai for a Microsoft Summit, where the Microsoft Network (MSN) sells itself to potential advertisers. Communicate hoped they could explain some aspects of the MSN-Connect Ads business model.

In an age of digital directness, it confuses Communicate why there needs to be a middleman involved in the interaction between digital media, such as MSN’s websites, and the clients who spend money on them.

Connect Ads recently took over Facebook’s media representation in the region, even though the social networking site has an easy-to-use interface for advertisers to create their own contextual ads. If clients – or their media agencies – can do that, why would digital media introduce another link in the chain?

Firstly, because MSN Arabia and Connect Ads are sibling companies.

In 2002, Microsoft gave LinkDotNet, a subsidiary of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom, a franchise for nine countries in the region, now extended to 15.

8 I Communicate

LinkDotNet’s LinkOnline division runs MSN Arabia; another division, Connect Ads, is the sales house for all LinkOnline properties – including MSN. The second reason for going through a sales rep is that advertisers get access to the choicest cuts of advertising. On Facebook, says El Mehairy, “All the homepage inventory, all the interactive ads, the ads that open videos, that you can share and people can see on your profile, stuff like that is sold by an agent.”

Automated ad-building software is a way to get rid of remnant inventory. “This type of selling, which is called ad network selling, is more or less automated,” says El Mehairy.

“Maybe 90 percent of clients or publishers do it on remnant inventory.”

These leftovers are sold as-is.

“For example,” says El Mehairy, “if you want your ad to show 100 million times, you cannot guarantee it; you just get what’s left. Anyone paying through an ad agency gets higher priority.”

“The self-serve basis is a way for publishers to monetize some of the unsellable,” he adds.

MSN Arabia is planning to introduce much more social interaction in the next few months, but MSN and Facebook can still play nicely.

More sites mean more revenue

for everyone, says El Sayed. “We started with a small doughnut that became a pie, and now we’re trying to make it a cake.”

El Mehairy and El Sayed talk of “return on involvement.” Clients – or at least their agencies – need to be digitally aware enough to understand the measurements and metrics that reps such as Connect Ads use.

“All the agencies now have a digital representative within their agency,” says El Sayed. “Somebody who really understands, who really talks our language. The conversation was a bit tough in the beginning, but now it’s very easy.”

Digital takes up almost 1 percent of ad spend in the region, says El Sayed. Other estimates put the percentage higher, after discounts on traditional media’s rate cards are taken into consideration. El Sayed

admits his estimate is “very minute,” but sticks by it. Mobile advertising might push it up, though.

As well as making its sites more social, MSN will be localizing its content for regional markets. The UAE is the country that spends the highest percentage of its advertising budget on digital. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are picking up, and El Sayed is also watching Lebanon.

“I think Lebanon is a very interesting market because of all the content that they have, and the freedom of speech that they are trying to achieve,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it is a big market so much as [an] interesting market.”

Connect Ads must be hoping to generate interest in its own sites, and persuade advertisers to buy the best its clients can offer, rather than settling for their scraps.

JULY-AUGUST 2010 | SHORTS

A question of trust

With more sources of news, “What source should I believe?” is becoming “How much should I believe it?” by Austyn Allison

W

hat media can you trust? The question came up when Dubai’s Shelter arts venue hosted a roundtable discussion entitled, “Journalism 2.0.” It marked the launch of SAE Institute’s diploma in digital journalism. The debate pitted old journalism against new journalism.

One of the panel, Mark Briggs (pictured above, center), coined the title of the discussion when he wrote Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive in the Digital Age in 2007. He tells Communicate Journalism 2.0 is “a combination of old-school journalism and new-school tools.” Journalists need to work with mobile tools, and produce content for consumers who will be getting their news on the move, too.

“The fundamentals don’t change,” he says. “The tools do.”

Pia Heikkila (second from right), described by SAE Institute as a “backpack journalist,” is a freelance writer, filmmaker, broadcaster, and general hack of all trades. She helped set up the digital journalism course. Although she epitomizes Journalism 2.0, Heikkila works exclusively for big-brand media.

10 I Communicate

On the other side of the panel sat Briggs. Before turning to consulting, he worked in the online sections of established US newspapers.

Briggs talked about “an explosion of personal journalism” through blogs, Twitter, and other social networks.

He’s a big fan. “Technology makes journalism better,” he said.

Heikkila agreed with Briggs that anyone can be a journalist online, but said brands act as a filter so readers know the news they are getting is reliable.

This sparked debate over the differences between bloggers and journalists. A blog is just a platform, said Briggs. It’s the content that will dictate whether the author is a journalist.

Heikkila argued that the difference is one of fact over opinion, and Briggs retorted that “blog” does not necessarily mean “opinion.”

The question is one that every journalism student has to tackle: What makes a journalist?

Another thread of the debate was the play-off between immediacy and

reliability. One member of the audience, a news reporter for a local radio network, asked, “Will the immediacy of digital journalism always and forever haunt the medium?”

Even if Twitter’s in meltdown, her newsroom will wait to see news on “a reputable medium” such as the BBC or CNN before reporting it.

Briggs said: “A lot of the news I find today comes through the people I follow on Twitter. So these are people I have chosen, have handselected, because I think they are smart people and they are going to make me smarter.”

The question of what constitutes journalism could become a moot point, at least for those plugged into the social Web. The question for consumers of news – just as much as for producers of news – used to be: Which sources can I trust?

Now, however, that question is shifting to become: How much can I trust each of many sources?

Twitter, for example, is an immediate medium, but needs to be taken with a pinch of salt; it’s often wrong. The BBC, on the other hand, is generally right. It will not publish stories until it has researched them in depth. But the cost of this is that it is often late with the news.

And traditional news will never be as relevant to individuals as their personally picked Twitter feed. As Briggs said, “There is so much more serendipity online.”

Between these two extremes comes digital journalism (or “dijo,” as the panel called it). Sometimes it will be more Twitter, sometimes more BBC. When Orson Welles broadcast his radio adaptation of War of the Worlds in 1938, almost a third of the show’s 6 million listeners believed aliens were invading. It had to be true; it was on the radio.

Today, however, the public simply needs to be informed enough to figure out what to believe and what to question.

With so many sources out there, and with a growing familiarity with different media’s nuances, that decision is easier than ever.

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | Regional news

ENG shuts titles

V I AGENCIES

News of “temporary suspension” comes as second Dubai publisher, The Media Factory, announces restructuring

Dubai. Dubai-based publishing company ENG Media is to stop publication of its titles while it fights a legal battle with Fujairah Media, the free zone through which the magazines are licensed.

A letter seen by Communicate from Rehan Merchant, group CEO of Emirates Neon Group, to agencies and advertisers, says the firm has been advised by its lawyers to temporarily suspend publishing “to avoid any forceful scenarios in the future.” It is understood that Fujairah Media and ENG are suing each other over financial disputes.

ENG produces media title Media Week, celebrity lifestyle magazine Insider, and men’s title IQ. It also publishes the beauty trade title BH&W (Beauty, Health and Wellbeing).

ENG has run into repeated financial difficulties since it launched its magazines in 2008. Employees who left the paper in January of this year complain of unpaid wages dating back to last October, and salaries of current staff are overdue by several months.

Merchant writes, “ENG’s publishing division will be re-launching the existing titles later down the year from another emirate as a lot of money and effort has been put into building brand equity in the market. We see this market jumping back and we are sure about our existence in such a magazine market.”

Nonetheless, Communicate understands that ENG is open to offers for its titles. With a bad market reputation for not paying employees,

the publisher may have trouble recruiting staff to relaunch its magazines.

ENG also has an outdoor media arm, and Merchant’s letter claims out-of-home business is “growing back steadily,” with the company “winning major tenders from the RTA [Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority] on Sheikh Zayed Road and in Mirdiff for lampposts, and other notable tenders for bridges.”

Neither Merchant nor publishing director Mike Orlov could be reached for comment, despite repeated attempts.

ENG’s suspension of its titles comes hot on the heels of The Media Factory (TMF), another Dubai publisher, announcing a restructuring and layoffs. Management at the firm, whose titles include Dot Commerce (published under contract for the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce) and the regional edition of Haymarket’s Autocar, blames “a lackluster second quarter and the anticipated lean period over the summer months.” In a statement, TMF says it will continue to publish all the magazines produced out of its Dubai Media City office. And says the recent rioting in Thailand damaged advertiser sentiment for Thai Airways’ inflight magazine, Sawasdee, also published by TMF. Although TMF would not reveal the number of layoffs, rumors in the media industry say around 16 staff have been made redundant.

Ogilvy study defines rise of “new Muslim consumer” Dubai. A survey on Islamic branding says a new generation is redefining what it means to be modern and Muslim, creating new meanings of religious pride, economic progress, and global citizenship.

Ogilvy & Mather conducted the survey with research agency TNS, and announced it at the launch of Ogilvy Noor, the ad agency’s global Islamic branding practice. The survey reveals what drives Muslims as consumers, against the vast backdrop of ethnic, economic, political, and religious diversity of the Islamic world, says the company in a statement.

Miles Young, global CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, says, “A market of 1.8 billion people that has scarcely been tapped, Muslim consumers offer enormous potential to businesses around the world – but only if their values are fully understood.”

14 I Communicate

Saatchi & Saatchi appoints regional CEO Dubai. Saatchi & Saatchi last month appointed Adil Khan as regional CEO for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

An experienced operator with nearly 24 years in the advertising and business world, Khan joined Saatchi & Saatchi on June 15. He will be responsible for driving regional growth for the agency.

Khan joins Saatchi & Saatchi following more than 11 years with Y&R. Prior to this, he held account management positions in Bates Madco, Contract JWT India, Lintas India (now Lowe), and Frank Simoes Advertising.

Saatchi & Saatchi clients in MENA include: Dubai Metro, Procter & Gamble, Red Bull, Novartis, Federal Foods, Mall of the Emirates, Atlantis, and Cadbury.

PHD conference focuses on implications of new technologies Dubai. Rapid technological changes and technology-empowered consumers are profoundly altering the market dynamics, forcing compa-

nies to not only review how they communicate with consumers but also how they are structured, says media agency PHD. An instant poll of the 174 delegates at PHD’s first BrainScape conference recently showed that 44 percent of the marketing and media professionals there are concerned about what the future holds. One of their biggest challenges is to manage consumers’ ability to make or break their brands.

With trends, statistics and case studies, the BrainScape conference demonstrated the changing role of social media and the rapid shift in the balance of powers between companies and consumers.

JULY-AUGUST 2010 | ReGIonAL newS

V I MARKETING

Holmes Report founder set for Beirut PR Forum Beirut. On June 10, the Beirut Public Relations Forum will kick off in Lebanon. With a theme of “brilliance,” the Forum, now in its second year, has been expanded to run over two days: one day of talks, and a second of workshops.

The headline speaker for the event is Paul Holmes (pictured above, left), president and CEO of the Holmes Group and editor of the Holmes Report. His weekly e-mail newsletter is highly regarded within the global PR world, and the company also runs the Sabre Awards for PR. Holmes tells Communicate he has “a tendency to improvise,” but plans to focus on “the opportunities and threats posed by the emergence of social media as a powerful new medium.”

“Consumers and others now have access to far more information about organizations, and the ability to share their own information much more broadly,” he adds. “At the same time, companies have far less control over the information that is out there. That’s quite frightening to a lot of CEOs, and to some PR people.”

This will be Holmes’ first visit to the region, and he says he is coming “primarily to listen and learn.”

However, he says that from what he has seen, “The best work in the region is as good as the best work anywhere. As in any developing market, though, there is not as much of that top-quality work as there is in other, better-developed markets.”

The Forum is organized by Trans Arabian Communications (Traccs), which is headquartered in Jeddah and Dubai. Majdi Al-Ayed (pictured above, right), managing director of Traccs UAE, says it’s important to see public relations as more than just media relations. He tells Communicate, “I think the public relations industry in the region is not being used to its full capacity. I think we are probably using 20 percent at most, and that’s because there’s still this incorrect way of thinking that public relations equals events, press conferences and writing press releases.”

“Public relations is returning to its roots: managing the relationships between an organization and its public,” says Holmes. “It’s great that the Forum is focusing on the real business of PR – creating and nurturing meaningful, mutually-beneficial relationships – rather than on one of the tools for achieving that objective.”

emirates Business 24-7’s future in doubt Dubai. Dubai-based newspaper Emirates Business 24-7 may cease publication at the end of June, according to industry rumors and sources close to the title.

Although management at the paper have told employees they don’t know what is happening, insiders say editorial staff are uncertain of their future.

Four members of staff have been asked to resign over the past month, and more resignations and redundancies are expected before the end of June.

From July 1, the future of the paper is unclear.

Several scenarios have been circulated within the newspaper and outside. The title could close altogether; it could become an online publication only, either on a permanent basis or as part of a staged shutdown, or it could be relaunched with more of

16 I Communicate

Marketing guru tells conference female shoppers prioritize more than men Dubai. The keynote speaker at last month’s Gulf Marketing Review Marketing to Women conference (organized by Communicate’s parent company, Mediaquest) was US-based gender-marketing guru and author of Marketing to Women Marti Barletta.

