Communicate | Nov 2010

The marketing and advertising resource • November 2010 • Issue N° 71 • www.communicate.ae Agencies of change: OMG’s Colin Gottlieb on how the region’s media Page 70 is maturing

Eye on the PR-ize: Rebecca Hill on the outlook for this year’s MEPRA Awards Page 26

Shelf-interest: Saatchi & Saatchi X’s Richard Nicoll takes us camera Page 44 shopping

OPINION Guiding principles In The Communiquestion – our new feature – we quiz industry experts.

For our opener, we ask them to tell us the best piece of advice they have been given. Words of wisdom lie within.

(Page 18)

MARKETING Purchase power In a special report we look at ­shopper marketing in the region.

With ­specialist agencies springing up within the Middle East’s major ad shops, is the practice a ­reaction to the recession, or a long-term ­industry trend?

(Page 38)

TELEVISION Production order We look at the production industry in Lebanon to see where and why it’s booming, and what’s ­preventing it from developing faster. There’s not enough ­government support, says the industry – and there are too many directors.

(Page 46)

CAMPAIGN Pick-up line

WHEN BRANDS

GO BAD (Page 79)

Why do many multinationals become icons of evil, and what can they do to keep in the public’s good books?

Registered in Dubai Media City.

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having options.

The New BlackBerry ® Torch ™ Love chatting to your friends on BBM™.

Love richer, faster browsing.

Love apps that apply to you.

Love creating playlists on the go.

Love having two ways to type.

Love being spoilt for choice.

BBM Web Apps Music Touch & Type © 2010 Research In Motion Limited. All rights reserved. BlackBerry®, RIM®, Research In Motion® and related trademarks, names and logos are the property of Research In Motion Limited and are registered and/or used in the U.S. and countries around the world.

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having options.

The New BlackBerry ® Torch ™ Love chatting to your friends on BBM™.

Love richer, faster browsing.

Love apps that apply to you.

Love creating playlists on the go.

Love having two ways to type.

Love being spoilt for choice.

BBM Web Apps Music Touch & Type © 2010 Research In Motion Limited. All rights reserved. BlackBerry®, RIM®, Research In Motion® and related trademarks, names and logos are the property of Research In Motion Limited and are registered and/or used in the U.S. and countries around the world.

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NOVEMBER 2010 | LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

A question of principle L

ost in ad space?

Fear not. The Communicate Agency Map is tucked inside this month’s magazine. We’ve gathered the details of all the major network agencies – media, creative, and public relations – and collated them into the ultimate adornment for every marketer’s wall.

Also on the subject of guidance and finding our way, this month we launch a new feature in the magazine: the Communiquestion. We go to big players in the media, marketing, and advertising community and – you guessed it – ask them a question.

This month we asked people to tell us the best piece of advice they have been given. And they told us – from “You have to pay for talent,” through “Quality cannot be compromised,” to “Don’t give up.” Turn to page 18 to see what mantras the industry lives by.

For me, some of the advice is spot on, and other rules are not ones I would choose to follow – although I don’t doubt they work well for those who live by them.

If I were asked for the best advice I’ve been given, I’d have to choose from three gems of guidance I’ve tried to follow over the years.

The first: When I was 15 and had to give a speech to my fellow pupils and their parents, my dad (partly to save himself from parental mortification, I’m sure)

4 I Communicate

warned me, “Don’t try to be clever; just be a little kind.”

The second: When I was leaving for a new job, my first editor told me, “Don’t get involved in office politics, and don’t listen in on other people’s phone calls.”

And the third, the Allison family motto: “Veritas vincit.”

That’s written on my signet ring under the head of an eagle (or is it a griffin? It’s hard to tell without seeing the body), and it translates from Latin as “Truth conquers.”

At times I’ve wondered if that isn’t a lie. But if a distant ancestor was prepared to dip his pinkie finger in hot wax to get that message on to a seal, then it must have meant something to him, and I try to stick to it.

The best advice is universal, and many brands should listen to more of it to avoid becoming pariahs, to prevent them from becoming those brands we love to hate – the subject of our cover story on page 28.

We see why some corporations have gone from being perfectly friendly startups to the sort of megalithic empires a James Bond villain might manage. We see which pearls of wisdom they should have taken on board.

If companies are a little kind, rather than using their cunning to wring every last iota of profit out of the market, they tend to be well regarded; a little CSR goes a

long way. So my dad was right.

And so was my former boss. In this part of the world in particular, few companies have got involved in politics and come out smelling of roses. The people at Starbucks, for example, tell us they have been on a PR offensive to distance themselves from alleged political allegiances.

Regarding the second part of my editor’s advice, it’s easy to point to both governments and corporations that have come under fire for tapping phone lines.

And as for my family motto, what company has ever been caught lying and fared well?

There are more than a few evil corporations who strive to live by the alternative mantra “Don’t get caught,” but the Web is making indiscretions harder to hide. Organizations are often forced to tell the truth or have it revealed by someone else. They certainly have to address allegations with more than blanket denials.

So my advice today is to read on and see what the experts have told us about ways to manage our businesses, our reputations, and our lives. Hopefully they told the truth.

Austyn Allison, managing editor editor@communicate.vg

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CONTENTS | NOVEMBER 2010

Contents

COVER: Brands we love to hate 28 34 36

Why is it that some big brands stir up contempt from consumers? We speak to experts to find out, and to see what brands can do to keep their image clean On the couch: A psychologist tells us how businesses can suffer from narcissistic entitlement syndrome Caffeine fix: Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz’s Al Arabiya interview is a lesson in damage control

SPECIAL REPORT: Shopper marketing 38 40 44

What’s in-store? We speak to the marketers behind the shopper marketing agencies that have been appearing in the region Retailer made: President of Arc Worldwide William Rosen says shopper marketers aren’t manipulating consumers Point and shop: Saatchi’s Richard Nicoll critiques camera stores in The Dubai Mall

SHORTS 8

NEWS 12 13 14

Time to commit: UM’s Digital Boom summit finds new media can complement the old, but only if brands are in for the long run

18

26 46 50 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68

Media. Mindshare hosts inaugural media summit Digital. Trends launches on iPad Marketing. Coca-Cola restructures its global team

THE COMMUNIQUESTION

FEATURES

We ask the industry: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?

Public relations. Gong with the wind: The Middle East PR Association gets ready for its awards show Television. Production order: We see why Lebanon is home to so many of the region’s production houses Television. The reel deal: We sit with agency producers to see what they want from Lebanon’s production houses Digital. Attention seeker: Web surfers have to stare at captchas, so why not turn them into advertising?

Digital. Loss of Face: What happens to linked sites when Facebook goes down?

Media. Friendly rivalry: Why “co-opetition” is on the rise in the media Marketing. Star me up: Why celebrity endorsements still have selling power Digital. The cookie crumbles: Online marketers should re-think the way they mine surfers’ data Television. Set+store=buy? Why has TV advertising in shops not taken off?

Media. Don’t shoot the messenger: It’s time to stop blaming media plans for bad sales and examine creative instead Digital. Like magic: Facebook is becoming the loyalty card of the Internet

DEPARTMENTS 70 76 82

Q&A. Area of growth: OMG’s Colin Gottlieb talks regional growth, research, and rankings Work. Selections from the regional and international creative scenes The Dish. Teasers, technobabble, and teddy bears

NOVEMBER 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 GENERAL MANAGER Simon O’Herlihy 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

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FOUNDER Yasser Hawari MANAGING DIRECTOR Julien Hawari MANAGING EDITOR Austyn Allison CREATIVE DIRECTOR Aziz Kamel SENIOR JOURNALIST Rania