She outlined the different, physiological approaches to purchasing for men and women.

women are highly proficient in their use of the Internet: 71 percent of the women participating in the study belonged to a social networking site; 66 percent connected with friends online on a daily basis; 83 percent accessed the Internet from home; 34 percent were online at least 10 hours a week; and 45 percent read articles and magazines online.

AnaZahra.com, a portal dedicated to the modern Arab woman, is set to launch in July, and is created

by Abu Dhabi Media Company.

YouGovSiraj conducted the study in April.

VeRY BRIeFS 4 TH A n n U A l M A r k E T I n g To WoMEn ConFErEnCE

WoMAn 2010: Is yoUr BrAnd MAn EnoUgH?

BOOK NOWare linear thinkers Men, she says, and more likely to prioritize or focus on single purchases. “They prioritize the important things,” she told the delegates.

Women, through combining the roles of motherhood, wife and often career, continually multitask, therefore maximize all shopping opportunities.

“They prioritize the important things and the extras. They will go the extra mile to get it just right,” she added.

Men, on the other hand, are linear thinkers and more likely to prioritize or focus on a single purchase.

“They prioritize the important things,” she told delegates.

3 1 M Ay 2 0 1 0 grosvEnor HoUsE HoTEl, dUBAI

China’s big. So is India.

But they are not as big as “WOMEN”.

According to the World Bank the global earning power of women is forecast to reach $18 trillion by 2014. That’s almost twice that of India and China. Combined.

Women today are the single largest growing economic force in the world.

In the Middle East alone they control $246 billion of the region’s wealth. This is estimated to reach $383 billion by next year. So, is your brand man enough to grab a share?

Women 2010, the fourth annual GMR Marketing to Women Conference provides the sharpest tools and the latest techniques to help marketers unleash the purchasing potential of the most powerful consumer base in the Middle East.

The one-day, intensive conference is crammed with insights, research, case studies, brand analysis and thoughtleadership delivered by our expert panel of international and regional speakers.

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MediaquestCorp, Dubai Media City, Al Thuraya Tower 2, Office 2402-2405, Dubai - Tel: (971) 4 391 0760 - Fax: (971) 4 390 8737

Survey shows Arab women are digitally savvy Abu Dhabi. A study commissioned by anaZahra.com shows that Arab

Business Gulf Malayalam magazine launches weber Shandwick MenA Wins SABRE Award for work with Boeing emirates Printing Press, Dubai wins five Sappi awards Kuwait’s watch Shopping Magazine to become BPA audited o2 Branding to enter Saudi market Abu Dhabi Media Company opens office in Saudi Arabia Christina Stanfield and Re Perez join Siegel+Gale Middle east Imagenation launches Mawaheb internship program for film students Twofour54 studios launch in Kidzania children’s city

a lifestyle focus, possibly under new management.

Reporters have apparently been asked to shift the focus of their stories away from the pure business angle the paper has taken since it was relaunched in its present guise in December 2007. [The paper initially launched as Emirates Today two years before.] They have been asked to gear their stories to the website, and some staff have been receiving extra online training.

The newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Riyad Mickdady, did not respond to requests for comment.

The daily business title is published by Awraq publishing, a subsidiary of government-owned Dubai Media Incorporated. Until October last year, it was published by Arab Media Group.

Tidalwave International wins Adobe contract Branding agency omnia rebrands Infiniti launches Dubai Airport campaign Abu Dhabi Tempo magazine to be tagged for mobile content Link Dot net holds Microsoft Advertising Summit in Dubai

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | Regional news

Is Apple shutting Google out of iPhone, iPad? New terms may leave search giant’s AdMob out of iWorld – and without 30 percent of its business Apple appears to be elbowing Google off iPhones and iPads, now that the search giant has closed on its acquisition of AdMob. In a change to its developer terms last month, Apple clarified its position on third-party advertising: It’s OK for apps to collect user data for advertising, but only if an “independent” provider serves those ads and counts mobile advertising as its primary business.

The terms state: “An advertising service provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems, or development environments other than Apple would not qualify as independent.”

Well, it sounds like that rules out Google, with its Android operating system and search as its primary moneymaker. At least that’s how AdMob founder Omar Hamoui is taking it. “Apple proposed new AOL to hire “hundreds” of journalists

AOL is planning to hire hundreds of journalists, editors and videographers in the coming year as it builds out its content-first business model.

David Eun, president of AOL’s media and studios division, was expected to announce the push in an all-hands meeting of the group in New York last month.

“Our mission at this company is to be the world’s largest producer of high-quality content, period,” he says. “The content driving our traffic is home-grown, and 80 percent of it is now produced by folks on the AOL payroll.”

“We are going to be the largest net hirer of journalists in the world next year.”

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developer terms that, if enforced as written, would prohibit app developers from using AdMob and Google’s advertising solutions on Brits say BP isn’t so bad BP has made enemies around the world as a result of the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, but the British people are neither mourning the loss of the company’s reputation nor defending it against the vitriol of President Barack Obama.

“It’s an occupational hazard of drilling. BP is a quality company, and if something goes wrong it’s not seen as being because of incompetence,” says John Woodward, worldwide planning director of Publicis Worldwide. “BP is seen as doing its best in a difficult situation.” “[CEO] Tony Hayward should be congratulated for agreeing to be the spokesperson, and to hide behind nobody and nothing. It’s an almost insurmountable task for a single individual, but he’s taken it on the chin,” says Hugh Robertson, co-founder of independent London creative agency RPM.

the iPhone,” Hamoui wrote in a blog post.

Without inventory from Apple devices, AdMob could stand to lose a

significant chunk of revenue. About 30 percent of ad requests on the mobile network in April came from iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads, and the vast majority came from apps rather than the mobile web.

“We’ll be speaking to Apple to express our concerns about the impact of these terms,” Hamoui wrote.

That also means “independent” mobile ad networks such as JumpTap, Greystripe, and Millennial Media can draw a sigh of relief.

(Greystripe director of marketing Dane Holewinski was quick to submit comment in support of the new terms.)

For now, market share will be a big decider for the significance of these terms. Right now, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry is the leader in the US smartphone market, followed

by Android, which blew past Apple’s 21 percent in the first quarter, according to NPD Group market after Canada. And that’s another reason we would never launch an anti-British campaign, as this is being dubbed inaccurately.”

The ad was a reference to the devastating oil spill contaminating the Gulf of Mexico and its surrounding coastline, including New Orleans.

The spill comes from a rig leased to energy firm BP, whose name stands for British Petroleum.

New Orleans yanks jab at Brits The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) last month decided to not run its “This isn’t the first time New Orleans has survived the British” print ad due to the fact that it was being interpreted by many people as anti-British.

Kelly Schulz, vice-president of communications for the CVB, says, “This was one particular tagline in one print ad that we have since pulled because it was misinterpreted by a lot of people. “ “It was not our intention to be anti-British. That was not the purpose of this campaign, but that’s how it’s been dubbed. The United Kingdom is our second largest international

Phuket ad-fest founder vows to outdo Cannes As creatives began stretching their celebration muscles in advance of schmoozing the ad parties along the Croisette at the 2010 Cannes Lions advertising fest, one adman, Patrick Ferrara, launched a campaign to promote a different awards show – the Global Advertising Awards, which describes itself is an “annual awards competition honoring creative excellence in advertising worldwide that possesses a different philosophy of evaluation than any other advertising award.”

Ferrara, in an article published by a Thai paper, proclaimed that the Global Advertising Awards, slated to take place in February 2011, could outdo the existing advertising awards in Cannes within three to five years.

Cover Story | JULY-AUGUST 2010

A month off?

In the Middle East, television takes center stage during the Holy Month. And, despite Ramadan falling in summer this year, media buyers insist advertisers can withstand the heat by Rania Habib

O

nce upon a time, in a previous journalistic incarnation, we were chastised by a reader for describing Ramadan as a season for great television.

The reader was irate that we had reduced the Holy Month to hours upon hours of top silver-screen material. But just as Christmas has become known for excessive shopping budgets and profiteering retailers, so has Ramadan become synonymous with television entertainment, big family feasts, and gift-giving – and, therefore, big money for advertisers. Exclusive TV programming brings families together at the break of fast, while FMCGs use outdoor advertising to appeal to hungry shoppers, and magazines advertise luxury products as gift ideas to celebrate Eid. In contrast, summertime in the region is synonymous with quiet, on most fronts. Those who aren’t desert heat-proof escape to cooler climes, events are put on hold until it gets easier to breathe outside, and entertainment is watered down until the arrival of fall.

This year – and for the next seven years or so – Ramadan will fall during the dreaded summer months. Will the Ramadan-entertainment dynamic alter? The industry seems to be saying no, with media buyers predicting that the Ramadan season can withstand the heat. “Nothing will change,” says Amer El Hajj, regional media buying director for

Publicis Groupe Media (PGM) in Dubai. “Ramadan will always be a special season for viewers and for advertisers, and it’s not related to whether budgets are spent during summer or not. All television stations will get new programs, and viewers will definitely be at home watching those series.”

Mazen Hayek, MBC’s official spokesman and group director of PR and commercial, agrees. “Ramadan is a season by itself,” he says. “People’s lifestyles change dramatically, whether it’s during the summer or any other season. Ramadan falling in summer will not change television consumption patterns and habits. Television will continue to be the family member par excellence, and MBC1 is part of the ritual of the month. Just as people associate Ramadan with dates, they associate it with MBC1.”

Cautious. Mazen Fakhoury, managing director of Mindshare MENA in Saudi Arabia, is a little more cautious. “This is the first year when we’re going to test if there are, in fact, changes in consumer dynamics, because Ramadan is falling during summer,” he says. “Last year, Ramadan was not very strong, and advertisers were more or less reserved from a spending point pf view. This year it’s a new dynamic, so it’s a big unknown. Add to that the fact that we will have a sizeable fourth quarter [in

previous years, Ramadan and Eid fell during this period], so will clients keep some of their budget for the fourth quarter because it’s a hefty period? What we’re telling our clients is that they need to test the assumptions that are being made about Ramadan this year, because Ramadan in the summer is here to stay in the medium term. So we should use this now, to track what the changing dynamics are.”

While Fakhoury and El Hajj both say that last year Ramadan advertising budgets dropped an estimated 30 percent from 2008, El Hajj believes there might be a slight increase in spend on last year. “It won’t be huge,” he says. “Some are saying this year will be good, some are saying it will be bad, but we think it’ll pretty much be like last year. There may be a spend increase in some categories, up to 5 or 7 percent, and others might drop by the same amount.”

Typically, FMCGs and telcos are the biggest spenders during Ramadan, and this year will be no different, according to El Hajj. He adds that luxury brands tend to start advertising towards the end of Ramadan, to attract consumers shopping for Eid gifts.

According to Fakhoury, the automotive industry was active during Ramadan when it fell during the fourth quarter, as car dealers would liquidate stock before the coming year’s models were released. “But

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JULY-August 2010 | Cover Story

Big Spenders – by brand

Source: PARC

Markets covered: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, panArab. Figures in thousands of dollars (Ramadan only) Total monitored spend 2007 Zain Mobily Etisalat Maggi Galaxy Jewels Mushtaka Lik Perfume Mobinil Nokia Sodfa Perfume Coca Cola

1,049,432 32,441 18,898 16,430 11,618 10,964 9,321 8,819 8,617 8,297 8,257

Total monitored spend 2008 Zain STC Etisalat Coca Cola Q-Tel Ford Escan Meraas Holding Mohannad & Lamees Perfume Toyota

1,321,325 30,724 19,642 18,811 12,126 10,896 10,189 9,581 9,361 8,947 8,409

Total monitored spend 2009 Zain 57357 Hospital Pepsi Etisalat Mobily STC Mobinil Sedar Ford Coca Cola

1,432,784 42,017 20,240 19,013 18,867 16,439 14,032 13,459 13,343 12,191 11,506

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Preferred choice. Television – and MBC1 in particular – is the preferred choice for advertisers during Ramadan, simply because TV is an important medium in the Arab world.

“Television in the Arab world is what I would describe as the favorite national sport,” says Hayek.

“People love television; it’s like the virtual family member, board member, or cabinet member. If people spend an average of four-and-a-half hours each day watching television during normal times, then in Ramadan this goes up to six or seven hours per day. Ramadan content is linked to the traditions

Monitored pan-Arab TV spend by category

Monitored pan-Arab TV spend by category

Amount in thousands of dollars in 2008

Amount in thousands of dollars in 2009

now Ramadan is in the third quarter, so is it a good time for dealers to do an inventory drawdown? I think FMCGs are going to be the ones spending the most, while telcos will be put off the pedal, simply because the World Cup is coming up, and that will consume quite a lot of their budgets,” he says.

Hayek says that MBC1’s biggest advertisers are telcos, FMCGs, automotive, food, confectionary, carbonated soft drinks, juices, and perfumes, and that Ramadan advertising on MBC1 represents up to a quarter of the channel’s yearly advertising. “One month represents 25 percent of our revenue,” he says. “MBC1’s programming grid is well known and much anticipated by viewers – hence by advertisers too. So most of them come back to us with the same packages. They know the kind of return on investment they get by associating their brand with the top-rated shows on MBC1,” he says.

Telecommunication Real Estate Fragrance Finance Shampoo Banking Exhibition and Events Chocolate Cars Soft Drinks

102,794 91,474 35,090 26,154 25,218 23,478 22,784 22,648 22,558 18,859

Telecommunication Exhibition and Events Cars Chocolate Syndicate Juice Soft drink Banking Fragrance Internet

95,946 43,388 32,932 30,558 26,571 25,110 25,027 22,720 22,019 18,090

Source: IPSOS

Ready for ramadan. MBC’s Mazen Hayek (above), Publicis’ Amer El Hajj (top right), and Unilever’s Mark Butterfield (bottom right)

of the month of Ramadan, which makes television more than ever the omnipresent virtual member of every Arab family.”

Mark Butterfield, former media director for Unilever Middle East and Africa and current media director for Europe and the Americas, says that Unilever brands – save for food and beverages – tend to avoid Ramadan due to “high cost, low cover, and clutter.” “Clutter is massive and makes advertising in any key programs a waste of time,” he says.

And according to El Hajj, Unilever isn’t the only one avoiding Ramadan. “What’s happening is that telcos and FMCGs and whoever really needs Ramadan advertising, are on Ramadan programs.

But those who don’t need Ramadan avoid it; lots of brands don’t have activity during Ramadan because of the clutter,” he says.

El Hajj says that while television remains king during Ramadan, there are opportunities for other mediums to enter the fray. “Ramadan is mainly known for television because of the programming; television stations spend millions on programs,” he says. “However, there might be some opportunities online that target Ramadan programming as well. MBC.net, for example, did that last year.

Some FMCGs might do some activities in print, especially in cooking supplements.”

Hayek says MBC has other revenue streams, but that television advertising remains its overwhelming source of revenue. “Figures of video on demand on MBC.net and of people wanting to watch Ramadan content at their own leisure and pace are growing year-on-year, so we’re pursuing that trend,” he says. “But, commercially, the 30-second spot and on-screen sponsorship remain the main artillery in the arsenal of brand builders.”

Despite what the occasional irate reader might say, Ramadan is undoubtedly a time for television to shine. Summer or not, Ramadan will still be a highly profitable time to advertise, according to industry insiders. Hayek says that some advertisers wonder, “Why invest that much in advertising during Ramadan?” “Television comes under the microscope during Ramadan, and the role of TV becomes greater due to the change of lifestyle,” he says. “From a brand standpoint, it’s an occasion to sell more and energize the consumption activity.

Ramadan has become a season by itself, and that’s why it’s irrelevant which month it falls in.”

JULY-August 2010 | Cover Story

Guest Opinion

Reaching out during Ramadan The heads of two branches of TBWA/Raad Middle East advertising agency tell Communicate what problems advertising faces during the Holy Month Samy Abdel Aziz, chairman and CEO of TBWA Egypt The true values of the Holy Month of Ramadan are often forgotten in the midst of the debate over the advertising that takes place during this period. The sad part of the story is that a lot of these campaigns – the work of expatriate creative geniuses who have been parachuted into the Arab world as part of commando operations to capture a share of a promising sales season – tend to annoy the fasting population rather than appealing to their cultural senses.

Ramadan is the only month during which the whole family comes together. The Muslim world is unified through fasting during the day.

But nighttime brings a different aspect of unity to the table, with the whole family gathering to end the fast and spend endless hours together watching the best drama and variety shows that networks offer during the month.

For advertisers here, Ramadan presents an

24 I Communicate

opportunity to reach the biggest and most diverse number of viewers possible (much like the Super Bowl in the United States), from all segments of society. In Egypt, it is estimated that more money is spent on advertising during the 30 days of the Holy Month (in the four hours after breaking of fast each day), than in the rest of the 335 days of the year.

There is no doubt that Ramadan is a test, not only of the religious beliefs of the Arabs, but also of their ability to withstand an excess of advertising, which is often dominated by clichéd ads featuring crescents and lanterns.

Some advertisers and ad agencies manage to capture the spirit of the month. Rather than superficially focusing on Ramadan symbols and contrived comedy, they concentrate on corporate social responsibility initiatives that help improve their image while trying to help the needy.

For example, Henkel launched a campaign for its dishwashing liquid, Pril, in 2009. The company tried to share Ramadan goodwill with consumers by donating 5 percent of sales during the month to the less fortunate via a well-known charity (The Food Bank). The previous year, Pril had provided 200,000 iftars to the needy, and was successful in increasing these to 500,000 in 2009. By launching this thoughtful Ramadan campaign, Pril managed to increase its sales by 29 percent.

Ghassan Kassabji, managing director of TBWA/Raad Saudi Arabia In Saudi Arabia, as in the rest of the GCC, heavy promotional campaigns take place during Ramadan, supported by a variety of creative executions. Many are conventional, using traditional Ramadan symbols such as lantern, crescent, and night themes in the visual backgrounds. Others embody the spirit of Ramadan, starting from catchy, religiously inspired headlines to actual brand activations involving the whole family.

Brands that are able to truly integrate the meaning of Ramadan in their communications will score the highest with Saudi consumers. Such brands will also get involved in Ramadan activities that benefit charities such as the women-only annual “Bisat el Reeh” event organized by the Saudi Home and Health Care organization. The event attracts more than 5,000 women over a three-day period to a bazaar, with proceeds going to charity.

Advertorial

RMS Outdoor wins advertising concession of Abraj Al Bait Mall in K.S.A. One of the largest and most important events in the world occurs annually in Saudi Arabia. The Hajj and Umrah pilgrimage are celebrated by millions of Muslims around the world, and is the single largest gathering of people.

More than 6 million pilgrims pursue the Hajj and Umrah duties on yearly basis. Over 4.5 million pilgrims are forecasted, by the Saudi Arabia's National Committee for Hajj and Umrah to attend this year's Hajj pilgrimages, which is a 15 percent year-on-year increase in the number of Hajj pilgrims over 2009.

Rotana Media Services Outdoor (RMS Outdoor, operating as HyperMedia in UAE), wins advertising concession of Abraj Al Bait Mall in Saudi Arabia located in Mecca facing the holy mosque.

Abraj Al Bait Mall is a massive shopping mall, which is located at the Abraj Al Bait Towers in Mecca. Abraj Al Bait Towers is one of the most ambitious projects undertaken by the government of Saudi Arabia and is expected to be one of the tallest buildings in the world. The Abraj Al Bait Towers have a total of 76 floors spread over an area of 1,455,000 square meters. The towers are comprised of 6 residential towers, prayer hall for 3,800 people, convention centre for 1,500 people, 2 heliports and 4-story parking facilities and many luxurious five star hotels.

The mall serves more than 12 million pilgrims every year and is an excellent opportunity for brands to reach a high number of consumers when and where it matters the most; at the Point of Purchase. The Abraj Al Bait Mall has become a shopperÕ s paradise and a one-of-a-kind building in the whole world, as well as the largest of its kind in the entire Islamic world. Branding opportunities vary from premium light

boxes, atrium flags, escalator and elevator branding. These vehicles also provide a unique advertising opportunity to capture a diverse demographic from all around the world.

will target a wide consumer base with powerful media.

With these exciting new communication platform now available, RMS Outdoor continues to help you target the RIGHT consumer at the RIGHt time and in the RIGHT place. Advertisers are now also equipped with a comprehensive advertising solution targeting the Hajj and Umrah demographics through the various advertising oppurtunities of the two iconic landmarks that welcome all the Hajj and Umrah visitors to Jeddah and Mecca; the Hajj Terminal, part of King Abdulaziz International airport in Jeddah, which is the terminal dedicated to process all incoming and outgoing Hajj and Umrah passengers through Jeddah, and now the Abraj Al Bait Mall. As a special long term offer for the Ramadan, Umrah and Hajj seasons, RMS Outdoor is offering unique and exclusive branding and promotions which

RMS Outdoor, the Out-Of-Home (OOH) subsidiary of Rotana Media Services, delivers an unrivaled variety of advertising media across the Middle East including outdoor advertising, in-store advertising, mall advertising, and airport advertising.

More about RMS Outdoor

RMS Outdoor manages the advertising of over 125 hypermarkets and supermarkets in the UAE, more than 40 retail outlets in Jordan, Qatar and Oman, Kuwait and Virgin Megastores across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Lebanon, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and Kuwait.

RMS Outdoor is also the exclusive partner for all advertising at Dubai HealthCare City, Emaar Malls Group property, including one of the world's largest malls, The Dubai Mall, as well as all other Emaar communities.

RMS OUTDOOR . OUT OF HOME MEDIA SPECIALIST | UAE . KSA . Qatar . Bahrain . Egypt . Lebanon . Jordan Dubai Media City, Boutique Villas, Villa 14, P.O. Box 502021, Dubai, UAE | Tel: 971 4 390 2293 / 2294 - Fax: 971 4 390 4756

JULY-August 2010 | Cover Story

Guest Opinion

It’s not the Super Bowl Memac Ogilvy’s Tanya Dernaika says brands that ignore spiritual aspects of the Holy Month will lose both customers and credibility Empathize, don’t sympathize. An entire month of fasting might sound like a severe and sober experience for communications experts unfamiliar with this ritual. Muslims, however, do not consider it a hardship, but rather a time for spiritual introspection and festive celebration to which they look forward. The Muslim consumer will welcome all initiatives by brands that support their practices, as witnessed by the strong popularity and customer loyalty enjoyed by the global telecom brands that customize their product offerings and tailor them to suit the needs of their Muslim customers. These brands stand in sharp contrast to brands that got it wrong in the past, through communication that approached the consumer with a sympathetic, and slightly irreverent approach to the ritual of fasting, inadvertently causing offence. Consumers will reject pity and welcome encouragement and support.

I

ndustry experts commonly refer to Ramadan as “prime time.” Apparently, this is because TV viewership in the Middle East reaches an all-time high during this period, reminiscent of the Super Bowl in the United States. I realize this is just an industry term and no offense is intended by it, but my concern is that it is so far removed from the actual spirit of this most holy of months. Brands that intend to approach the Muslim consumer with a “catch them while you can” opportunistic spirit are unlikely to endear themselves, let alone succeed in cementing any meaningful long-term relationship.

Research recently conducted by [Islamic branding practice] Ogilvy Noor, in partnership with TNS, focused on the Muslim consumer’s relationship with brands. The findings revealed that consumers feel closest to brands that play a significant and genuine part in improving their lives. Reaching out involves more than just being

26 I Communicate

Stay creative. What is it about the words “Ramadan communication” that paralyzes the most creative of minds? Ramadan is one of the most emotionally charged, active, culturally rich periods of the year. overflowing with nuance and themes to draw from and get inspired by. Brands that are best able to capture this emotional spirit by expressing it tangibly through communication, as certain beverage brands have succeeded in doing, win hearts and minds in the long term. Unfortunately, the exceptions are few and, year after year, most creative executions are still restricted to variations on the crescent theme. in the right place at the right time, or saying the right words. The consumer’s decision-making is highly influenced by a brand’s behavior, approach and tone, and this susceptibility to actions is, unsurprisingly, greatly enhanced during Ramadan.

Celebration of spirituality. Unlike the half-day Super Bowl experience, which is commonly enjoyed at home with a rowdy group of friends scoffing snacks and guzzling beverages, Ramadan lasts an entire month and calls for a spiritual mindset. It is a time for purity, abstention, tolerance, and restraint.

Ramadan is, therefore, not a good time to expose audiences to brand communication that is loud, boisterous, boastful, challenging, or provocative in any way. All aspects of communication, from the choice of copy to visuals, casting, and media channels need to reflect and enhance a sense of peace with the world.

Get into the spirit. Among the many reasons the Holy Month is cherished is that it is also a time to re-connect with others. Family, friends, and colleagues gather over iftar and open their homes to each other. The poor are top-of-mind, as people actively and generously donate. They take part in charitable deeds. Brands that display a sincere wish to share in this generosity of spirit by reaching out to their communities in an effort to strengthen unity and improve lives will find that gratification comes in many shapes and sizes.

Getting into the spirit of Ramadan promises to be much more rewarding than any over-hyped football game could ever be.

– Tanya Dernaika is strategic planning director at Memac Ogilvy & Mather, and co-author of the 2010 Ogilvy Noor report “Brands, Islam and the New Muslim Consumer.”

© Corbis

JULY-AUGUST 2010 | PHOTOGRAPHY

How to shoot people

National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry tells Communicate – and others – how to produce a presentable portrait by Austyn Allison

S

steve mccurry “I let the camera do all the work”

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teve McCurry, the American photographer famed for his 1984 National Geographic cover image of an Afghan refugee girl (pictured above), came to Dubai recently as one of the speakers in the Bold Talks symposium, and to run a photography workshop the next day. Keen to improve our ability to take iconic images of Pashtun waifs and marketing managers alike, Communicate grabbed the office camera and went along to his class.

Communicate, as represented by its editor, is a shutterbug on holiday, and is seldom far from its point-and-shoot digital camera. We have taken photography courses at university, but those largely involved getting to grips with a dark room, with little guidance on what to do behind the lens. So we were keen to find out how to take portraits as strong and haunting as McCurry’s.

We join a class of around 30 students – possibly a tad too many for the degree of one-on-one coaching we hoped for, but still small enough for most to have their work analysed by McCurry. Many have brought along a selection of their own images, and McCurry starts off the program by critiquing these portfolios.

Communicate’s fellow attendees cover a broad spectrum – from strict amateurs to creatives who dabble to occasional part-timers to fully fledged pros. All want to better themselves, and hope to

pick up some McCurry magic.

Luckily, it turns out that being an ace photographer is pretty simple. In theory, at least.

McCurry explains as much in bits and pieces as he quietly scrolls through the work of the assembled class on a large television screen.

That is the format: McCurry runs through some portfolios, then he shows us some of his own images and explains how they came about, all the while taking questions about lenses, fstops, lighting and post-production. After lunch, and a discussion of other photographers McCurry admires, we are sent out to take pictures of people around Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), the home of the Empty Quarter art gallery hosting the workshop.

SNAPPING POINT. The class mills around snapping one another. When one person finds a good, moodily lit alcove, the other students flock over.

When McCurry shoots one of his disciples, others dive in beside, behind and under the master to see how their cameras can handle the ambiance.

And McCurry takes photos of us (Communicate can now send its mum a Steve McCurry original of her son, albeit slightly blurry as we’ve not set up the Communicamera for the diminished light McCurry poses us in) and we take photos of him.

PHOTOGRAPHY | JULY-AUGUST 2010

Meanwhile, DIFC security guards, long tasked with preventing photography on the premises, hover anxiously but impotently.

After our shooting spree, we return to the gallery to wait, sit around, chat, and wait some more as our images and McCurry’s transfer to a computer for an on-screen post-mortem. Communicate takes notes.

It’s both reassuring (we can do this) and disheartening (how come he can do this and we can’t?) to find that McCurry’s advice on taking portraits is pretty simple. For a start, he no longer uses manual settings. “With digital, I shoot everything on automatic,” he says. “I let the camera do all the work.”

“Seriously,” he adds when the students express surprise, “the camera can determine the right settings much faster than I can, much more accurately than I can.”

Using aperture- or shutter-priority modes gives excellent results, says McCurry, although he will double-check the camera’s histogram, the chart on high-end cameras that shows whether highlights and shadows have been properly exposed. Forsaking the technicalities allows him to focus on focus, which he calls “my main concern – apart from exposure, obviously.” He adds, “What I’m trying to create is shapes, or some kind of composition.” He is unconcerned by depth of field.

Asked what make of camera he prefers (he uses a Nikon and a Hasselblad), McCurry gives the familiar photographers’ reply that it is the person rather than the camera that is important.

And he seldom uses either a flash or a tripod.

“Cameras now can shoot at 10,000 or 15,000 ISO and make just gorgeous pictures, almost in total darkness,” he says.

LIGHT WORK. While he’s running through his class’s collective body of work, McCurry persistently points out three common weaknesses: cropping, backgrounds, and lighting.

“I would be careful about cutting off people’s foreheads,” he says of one student’s closely cropped shots. “It wouldn’t be my first idea to cut off somebody’s head; I think it’s better to keep the whole head.”

Having pointed out numerous trees, stains, shadows and shapes emerging from the heads of students’ subjects, McCurry shows a photograph he shot in Srinagar, Kashmir, of a boat being paddled on a lake. He spent a week and a half sitting at the back of it waiting for “the right feel, the right situation,” when the background was perfect. In general, backgrounds should be as clean and free from distraction as possible. This is one of the reasons that many of McCurry’s portraits are against plain, dark backdrops.

The other reason is that he regularly takes his subjects into darkened doorways. But not in a sinister way – he does it for the light. “It looks like the light was a bit bright,” McCurry tells one student. To another, he says, “This probably isn’t the best time to shoot.” He says another shot is “too bright.” It’s a common complaint.

crack shot. Steve McCurry’s work has taken him all around the world Photographers like mornings and evenings, and McCurry is no exception. In the middle of the day, he tends to move his subjects to more suitable locations inside alcoves, tents and other shelters, where light stops being vertical sunshine, coming from above and casting harsh shadows under the eyes of subjects, instead hitting them horizontally and evenly.

DARK SECRETS. “From about 9am to 3pm I’m in these dark corners, these dark situations, and after 4pm I’ll go back outside again,” says McCurry. “My day starts at dawn; I’m out on the street till 8.30am or so. Then I take a break, go and work inside, take another break for lunch and then go and work inside again until 3pm or 4pm, then go outside again, at maybe 5pm when the light’s soft.”

He goes so far as to say, “My location is determined by the light; all things being equal, I’m looking to find good light situations and then, inside of that, find my subject.”

The Afghan Girl was shot using a 105mm portrait lens. Members of the workshop ask McCurry what lens he prefers to use for people shots. His answer is typically non-technical: “I just use a 28-to-70mm,” he says. “I’ve stopped using the 105mm and so on; I’m very lazy.”

He’ll even use such a standard zoom lens for major commissions. “I did a job a couple of years ago,” he says. “It was a major job for a major client, and I took every picture with that lens. The assignment was worth a quarter of a million dollars.”

Many photographs can benefit from some work in the digital darkroom, says McCurry

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DIGITAL

Magazines on iPad: worth it?

Publishing houses are offering their titles on the tablet – and charging a premium for it by Nat Ives

M

agazines were poised to start offering subscriptions to their iPad editions early last month, when US publisher Bonnier planned to introduce subscription sales for the iPad iteration of Popular Science. IPad editions and subscription offers for Bonnier siblings Popular Photography and Sound & Vision were to arrive later in June, followed by TransWorld Skateboarding and Islands in August.

But consumers who think iPad editions should cost no more than print editions and perhaps should cost less – given all the money publishers save on paper, printing, and distribution – are going to be disappointed. IPad subscriptions to Popular Science, Popular Photography and Sound & Vision will cost at least twice as much as they do in print.

A year’s worth of Popular Science in print, for example, costs you $12 if you order through the magazine’s website, and $10 if you find it on Amazon. A year on the iPad, however, will cost you $29.95 – that’s 83 cents a print issue through Amazon, but $2.50 an iPad issue.

Bonnier’s subscriptions and pricing strategy will have company fairly shortly. Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore says that Time magazine iPad subscriptions are “coming soon.” And she didn’t sound any more interested in discount pricing than Bonnier.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear customers will pay for trusted, quality content,” she

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said in remarks at a Time Warner investors day last month.

Maxim magazine’s iPhone app set the tone in February, when it arrived at the App Store offering subscriptions priced higher than print subscriptions (although Maxim later dropped the subscription offer “following an Apple directive,” a spokeswoman says). “The question is what the app subscription costs against buying the app 12 times,” Maxim editor-in-chief Joe Levy says.

Readers won’t see it that way, but they’ll need to adjust their expectations, says Andrew Degenholtz, president at ValueMags, a magazinesubscription marketer.

“They’re thinking, ‘We’re not knocking down any trees, there’s no ink being used, and there’s no truck being used to deliver it,’” he says. “But there are significant editorial costs, creative costs, and research-and-development and production costs. It’s understandable that magazine publishers are going to charge a higher price for the subscription early. You can always lower the price, but you can’t raise the price at a later date.”

Reader relationships. Adding subscription sales is important to magazines’ bid to sell digital versions on iPads and eventually other tablets, because they make the proposition easier and cheaper for readers. Subscriptions also offer a

way for magazines to establish relationships with their iPad consumers, relationships that Apple hogs as long as iTunes is the only login required.

Bonnier’s iPad editions will sell subscriptions as in-app purchases, requiring customers to create accounts with their names and e-mail addresses.

Publishers might be offering more aggressive iPad subscription discounts if it weren’t for factors like the recent recession, says Terry Snow, CEO of Bonnier.

“If this were 2005, you might find everyone a little more aggressive on single-copy prices and subscription prices,” he says. “It’s like, ‘Let’s be careful on our new venture not to price ourselves too low to have a business model.’”

Print subscriptions are only so cheap, as a matter of fact, because advertising has provided the bulk of most magazines’ profits for so long.

Magazines attracted readers with dirt-cheap subscriptions and used the resulting audiences to pull the real money out of advertisers. The ad implosion made everyone wish their subscribers were paying more, but it was too late to hike prices without losing readers.

Bonnier is also encouraged by single-copy sales on the iPad, where it says it sold 22,000 copies across the April, May, and June issues.

And publishers couldn’t chase huge audiences yet if they wanted to. “If Apple does really well this year and they sell 7 million to 10 million iPads, it’s still a relatively small market in the

DIGITAL | JULY-AUGUST 2010

United States,” Snow says. “It’s going to be difficult in the near term to get million-plus circulations [for] any paid publication.”

Real pricing pressure will come when more people own tablet computers, and especially as cheaper models attract consumers with more modest means than today’s early adopters.

Zinio already offers subscriptions to the digital editions that consumers can view on its iPad app, priced more like print: 12 issues of Esquire’s Zinio edition cost $8, the same as a one-year print subscription ordered through Esquire’s website. But as more publishers build their own iPad editions, more are going to offer iPad subscriptions directly.

Rodale expects to offer iPad subscriptions by late this summer or early this fall, according to a spokeswoman. Condé Nast, which introduced a Wired iPad app last month, is considering a variety of pricing and distribution options, a spokeswoman says.

Three early adopters take us through the process of turning a print product digital.

Popular Science

1. Bonnier calls its platform for iPad editions Mag Plus.

Popular Science art and editorial staff work with a dedicated Mag Plus production staff to transform each print edition into an iPad edition, the first step of which is moving each page of editorial content, which starts out formatted as an Adobe InDesign file, into a Mag Plus InDesign template.

2. Once the Mag Plus InDesign files are in the template, they are imported into an authoring tool – essentially a program for viewing, editing, and enhancing the content – using a file format Bonnier calls MIB, for Mag Plus Issue Bundle. Designers put thought and work into designing beautiful layouts for the iPad format, adding extra photos or other elements as appropriate. Editorial screens in Popular Science Plus on the iPad include the same elements as the print pages they came from, but are not laid out the same way.

“The thing I think is really unique about Mag Plus is that we really emphasize design,” says Mike Haney, deputy director of research and development at Bonnier. “We think it’s really important that the magazine be not just a replica of what’s in print, but be optimized for the screen size, the interaction, the architecture.”

Bonnier’s Mag Plus platform gives editors and readers two layers to play with: One for images and the other for text. In Popular Science Plus, for example, a semitransparent layer of text overlays images and photos.

As readers scroll through the layer of text, the underlying image might change to reflect

points in that text. Those kinds of transitions are added in the authoring tool.

3. Popular Science includes a few ads from the print edition, which are imported like edit pages and often tweaked slightly, plus unique Mag Plus edition ads that scroll or take advantage of the layered layout.

4. As each page is completed, a button in the authoring tool sends it to a reviewer app that Bonnier runs on its iPads to simulate the consumer experience. Digital producers make any tweaks in the authoring tool.

5. Once everyone is happy with the entire issue, the publish button sends it to Apple for approval and then the App Store.

The process takes a couple days of a designer’s time and a couple days of a digital producer’s time, but Bonnier expects it to become more efficient over time as the design becomes more refined and staff become more familiar with the process.

Men’s Health 1. Men’s Health converts content from print to iPad by using the PDFs of the print pages, once they’re through production. It compresses the PDFs to the smallest file size it can – without losing image clarity – so they load faster.

2. Staff uploads the PDFs en masse to an “admin” tool that renders them as iPad screens.

(Ad pages are uploaded separately and slipped into their proper slots among edit pages.) The admin tool was built for Rodale’s entire portfolio; while that helps it get all of its titles on the iPad more quickly, it doesn’t have features customized to Men’s Health. Women’s Health already has an iPad edition and Prevention is coming next, followed by Runner’s World, Organic Gardening, and Bicycling.

3. The magazine’s staff works in the admin to layer on digital extras and add the little blue crosses that tell readers where they can touch pages to bring up web links, answer poll questions, post to Twitter or Facebook, e-mail an article, see more photos, or watch video.

4. Where Time magazine reformats its content to display on an iPad screen, Men’s Health runs replicas of every print page. If readers find a particular element tough to read on the iPad screen, they can spread two fingers apart or double tap to make the element bigger, or they can use the app’s “article view,” which displays items as plain text.

But the team still needs to format the text to display in the article view mode. “We have to take a text rip of the issue and reformat all that text so that the word breaks are pretty and we like the fonts,” says Matt Bean, brand editor at Men’s Health.

5. Time for the final review. If it looks good, the iPad edition of the new issue goes to Apple for approval, then becomes available to purchase within the Men’s Health app. When people buy the new issue, they automatically download

Communicate I 33

JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DIGITAL

the main magazine file and advertiser video; other video starts streaming on demand when users touch the screen to play it.

The whole process takes two or three people one to two days. “The beauty of it is it’s a relatively low-bandwidth process that allows us to free up editors and staffers to build the brand in other ways,” Bean says.

Time

1. The print magazine ships in stages during the week, and during that process the Time team uses software from the Dutch company WoodWing to pour the editorial contents into an iPad template that the mag’s design team built at the outset.

2. Designers check the iPad pages to see how things fit, which articles have turned into too many screens of uninterrupted text, and so on. Because Time’s iPad version uses bigger fonts and images than the print version does, and the iPad screen is smaller than a standard magazine page, each page of print editorial turns into roughly two-and-a-half iPad screens.

Designers will break up too many screens of text with new photos or illustrations.

3. As the magazine closes each Wednesday, about six designers stay late to work on the iPad edition, again checking on layout but adding elements such as slideshows and videos.

They rotate the weekly duties of writing extra captions and copy for the horizontal-view table of contents and cutting or adding any copy as necessary to make it fit.

4. At around 10.30 a.m. on Thursdays, editorial and design staffers gather around “The

34 I Communicate

Wall,” where the whole iPad issue is laid out on paper, for a last look. The designers then take the next two hours or so finishing off the issue. “Pre-iPad, Thursday was really a clean-your-desk day, a day when everyone at Time got to tee up next week’s work,” says Josh Quittner, editor-at-large at Time Inc., where his primary role has become helping the company’s magazines create iPad editions.

“Not so anymore. The half-dozen designers all come in early and will work from about 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. getting the iPad edition out the door.”

5. The imaging department inserts the iPad edition’s special ads – it doesn’t include the print edition’s ads – and handles other assorted duties. Text for the vertical view, for example, gets restyled in Apple system fonts so users can resize the type.

6. The whole issue is copyedited and put in an iPad simulator for a general run-through by design and production people, who make sure everything works.

7. A computer compiles the files into an iPad issue in a process that takes 10 minutes.

Tech staff compress the file, strip out video, and put the video on Brightcove servers to play on readers’ command. Time doesn’t download video with the issue itself the way Wired ’s new app does, because Time wants to keep the file size small, but that means readers must have a signal to stream video later.

8. The file must go to Apple by 3 p.m. Eastern Time, the equivalent deadline of sending it to the printer, Quittner says – after which Apple vets it and makes it available for download by midnight at the latest, beating the print edition’s arrival on newsstands.

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DIGITAL

Choose your own ad

New innovation is intended to boost web advertising by allowing people to pick which spots they want to see by Michael Learmonth

I

t’s a seemingly simple innovation that could juice the online-video advertising industry by $100 million and help restore the economics of quality content creation: Let viewers pick their own ads.

Publicis unit Vivaki and publishers such as Hulu, Yahoo, and CBS believe a new format, the “Ad Selector,” will change the economics of online video, justifying higher rates for advertisers and more engagement for consumers.

Vivaki says there’s a $100 million market for the new format this year, partly from its own clients, which include General Motors, Procter & Gamble, and General Mills, and partly from other agencies.

That would move the needle for online video, which was a $1.1 billion market in 2009, according to research firm eMarketer.

But Vivaki sees the format as a potential solution to an increasingly vexing problem: As high-value content, such as TV and movies, moves online, it earns fewer ad dollars and weakens the largely offline ecosystem that financed the content in the first place.

“The ad formats we are using are not properly monetizing the value of the content,” says Tracey Scheppach, senior vice-president of innovations at Vivaki.

“We know that as content becomes more digitized, the ad formats have to work harder so the ads continue to provide value.”

38 I Communicate

Choice. Ad Selector seems ideally suited to attack the problem. Advertisers will only pay when their ad is selected; publishers will get a much higher ad rate than a typical pre-roll; and consumers, of course, will at the outset of the video get to choose an ad from a category that interests them, rather than being force fed whatever is cued up.

The concept was chosen as part of a yearlong project Vivaki calls “The Pool,” as the format with the best potential to be embraced by publishers and brands. The format itself was invented by Hulu, but it had not been widely adopted because few advertisers had taken part.

To lure other publishers and agencies to embrace the concept, Vivaki figured it needed to build an ad server capable of placing those ads on major sites across the Web. It toyed with the idea of creating a new joint venture with tech providers, but instead it created a co-op with four start-ups: Panache, BBE’s Vindico ad server, Visible Measures, and Tidal TV. Panache will provide publisher-side integration, Vindico, the ad serving, Visible Measures, the measurement and verification, and Tidal TV, ad targeting.

Each of the co-op members will get an equal share of an ad-serving fee, about 5 percent of the media buy. If, for example, an ad is sold at a $25 cost-per-thousand, the partners would split $1.50. (Vivaki doesn’t get any money for selling clients into it, outside the normal agency fees

it makes from handling clients’ media buys.)

The revenue will support operations and also, more importantly, help establish the start-ups involved in the video marketplace.

All the publishers that participated in Vivaki’s Pool research – Yahoo, Hulu, Discovery, BBE, Microsoft, CBS, and AOL – have agreed to take the ads. Notably absent is YouTube, which doesn’t have much long-form content, but also does not yet permit third-party ad serving.

CooperatioN. Initially, the start-ups involved were wary of working together since some of them considered themselves competitors. Scheppach summoned all four chief executives to Chicago and met with them individually before putting them in a room together.

“I think all of us, the CEOs, were entering that meeting with some trepidation,” says Visible Measures’ Brian Shin. “To her [Scheppach’s] credit she was able to get everyone on the same page and working toward the same goal.”

The biggest question now is whether other agencies will adopt the format. Initially, Scheppach considered keeping Vivaki’s involvement more discrete, so other agencies wouldn’t view it as a Publicis-led project. “WPP could say they’re not going to use it because it’s from Vivaki, but I think that’s the wrong answer,” she says.

“We got it started, but we’re not leading it.”

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DIGITAL

New Twitter rules hit ad networks Clampdown hits startups and sponsored tweets but users may still sell their own posts

by Rupal Parekh and Edmund Lee

T

witter put its foot down in late May with new rules that substantially curtailed third-party networks placing ads in the service.

“We will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API,” chief operating officer Dick Costolo said in a blog post.

The move, intended to preserve the integrity of the Twitter timeline, sharply curtailed the activities of a number of Twitter ad startups, including Ad.ly, Sponsored Tweets, 140 Proof, and Magpie, while giving more prominence to Twitter’s own ads, called “Promoted Tweets.”

Promoted Tweets, Twitter’s version of a search ad, appear at the top of a user’s timeline based on “resonance,” a metric that includes the number of clicks on an included link or the number of times the tweet has been passed around. Twitter shares revenue with the applications that distribute the ads.

Promoted Tweets is now the only sanctioned ad within the Twitter timeline, but the new rules do not ban Twitter users themselves from taking ad dollars in exchange for posts, such as US socialite Kim Kardashian (also an Ad.ly client), who can charge $10,000 to tweet messages to her followers.

40 I Communicate

As part of the new rules, Twitter has clarified that its users own their tweets and are free to do or say what they want with them, including selling them to advertisers.

New boundaries. The new rules still allow third parties to place ads around Twitter feeds in other applications or next to Twitter search results, but they cannot resemble actual tweets, and there must be clear separation between the timeline and the ads.

The rules also didn’t appear to affect those selling ads against Twitter search results, which is the model for TweetUp, a startup founded by search pioneer Bill Gross, and search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, which also index Twitter’s real-time results. If Twitter content is the basis of the sale, Twitter requires that you share revenue or license the content for commercial use.

Since Twitter was founded in 2006, a vibrant community of startups has grown up around it, including applications such as TweetDeck and HootSuite that allow users to access the service and businesses to manage Twitter accounts.

While Twitter was building its service, a number

of startups started monetizing Twitter. One of the largest and most prominent Twitter ad networks, Ad.ly, has signed up more than 70,000 Twitter users, hoping to convert their tweet streams into ad revenue, and it just raised a $5 million first round of venture funding.

An Ad.ly executive said the company was still trying to assess the impact of Twitter’s new policy on its business, and had called an all-company meeting to assess options.

A Twitter spokeswoman said no startup tapping into Twitter should be surprised by any of the changes. “We don’t seek to control what users tweet, and users own their tweets. We aren’t going to speculate on the impact this will have,” the company said in a statement.

Costolo casts the switch as an attempt to preserve the integrity of Twitter itself, which he believed would be threatened by third parties serving ads into Twitter streams.

He says Twitter itself is responsible for preserving the “enduring value” of the service, and that “third-party ad networks are not necessarily looking to preserve the unique user experience Twitter has created.”

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DIGITAL

David versus Goliath on location

As Facebook tries to ramp up its own entry into geolocation, brands show no signs of abandoning Foursquare, Gowalla and the gang by Kunur Patel

T

hose who call Facebook’s new location feature a “Foursquare killer” might not want to speak so soon. Instead, a check in with advertisers reveals the brands that have embraced the space are sticking with location-based apps that made check-ins chic in the first place.

At least three brands – Ford Motor, General Motors, and PepsiCo – all maintain they are no less likely to consider them for location programs, despite existing and “significant” relationships with Facebook.

“I don’t think there’s anyone ‘more attractive;’ we’re not looking at it that way,” says Bonin Bough, PepsiCo’s global director of digital and social media.

Facebook has the size advantage, at 450 million users to Foursquare’s 1.2 million and Gowalla’s 250,000. But these existing players have an attraction due to their lean influencer communities, game play and standing experience with brands – not to mention their first-mover advantage that might give the little guys a chance against social networking’s 800-pound gorilla.

Moreover, Facebook’s privacy problem could be a stumbling block for some like Ford. “People will first have to take a hard look at Facebook’s approach to privacy, which may make this new geo-location irrelevant,” says Scott Monty, Ford Motor Co.’s global digital and multimedia communications manager.

“It’s not exactly the right time for Facebook to ask users to share any more data on their network,” says Augie Ray, social-computing analyst at Forrester.

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Three groups. To date, location-based startups fall into three loose buckets: Social apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Buzzd that are tied to discovering restaurants, bars, and other meeting places; gaming apps such as MyTown; and shopping apps such as Shopkick and Loopt that will release mobile check-in programs for retailers in coming weeks. Even Twitter and Google Latitude have launched geo-tagged tweets and a location-based social network, respectively.

Marketers are salivating over location-based mobile apps, thanks to their potential to connect brands with offline sales. Mostly recently, Brightkite teamed up with Starbucks; Gowalla with National Geographic; and, thanks to the buzz generated by companies like Foursquare, Facebook was able to sign a global big spender, McDonald’s, to a program before the feature even went live. Recently, it inked a deal with NBC’s Today Show, giving it exposure beyond its early-adopter base. Users who check in at Rockefeller Plaza in New York or the US-based show’s Toyota Concert Series will receive rewards like custom badges.

Facebook’s plans for location are not yet clear, but the new feature does appear to include geotagged status messages and an application programming interface where developers – including the location-based apps – can build geo-services on top of its platform.

TechCrunch reports the service will be called “Places,” although Facebook would not confirm or provide further detail. For Bough, the Foursquare experience is enough to keep Pepsi with the startup, for now. “They are the early pioneers and they have

a unique knowledge base that is not going to be replicated by new entrants, at least not anytime soon,” he says. Plus, with Pepsi’s massive scale and global distribution, the platform’s size is less of an issue. “We can help these platforms scale,” he says. “If the content is good enough, we can help make it big. Location is so new; we need nothing but smart folks working with us.”

Then there are the users. Though the startups’ millions-strong audience can’t stack up to Facebook’s users, they are a desirable demographic. “If you are a brand that hasn’t been considered leading edge or hip, it’s a great way to become relevant to an extremely attractive audience,” says Christopher Barger, General Motors Co.’s director of social media, who tested the automaker’s first mobile social program with Gowalla in March.

Where it counts. But some remain skeptical about how these programs – beyond their PR value – will affect a marketer’s bottom line.

“We have to prove we can be more than cool and sexy; we have to prove we can move product on the same scale as Google or traditional media,” says Justin Siegel, chief executive and cofounder of the mobile social network MocoSpace.

“For truly mass-market products like McDonald’s, I don’t think there’s any question of which platform you should advertise on,” says Gabe Zichermann, chief executive of mobile social startup BeamMe and author of Game-based Marketing. “If you’re looking for an influencer crowd, Foursquare is still an attractive platform.”

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | ADVERTISING

On-the-fly ads blossoming

Social-media and willingness by marketers and agencies to make quick changes boost adland’s real-time approach By Jack Neff

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joan lewis P&G senior vice-president

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ime was that marketers, particularly packagegoods marketers, were known for their deliberate pace. Media plans and ads were created months in advance, and mid-course changes took months.

But in a growing number of cases even the biggest marketers in the world, such as Procter & Gamble Co. and Unilever, are adjusting creative and media plans on the fly within days, weeks or even hours based on changing events or the shifting tides of social-media feedback.

Rapid-fire changes may still be more exception than rule for big campaigns, but they’re fast becoming routine in a marketing culture increasingly driven by real-time data dashboards. Consider Scotts Miracle-Gro making weather-triggered ads the centerpieces of its marketing plans in the US; Visa running ads in the last winter Olympics featuring medal winners within minutes of their victories; and P&G creating new Olympic ads based in part on social-media feedback from old ones.

A growing abundance of social-media commentary that can drive decisions, better analytics tools, and a greater willingness and capability by media companies, marketers and agencies to execute rapid-fire changes are all playing a role.

Based on what P&G was seeing in feedback from ads in its February Olympics sponsorship, it began changing weights for individual spots it had created throughout the games. And based on social-media feedback about Olympic ads, which included strongly positive feedback for Visa’s ads from TBWA/Chiat/Day telling the stories of winning US athletes, P&G had Wieden

& Kennedy create a new ad for its multibrand Olympic sponsorship.

Quick decisions. The ad, which showed a montage of moms of Olympic athletes as their kids won medals, is a favorite of Joan Lewis, senior vice-president of consumer and market knowledge at P&G. She credits the company’s move to create a single brand-building organization that encompasses all marketing functions, including research, PR, and brand marketers, for helping make quick development of the ad during the Olympics possible.

Running a national ad without consumer pretesting is still a rarity for P&G, and the company isn’t about to throw all caution to the wind – while some elements of the Olympic program weren’t pretested, “That doesn’t mean [pre-testing] wouldn’t have made it better,” Lewis says. But she says such on-the-fly changes are also a model for what P&G wants to do more of in the future. The technology part can be as simple as seeing how consumers react to spots in social media. “Within 15 minutes of an ad being on air, I can find out whether I’m getting positive or negative chats,” says Keith Weed, chief marketing officer of Unilever.

In Germany, for example, the company recently ran two Axe deodorant ads in the same campaign, and based on a “dramatically different” response, he says, “it was incredibly easy to just stop running one and put all the media on the other. Now that’s better than any pre-testing or post-tracking you can get.”

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | PUBLIC RELATIONS

Hard to say you’re sorry?

The right way to make your social-media mea culpa by Rupal Parekh and Edmund Lee

W

hen eight-year-old Harry Winsor sent his crayon drawing of a plane to Boeing, the company responded with a stern, legal-form letter, complete with a “We regret to inform you that we have disposed of your message and retained no copies.”

The gaffe probably would have gone unnoticed were it not for the fact that Harry’s father – John Winsor, a prominent ad executive – blogged about the incident, making for a potentially disastrous PR situation. But what started as an embarrassing blunder by Boeing was soon overshadowed by the company’s swift recovery.

In no time, the brand reached out and took responsibility for its mistake. It called young Harry and invited him to visit Boeing’s facilities. On its corporate Twitter site, it wrote, “This is on-the-job social-media training for us” and “We’re expert at airplanes but novices in social media. We’re learning as we go.”

Here are a few pointers to effectively apologize to your customers and turn a potential headache into a winning display of customer service, served up social-media style.

One is many.

When it comes to social media, all people – whether it’s one, a few or the masses – are empowered. A couple of years ago, Target tried to ignore a blogger complaining about an ad campaign that showed a woman laying across a giant Target logo with the bull’s-eye pointed at her crotch. The blogger’s letter to the retailer was

48 I Communicate

met with this response from PR: “Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets.”

This set off a social-media storm larger than any the initial controversial ad could have sparked. Lesson? Every customer can influence your brand’s reputation.

Lose the corporate-speak.

When reaching out to the offended masses on Twitter and Facebook, try not to sound robotic.

“Advertising gave brands a voice, but social media gave brands a personality,” says Mike Germano, president and creative director of new-media marketing agency Carrot Creative. “So crafting the tone of the message is very important.”

Engage immediately.

If you don’t have an answer right away, say so, but never stay silent. Amazon learned this lesson a year ago when suddenly, during the second weekend in April, a number of gay- and lesbian-themed books by famous authors such as James Baldwin and Gore Vidal disappeared from Amazon listings and search results. It was the weekend, and it took Amazon until Sunday night to respond. Its silence, meanwhile, spawned the Twitter topic “amazonfail.”

As Internet strategist B.L. Ochman put it at the time, “The episode proved that even a well-liked, household-name company can pay a high price for not monitoring its brand in social media.”

Put a face on it.

When dealing with a complaint, one surefire way to avoid the jargon is to put a face on it. “We advise our clients that when they’re responding on a place like Twitter, instead of using the corporate account with the company logo, have someone from customer service reply with their actual face on there,” says Jonathan Bellinger, vice-president of social media strategy at Ketchum. “It makes the response more heartfelt and sincere.”

Take responsibility.

Once Amazon finally did respond, it made a second gaffe by calling the issue a “glitch,” and not explaining it further. For many, that was interpreted as the brand not taking responsibility. If you don’t know, say so – and that you’re working to find out.

Let the fans talk.

Evangelizing a brand’s customer base is a natural extension of the dynamics that drive social sites, and in some cases can be an effective tool in dealing with complaints.

“Harley Davidson is really good at that,” says Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst at eMarketer. “For [their customers] it’s like a religion, and they go to events where they meet the executives and tell personal stories. And they’re given information about the company’s plans, which makes them feel like they’re special.”

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DIGITAL

URL shorteners in high demand

For some, business model relies on analytics services and custom tools for brands by Beth Snyder Bulik

T

hanks to Twitter, there has been a proliferation of URL shorteners in the past year. These condensing services, such as tinyurl, bit.ly and ow.ly, convert long website addresses to a short set of letters and numbers to help users squeeze under the 140-character limit.

That’s all well and good for the tweeters who use them. But what’s the business model for the companies?

Many URL shorteners are privately held and backed by venture capitalists, and they seem to have another thing in common: Few, if any, look to be generating a lot of revenue.

Some make money by collecting fees for expanded services and features, others collect ad dollars with placements on their websites, and still others collect and sell data analytics to marketers.

“Marketing folks love click stats, and tiny URLs create them in an elegant model,” says James Governor, an analyst with RedMonk. “Instead of measuring how many people came to your site, you’re measuring how many you sent to other Web properties.”

For the giants, generating revenue may be beside the point. Last year Google and Facebook launched goo.gl and fb.me, respectively, and Twitter plans to do the same. For them, a URL-shortening service is a relatively inexpensive feature that keeps users tied more firmly to the brand and gives the company access to data about what their users are reading and viewing and where they go online.

Useful data. URL shorteners “give them even more data and makes them even smarter repositories of consumer information,” says Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise. “It’s useful for Google’s search algorithm, and as Twitter and Facebook get more into paid services, it gives them even more data. [Those are] powerful analytics and data for marketers.”

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Providing, of course, they know what do with all that data. Bit.ly, the biggest and most wellknown independent URL shortener, has some ideas on that. Bit.ly Pro, launched in December, offers a free “dashboard” with analytics including total number of clicks, frequency of clicks and where they’re coming from. But it also sells an enterprise version for $995 per month with more extensive analytics and features including custom domain names for marketers such as nyt. ms for The New York Times and a real-time feed of click data.

Privately held, bit.ly is part of Betaworks, which also owns TweetDeck and Twitterfeed and counts Intel Capital, RRE Ventures, and SoftBank as investors. Andrew Cohen, general manager of bit.ly, says it tracked more than 4.2 billion clicks on bit.ly links in May. He believes one of the values of URL shorteners is that they address some of publishers’ problems with social media. “Twitter and Facebook drive real traffic and real revenue. But what happens to your content once it leaves your site?

“Is your branding getting left behind?” he asks. “These are the kind of issues we’re trying to address with our enterprise package. Take any New York Times article or any Amazon product page, for instance, and try to shorten it. Instead of a bit.ly link, you’ll get back a branded link that tells you where you’re going, like nyti.ms or amzn.to.”

Hitwise tracks 38 URL-condensing services right now, says Dougherty, adding new ones as they pop onto the social-media scene. There are dozens of choices, and many of them rise and fall at a volatile rate.

Numbers game. In the first week of June, for instance, bit.ly accounted for 31 percent of all visits to the category, according to Hitwise data,

followed by sup.er, tinyurl and ow.ly. However, for the five weeks before that, ow.ly dominated the category with 62 percent of the category traffic visiting that site. A new pop just last week was is.good, which grabbed a 9 percent traffic share for a 252 percent increase in its year-over-year traffic, Dougherty says.

“The traffic seems to depend mostly on what the topic is and what service they’re using. Say Justin Bieber fans and American Idol fans were all using ow.ly in May – that would make it pop,” she says, adding, “If someone with a lot of followers changes URL shorteners or a major news outlet switches, it would have a huge impact.”

Ryan Holmes, CEO of venture-funded HootSuite, which owns ow.ly, believes a shakeout is coming. “Groups that have revenue and a business model will be left standing [ourselves and bit.ly],” he says in an e-mail. Ow.ly is planning to introduce a suite of enterprise paid services and an ow.ly pro service that “will allow users to bring their own vanity URLs,” he says. Hootsuite recently got a $1.9 million cash infusion from Interactive Media, Blumberg Capital, and prominent angel investors Social Concepts and Geoff Entress.

But smaller competitors believe they can carve a niche in the business. Ted Shroyer, co-founder of tinyarro.ws owner Miracle Labs, says factors such as low operating costs, a unique positioning (it offers signs such as hearts and arrows as part of the shrunken URL) and international potential play in his favor. “I think it’s a long-tail phenomenon where people will find the URL shrinker they like and the tools they like and go with that one. I think there’s plenty of room for lots of competition,” he says. His company makes money charging yearly fees for custom-domain shrinking that helps marketers track specific campaigns and promotions.

JULY-AUGUST 2010 | ADVERTISING

“So Good” so far

KFC seeks to leverage its scale as it unveils its first global tagline by

I

t’s time to unthink KFC – again. At the end of May, the fast food chain rolled out its first global tagline, “So Good,” marking the company’s fifth change in ad direction in almost as many years.

But this time, KFC plans to stick to its strategy. “We’ve been very impatient,” says Javier Benito, KFC’s executive vice-president of marketing and food innovation.

“When you look at brands that have been with the same taglines for many years, they do well because they’re consistent.” He cites Nike and Coca-Cola as standouts.

KFC is struggling in the US, but growing in Asia. The company believes one global message will leverage its scale, and the tagline itself works with a wide variety of products.

Waffling from fried to grilled and back has fostered confusion for KFC consumers. For example, most don’t know the chain sells sandwiches, which is where much of the growth is.

Compare that to rival Chick-fil-A, which has grown market share in part because of close association with its flagship fried-chicken

52 I Communicate

sandwich. But that’s just one of the problems facing the brand. Benito says KFC needed a perception of balance on the menu and a value platform, which was introduced earlier this year and now comprises at least 8 percent of sales.

Enter “Unthink.”

“It has been a great advertising campaign for us to break from the past, but we felt it was a little narrow in that [it was] very closely linked to the product news,” Benito says.

When KFC introduced grilled chicken to its largely fried menu, television campaign firm DraftFCB Chicago asked consumers to “unthink” the brand.

KFC’s same-store sales fell 4 percent in the US during 2009. According to Technomic, a food industry consulting and research firm, market share also declined 1.7 points to 30 percent, although the brand comfortably retained its market-leader status.

According to Kantar Media, KFC spent $235 million during 2009, down from $255 million in 2008.

Emily Bryson York

Right focus. Technomic president Ron Paul says that KFC can rebound, but to do so, “they’ve got to find the right focus.” “Obviously, going to grilled didn’t seem to work very well, so they’re going to have to try some other new products.”

Benito says the tagline was the result of the combined efforts of Ogilvy, Sydney; Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London; and DraftFCB, Chicago. The tagline emerged in focus groups, when lapsed customers tasted the product and said: “It’s so good.”

But in addition to tapping nostalgia, the tagline also provides an umbrella that works for promoting grilled chicken, crispy fried strips, or a value meal.

The chain is, moreover, shifting its focus from a “demographic to a psychographic,” Benito says.

Eating a bucket of chicken has always been a group activity, he says, so now KFC is reaching out to “socially connected people who are trans-generational.”

That means a teen on Facebook or her mother who reads blogs.

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DIGITAL

Sense and sensibility

Zynga and Facebook tie the knot in a move that ensures the creator of Farmville stays inside the social network’s ecosystem by Irina Slutsky

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f social-gaming company Zynga had a Facebook profile, here is what the game company’s recent status updates might look like: Zynga is in an open relationship.

Zynga is single.

Zynga is in a relationship. With Facebook.

For the next five years.

The two officially tied the knot in May in a pact that keeps Zynga’s popular games such as Farmville and Treasure Isle (pictured, above) on Facebook and quells rumors that the gaming company will split from the social network to compete with Facebook for users and their time.

The deal also means Zynga will have to share revenue with Facebook, expanding the use of its payment system (Facebook Credits) in which the social network gets up to 30 percent of each transaction.

But why share? After all, Zynga is growing almost as fast as Facebook. According to AppData.com, Zynga has 240 million users, and analysts estimate its 2010 revenue from advertising and virtual payments could reach $1 billion, potentially matching Facebook’s.

“They need each other, but Zynga needs Facebook more,” says Steve Carpenter, a financial researcher who mined the AppData site and published a report about Zynga. “Right now, 90 percent of Zynga play happens on the Facebook network.

Zynga’s $100 million-per-year ad spending is about 20 percent of Facebook’s annual advertising rev-

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enue. If Zynga were not there anymore, Facebook would still have a very sustainable business. The converse is not true.”

Do the math. Nielsen data supports Carpenter’s math. According to April 2010 numbers, 122.3 million unique US visitors played Zynga inside of Facebook, and only 18.5 million visited Zynga’s website. Indeed, Facebook owns the house – or platform – where Zynga has lived and grown astronomically for the past 19 months. While some reports had Facebook and Zynga on the verge of war, reality seemed closer to a prenuptial arrangement between a couple already living together and sharing housing expenses.

Facebook just wanted some rent.

The rent will come from a cut of all virtual transactions made by Zynga gamers. Its gamers bring in an estimated $50 million a month, and the games add up to a hefty third of all active applications on Facebook in terms of audience. No other company comes close to having e-commerce numbers like Zynga’s, so a percentage of that haul equals a lot of cash for Facebook.

The two companies didn’t detail the revenue split in the deal – the first of its kind between Facebook and a developer – but analysts say a 30/70 cut is fair and similar to other models in the industry, such as Apple’s iTunes.

“The real question is, will the credits increase the velocity of transactions and will Facebook’s multi-tiered relationships – including advertising, revenue sharing, etcetra. – with developers increase the cut of the pie?” asks social-gaming venture capitalist Jeremy Liew, managing director of Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Ad industry. Justin Smith of InsideFacebook, a site dedicated to analyzing all things Facebook, suggests the long-term scenario is more people buying things on Zynga as a result of being able to use Facebook Credits. He also says Zynga needs Facebook to keep bringing in new people who will play the games and buy their virtual goods.

For the ad industry, the deal brings clarity to working with Facebook and Zynga, which should encourage more advertisers to jump on board.

“Before the partnership, it was two companies operating in the dark as to what their next moves were going to be,” says Chris Cunningham, chief executive of Appssavvy, a company that pairs marketers with app developers.

“Every time Facebook would update the platform, it caused Zynga to scramble in terms of updating the code. Now Zynga will have a front-row seat as to how to adjust their games.”

This, Cunningham says, will only make Facebook and Zynga users happier, putting more money into both of their pockets.

JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

Interview

Hello Mr. Chips

Nigel Dessau, head of marketing at AMD, tells Communicate computers will offer a more visual experience in the future. And consumers care more about that than how fast they are by Austyn Allison

A

nigel dessau.

Chief marketing officer and senior vice-president at AMD

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MD is a company that makes computer chips.

Which means that most of us don’t understand it or care much about it.

Even Nigel Dessau, the company’s chief marketing officer and senior vice-president, admits that the components inside a computer are seldom its top selling point. For this reason, AMD’s marketing department bunches consumers into two categories.

“The first audience we call the ‘processor aware,’” says Dessau. “These are people who make decisions about the PC based on the processor – everyone from the enthusiasts locked in their basement playing games to our partners, to retailers, to companies like HP and Acer and Lenovo.”

The other group, predictably, is the “processor unaware.” These, says Dessau, are “the people who buy PCs, and aren’t really aware of the processor inside them.”

The first group numbers around 25 million globally, and is traditionally who computer companies have been selling to; the second group, though, makes up around 6 billion people.

Tech firms, therefore, might have been getting their pitch wrong. “We’re an industry that for years has been trying to tell everybody about the processor,” says Dessau. “After billions of dollars spent by marketing, here’s the thing: Most consumers don’t care.”

On the back of this realization, AMD changed its marketing towards the end of 2009, and now tries to sell experience over processors. “For years you’ve seen sticky labels on PCs,” says Dessau. “They don’t mean anything to anybody.

So we replaced them about nine months ago with a single brand we call ‘Vision.’”

When Communicate caught up with Dessau, a Brit who now lives in Austin, Texas, he had come to the region for the first time in his twoyear tenure at AMD (he was previously with Sun Microsystems, and worked with IBM for 19 years) to visit his company’s partners in the region and to check out the local retail scene.

VIVID EXPERIENCES. AMD might make components, but the computers those components run provide experiences, says Dessau. “AMD is a company focused on trying to give consumers, particularly PC consumers, the most vivid experience they can have when using their PCs.” That’s big business. California-based AMD employs more than 10,000 employees worldwide, and generated revenues of $5.4 billion in 2009.

At the end of 2007, Abu Dhabi investment company Mubadala acquired an 8.1 percent stake in AMD. In 2009, through its Advanced Technology Investment Corporation (ATIC), Mubadala bought

DEPARTMENTS | JULY-AUGUST 2010

AMD’s manufacturing arm and formed a joint company, Global Foundries, which manufactures chips. The venture took Mubadala’s share in AMD to 19 percent.

AMD is moving to educating retailers, to persuade them to sell computers differently. Typical shop assistants will ask customers what they want to do with their computer, says Dessau.

“So you describe your needs in terms of audio, or video, or photos, or Web surfing. You know what you want to do with your PC, but there has been no real way for the shop to connect your needs to the technology.”

The shop assistants listen, continues Dessau. “Then they completely forget everything you’ve said, and ask, ‘Well, how much do you want to spend?’”

That’s where the Vision idea kicks in. If a consumer only sends e-mails and browses the Web, he can get by on the lowest tier of the Vision system. Those who are glued to Facebook, occasionally breaking off to tweak some photos or watch DVDs, need the Premium system, and users who spend their days editing videos and playing 3D games need what Dessau calls the Vision Ultimate system.

“We really need to try and connect – for the first time in 40 years in the PC industry – the experience the users want to get with the platforms they buy,” he says.

Not that the model is new. “Every retailer in the world works on a good, better, best model,” he adds. “They advertise the good, they want to sell you the better, and if they are lucky they will sell you the best.”

HUNG UP ON SPEED. AMD has only one serious competitor: Intel. AMD has about 20 percent of the global market for central processing units and Intel holds the other 80 percent. But despite being up against a relative giant, Dessau says he is unconcerned by Intel.

His rival is hung up on speed, he says. “Like every dominant monopoly they think they are at the center of the universe, and what you need to do is buy a bigger Intel processor,” he says.

“That really doesn’t make any sense. The processor is just one part. The size of the keyboard is important to some people; the graphics are important to some people; the sound quality is important to some people.”

But computers are like cars, in that while a bigger engine might help you go faster, that makes little difference at a traffic light. “Intel are obsessed by the speed of their processors; we are a bit more obsessed with giving users a better experience,” says Dessau.

Of course, AMD still wants you to spend more on a computer running on its chips. That’s where things get tricky. “The hardest thing for retailers and the hardest thing for our partners is how to explain the up-sell,” says Dessau. “How do you explain to someone the difference in buying a PC that’s 20 percent more expensive?”

“The answer is pretty simple, apparently: Tell

The wii way. Nintendo’s experiential console runs on AMD components them how the costlier computer will make things better. “If editing video is important to you and on a bigger machine you can do it in half the time, you think, ‘Oh, I get that,’” says Dessau.

SHOW, DON’T TELL. Some of the platforms using AMD chips give twice the visual experience of those with Intel processors, says Dessau (there are qualitative ways to measure this, he assures Communicate). Since 70 percent of communication is visual, this is an obvious selling point. “That’s the sort of thing that we do best as a company: We have the best graphics in the world,” he says. “When you buy an Xbox, or you buy a Wii, and you play a game, you are using AMD technology. We really focus on that visual experience and give users the best experience we can.”

The visual experience is changing media consumption, says Dessau. Owners of high-definition (HD) TV sets don’t watch more television, but they do watch different programs. The same applies to computers. “I don’t think people are using them more; I think they are using them for different things,” he says. “Most of the top uses for a PC are visual: For example, video calling, watching videos, looking at and editing photographs, surfing the net.”

Processors are now becoming optimized for applications like video chat. “Skype takes a whole different type of processing than opening an e-mail does,” he continues. “We are starting to talk about 3D, and we have some technology in our graphics for multiple monitors. More and more people are wanting a visual experience.”

A desire for richer media is good news for AMD, says Dessau. “If you ask what was the technology that most differentiated us from our competition, it would be the impact of our visual and our graphics capabilities. So as the media

gets richer, and more interactive, and more videobased and more contextual, then that plays more and more to our hand.”

DO, DON’T SHOW. Having said that, another major change in media consumption that Dessau notes is less dependent on cutting-edge graphics. There is a trend towards experiential media, typified in Nintendo’s Wii games console. Users can play games by waving controllers around, moving on mats, and generally getting more involved than just pressing buttons. Compared to consoles with better visual effects, the Wii still caused more of a stir when it was released in 2006.

“The graphics on the Wii are ours, and we’re very proud of them,” says Dessau. “But they are not the most sophisticated graphics on any games machine, we do accept that; they are a generation behind.” The reason for the console’s popularity is the experience, he adds.

This could give us some pointers to the future, says Dessau, although if he knows what experiential technology will dominate, he’s not telling. “I don’t know whether the next thing is people talking to their PCs – that technology never really caught on,” he says. “But interacting with them is what people want to do. They want to break their human-computer interface in a way that makes it more natural to you.” Dessau mentions the story of a child who played with his parents’ iPad and now tries to change channel on television by swiping the screen.

So we still may not care about what AMD’s pieces of silicone actually are, but what they mean to us and the way we consume media will become something we can all understand. “The world has changed, and the technology that is required needs to change with it,” says Dessau. And that’s going to mean a better looking experience all round.

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

Q&A

Tightrope walker

Georges Chehwan, founder of Plus Holding, says this year will see him organize his various businesses, and in 2011 he will set his sights on Africa by Nathalie Bontems

G

eorges Chehwan, founder of Plus Holding, the parent company of media arm Group Plus and Plus Real Estate, tells Communicate Levant how he strikes a balance between selling communication and selling homes.

How has Plus Holding been coping with the recent downturn?

The fact that we diversified our business in terms of types of media, markets, and even production – in the UAE and in Lebanon, we have a production and printing arm that serves us and other companies – allowed us to ensure some economic and financial stability. When Beirut was hit by a crisis, we were doing great in the UAE; when Saudi Arabia was a bit down, we were rolling in Syria. The other stabilizing factor has been the fact that we also diversified toward real estate. We put to good use our media knowhow and presence to support this move. I must

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insist here that my experience in media, combined with a certain flair for business, is behind our success in real estate. Media alone is not enough, nor is having money. It’s a combination of everything.

How does a media man get involved in real estate?

Like any investor who lived in Dubai, I was immersed in a world where absolutely everybody had something to do with real estate, be it hairdressers, bankers or insurers. I’m not used to entering a market or business by the back door, so I quickly got two plots in the UAE, then four… even 14 at one point.

Do you believe today that you thought too big at the time?

I have never regretted anything in my life. Even though the Dubai crisis turned out to be a costly and exhausting experience, I believe one should think positively.

DEPARTMENTS | JULY-AUGUST 2010

Besides, the fact that we were diversified – Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Lebanon – helped us weather the real estate crisis. In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, all our plots are paid for and we don’t owe money to banks, so we’re fine. But we had to freeze some of our projects till the market gets better.

Meanwhile, we invested in seven or eight developments in Lebanon. Following the same principle of diversification, we also established Plus Brokers and Plus Project Management, which allows us to have our own technical team. We own $250 million worth of projects in Lebanon, and represent projects worth a further $450 million. Our strategy is to consolidate and maximize sales of the projects we have and to accelerate construction.

How has your media arm Group Plus, which boasted annual billings exceeding $45 million in 2008, been affected by the downturn?

There was a significant drop in 2009, which is normal considering that the UAE advertising market plummeted 70 percent, and even 80 percent in some cases. Our total billings have decreased by around 30 to 35 percent, to reach around $35 million today.

Group Plus is operational in the UAE, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. How are you doing in each of these markets?

Bahrain, where we have been pursuing a very aggressive and dynamic approach, is a small market, but it is growing. Since 2007, we have been the exclusive media representatives of radio stations in the country.

Contrary to real estate developers and the financial sector, which don’t use radio much, all FMCG brands, mobile operators, and so on use these stations for campaigns. Besides, these types of brands haven’t been hit hard by the downturn, so the radio market is doing well in Bahrain. We also have around 60 unipoles, and every four or five months, whenever there’s demand, we acquire new locations.

Are you satisfied with the way the market is evolving in Saudi Arabia?

What’s happening in Saudi Arabia is crazy: Saudi nationals are entering each and every tender, disrupting the logic in prices. All the well-established professional outdoor suppliers there are facing aggressive competition from locals, mostly young Saudis who have studied marketing or advertising in Europe or America and are now coming back home to do business.

A Saudi national will be willing to pay 140 or 150 million riyals ($37.3 million/$40 million) to win a tender estimated at 100 million riyals. This is changing the game in Saudi Arabia. We professionals have a commercial mindset. But when you’re facing a competitor for whom money isn’t an issue, problems arise, not only for us at Group Plus, but for all outdoor suppliers.

Have you lost some of your contracts in Saudi Arabia?

Absolutely. For example, we had the exclusive use of outdoor at the Mecca premises for three years.

When the contract ended, we didn’t renew it.

Heavy usage. On average 60 percent of billboards at the airport are used by Plus Properties Does it mean you are going to shut shop in Saudi Arabia?

Not really. It depends on whether we’re talking about volume or value. I’d rather reduce my volume and increase my profits by limiting my yearly commitments there. We’re now taking locations one at a time, where there’s a demand. We’re being more selective.

How do you think the Saudi market will evolve in light of this new trend?

I believe this is just a phase. Saudi nationals will eventually wake up to the fact that they’re actually losing money, and then they’ll go back to Lebanese expertise and to a more accurate evaluation of the market, just like it happened in the UAE, where we are now taking back the market.

A tender was held recently in the UAE for six lamppost packages. Group Plus was awarded three of them. This will allow us to grow in Dubai, where we didn’t have a strong presence. In the UAE, 90 percent of our revenues are generated in Abu Dhabi and 10 percent in Dubai. Ideally, we hope to reach a 50:50 balance between the two markets.

You’ve also just renewed your deal for the exclusive use of lampposts in Abu Dhabi. What are the new terms?

The contract is for either one year or two years – we’ll know in a few weeks. There was no tender.

Abu Dhabi authorities wanted to hold one but they postponed it. They were afraid not enough candidates would be interested.

You’re mistaken if you believe Abu Dhabi’s market is healthy. Just like in Dubai, 70 percent of the market in Abu Dhabi consisted of real estate advertisers, who have now disappeared and haven’t been replaced with new ones.

In my opinion, business – including real estate – will pick up faster in Dubai than in Abu Dhabi.

Major international clients are still based in Dubai – the Procters, L’Oreals and Nestles. Dubai has daily commercial and tourist activities that it can rely on.

Communicate I 59

JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

prime slot. Advertisers feel that paying more to be featured at the airport is justified in the summer, when the number of passengers surges What about your expansion in Syria?

Group Plus is doing very well there. There are four main outdoor suppliers in Syria, and Kawalyss [established by Chehwan in 1996] is one of the oldest. Six months ago we acquired a new company, Ro’yia, which specializes in four-bythree-meter billboards.

We have merged Kawalyss and Ro’yia, and the merger has made us the largest outdoor supplier in Syria. We have around 2,000 faces and we’ve installed 15 LED screens in Damascus. Syria was always an interesting market for outdoor, due to the lack of good TV stations and print media.

In Lebanon, back in 2007, you fought hard to keep the exclusive representation of the airport (see “Air farce won,” page 8, Communicate, Sept. 2007). You told us then that even though Beirut International Airport (BIA) wasn’t profitable, it had become a matter of principles, not of profit. Where do you stand today regarding BIA? The problem at the airport is always the same: Advertisers use this place only during the summer, from July to September. They feel that paying more to be featured at the airport is justified in the summer, when the number of passengers surges.

But they use all the other networks throughout the country for the rest of the year. It’s a pity really, because passenger traffic at BIA has been increasing steadily during the year and advertisers should be there. We try to find some incentives to convince them not to limit their interest simply to summer.

How much more expensive is the airport rate card compared with the average price in the market?

Prices depend on the balance between offer and demand. They will vary greatly between January and July. But in general, prices at the airport are a bit high, if only because we cannot afford to make cheap offers there. Had the fees that we are required

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to pay in order to use the airport [$1.4 million per year] been lowered a bit, we could have sold the space at a cheaper price and the network there would be full all year long.

We’re also affected by the general problems that plague outdoor in Lebanon. For example, advertising space at the airport’s parking is sold separately and at very cheap prices because the parking doesn’t have any commitment to the State. The same goes for the airport road. Any client, when given the chance to have several billboards near the airport for the same price as one inside the airport, will go for the first option. Even inside the airport, some issues still need to be settled. But as long as I need to advertise for Plus Properties, we will be fine. On average, 60 percent of the billboards at the airport are used by Plus Properties. In return, the airport helps me make some real estate sales.

On the other hand, having more clients at the airport means less space for you to advertise your real estate projects at a time when your core target – Lebanese expatriates – is heavily present.

We then balance the BIA exposure by a series of events, dinner parties, etc. For example, this summer, for the first time, we will use TV to promote our real estate developments. We will see how it works.

What projects do you have in the pipeline?

In order to reduce our costs and optimize our performance, we will work on readjusting our businesses in each of the markets we’re operating in. We may shift some of our resources from one market to another in order to get the right balance.

And 2011 will be the year of Africa. In 2010, we will investigate and test the African market in order to invest and operate there the following year, mainly in media. We are thinking about Angola, but nothing’s been decided yet. We first need to test the market.

DEPARTMENTS | JULY-AUGUST 2010

Media Work

Nowhere to hide Gum manufacturer Wrigley’s latest launch is Extra Aqua, a liquidfilled gum, which the brand says is “another innovative product that answers on Extra’s core oral care proposition: protecting teeth after every meal.”

Dubai media agency OMD created communications centered around dramatizing the food particles as characters being washed away by Extra Aqua. The agency created a storyline to connect with consumers. As well as using traditional and new media, OMD used people dressed up as a mug of coffee, a doughnut, a pizza,

and a banana to characterize the particles.

The storyline was in the form of short “news clips” and pictures, and it started with the characters’ arrival in Dubai. Various social media platforms were used, and fake press releases issued to generate intrigue and engage with consumers. This was supported by high-frequency advertising using prominent ad formats to create awareness. The story continued with the characters becoming more and more visible around Dubai through on-the-ground operations.

The characters were portrayed as fugitives hiding from Extra Aqua, so

the product proposition of washing away food particles was brought in with a fun twist. Videos were seeded across all formats to boost views, and ambient elements like “wanted” posters in buildings, community boards, and car windscreens were added to the activation to complement and dramatize the plot. The story ended with the characters being captured

by Extra Aqua.

The entire story was documented on Facebook along with fans’ comments and postings. The seeding strategy proved effective, with more than 5,000 views of the videos in the first week and an average of 14,000 impressions per post on the Facebook

fan page. In the first week alone it generated 10,000 fans.

The campaign, says OMD, demonstrates how well-executed content can attract consumer attention as it was picked up by blogs and Twitter accounts. Fans requested the creation of an Aqua Chase game.

It also demonstrated that the quality of interaction goes a long way in building brand equity.

Demonstrating the long-term value of social media, fans are already asking for the story to continue. Who knows, Coffee, Pizza, Doughnut, and Banana may escape and stage a comeback… You can discover them on www.theaquachase.com.

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JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

Regional Work

The unexpected can happen Client: Medgulf Insurance. Agency: Spirit. Location: Lebanon. Creative Director: Maya Saab. Art Director: Christelle Sfeir.

Save energy Client: Tannourine Water. Agency: Spirit. Location: Lebanon. Creative Director: Maya Saab. Art Director: Christelle Sfeir.

Honeymoon Client: Kurban Travel. Agency: Spirit. Location: Lebanon. Creative Director: Maya Saab. Art Director: Christelle Sfeir.

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DEPARTMENTS | JULY-AUGUST 2010

International Work

The carry bag was designed in the form of an actual Lipton Clear Green tea bag.

A pack of tea was kept inside. The bags were given away to women in malls Client: Lipton. Advertising Agency: DDB Integrated, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Art Director: Imtiyaz Khan. Illustrator: Vijay Nethala.

Client: TAM Cargo. Advertising Agency: Y&R, S達o Paulo, Brazil. Creative Directors: Marco Versolato, Alexandre Vilela (X達), Felipe Gall.

Art Directors: Eduardo Quadra, Eduardo Araujo.

All of these ads (and more) can be seen at Adsoftheworld.com Communicate I 63

JULY-AUGUST 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

International Work

If the tree falls, we all fall. If the ice falls, we all fall.

Creative directors: David Garcia, Aleix Bou. Copywriter: Aleix Bou. Art Director: David Garcia.

Because pets have stress too. Formulated with a unique blend of herbs to calm the nervous system and counteract stress.

Advertising Agency: Euro RSCG, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Creative Director: James Daniels. Art Director: Romy Lunz.

New Skoda Superb Combi. More panoramic sunroof than ever before.

Advertising Agency: Road, Barcelona, Spain. Creative Directors: Emilio Lezaun, Marc Mallafré. Art Director: Marc Mallafré. Copywriter: Aitor Borrás. Photographer: Garrigosa Studio.

All of these ads (and more) can be seen at Adsoftheworld.com 64 I Communicate

DEPARTMENTS | JULY-AUGUST 2010

International Work

Pasha needs your help.

Client: BGD Stray Animals Foundation. Advertising Agency: Markom Leo Burnett, Istanbul, Turkey. Creative Directors: Yasar Akbas, Idil Akoglu, Güven Haktanır. Art Director: Cihan Eryılmaz. Copywriter: Selçuk Akyüz. Illustrator: Magic Group.

Photographer: Süleyman Kaçar.

Companhia Athletica 2010: Calendar.

Client: Companhia Athletica Gym. Advertising Agency: DDB Brazil. Creative Directors: Sergio Valente, Rodrigo Almeida, Renata Florio, Moacyr Netto. Creatives: Renato Salzano, Daniel Lemos, Ricardo Salgado. Accont supervisor: Suzana Poli, Marcelo Balista de Macedo.

Ilustration: Estudio 3. Photographer: Sergio Prado.

All of these ads (and more) can be seen at Adsoftheworld.com Communicate I 65

JULY-AUGUST 2010 | OFF THE RECORD

The Dish Literally watch These days hefty banks that pledged and confessed to a host of free incentives have taken a U-turn, and are literally begging for membership and annual fees, as well as minimum monthly charges.

– Khaleej Times explains why that man in a suit was tugging at your arm as you got off the Metro this morning.

Swede child o’ mine It’s a Swedish magazine originally, and they have just launched here a month ago. And in Sweden you have, like, everybody blogging, like 90 percent of the people blog over there.

Nabila Usman, business development executive at online news portal Newzglobe.com, explains the origins of her website with some debatable statistics.

Sweden has an Internet penetration of 89 percent. We can only surmise that everyone’s at it and some Swedes are sharing.

Join our club The first thing you need to do is register with Dubai Press Club.

That’s where people need to come, and they will find you there and you can work with journalists. You can even build your own team – videographer, documentarian, or somebody who can write the story for you. You can do anything and everything there, and people like, for example, independent magazines or newspapers, they usually go to Dubai Press Club to find people.

The same journalist gives advice to an aspiring documentary maker at a “Journalism 2.0” round table to mark the launch of SAE institute’s digital journalism syllabus.

“Anything and everything” might be an overstatement. Last time Communicate visited the Press Club was in 2007 to check if it had a pool table. It didn’t.

Ego to please Communicate Levant, our Lebanonbased sister title, reported last month on a Memac Ogilvy campaign on billboards in Beirut that asked,

66 I Communicate

“Who is Nesreena?” It turns out that Nesreena is many things: a) “every Lebanese woman;” b) a new women’s magazine; c) the publishing house that produces the title.

And who’s behind Nesreena? Syrian actress Nesreen Tafech. We’re still trying to figure out how she came up with the name.

Watch this Communicate’s sister title, Trends, recently ran a special report on watches, meaning the title’s editor now knows how to tell the time.

He also attended a lot of watchthemed events, and at one of these received two DVDs produced by the Fondation de la Haute Horologie.

According to their boxes, Masters of Haute Horologie volumes I and II “were produced with the particular intention of creating interest for the arts and crafts watchmaking professions among the younger generation.”

You never actually own a promotional DVD; you merely look after it for the next generation.

Disgraceful editing awarded Communicate’s editor is currently wiping egg off his face, and hiding from employees of advertising agency Leo Burnett. The reason?

His last-minute correction to the news pages of Communicate’s sister title, Communicate Levant, and his accidental relabeling of a story that should have been entitled “Leo Burnett officials meet in Beirut.” Instead, the story ran under the headline, “Disgraceful advertising awarded.”

That was a reference to a wholly unrelated item about the Banadoura d’Or (Golden Tomato) awards for bad ads. Burnett has picked up plenty of awards recently: Lions, Lynxes, Pencils, Drums… but no tomatoes that we know of.

However, if there’s a similar prize for bad editing, we’d like an entry form.

Go figure UAE newspaper Gulf Today carried a front-page article last month on a

Poet’s corner The Vetyverio perfume is damp and dry, cool and warm and a treasure to the soul. Vetyverio’s drives it’s inspiration from the Italian mandarin orange, Florida grapefruit and Sicilian lemon that provides a fresh and fruity fragrance for the humid summer. A perfect blend of perfumery’s archetypal – masculine vetiver and feminine flower bouquet creates a masterpiece apt for both men and women.

A burst of surprise that materializes from the sweet-tasting, organic ylang ylang from Madagascar, sensuallysteeped Turkish rose and absolute and slightly peppery geranium from Egypt add their cheerful touch, glimmer and distinctive inflection that compliments men and women.

The core of the fragrance features two of vetiver’s desirable properties. The first, ingredient is from Indonesia which is earthy and rough in nature that it is splendidly reminiscent of unspoiled earth. The second is more subtle, delicate and hails from the Caribbean. This vetiver from Haiti is the perfect blend of musk that penetrates through the formula to craft an intensifying blend.

The Essence emerges form the still marked by fire and fresh soil, with a tang of ink, smoke and volcanic rock. It tells a story of a multipurpose plant that, when it is not used to make perfume, provides shelter from the sun and rain and that it has leaves that can be plaited into long curtains that keep the heat out of homes.

At the end of the journey, a few spices are added – carrot seeds with sparkling apricot scents, nutmeg and clove to enhance the experience.

The fragrance is subtle, sensitive and captures the power of unquestionable elegance.

– From a press release announcing the new Vetyverio perfume

company that produces personalized action figures from customers’ photos.

The paper takes the line that this is a great way to while away lonely hours if your friends aren’t around.

However, the caption might be taken the wrong way. It says, “Play with yourself and stop looking for partners.”

Sub standard One of our spotters sent us this image that he saw on gossip blog Gawker. A regional British newspaper seems to have done away with its sub editors altogether.

Luckily, Communicate would never [Note to subs: insert pithy joke here, Ed].

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

Send your anonymous Dish tips to editor@communicate.vg

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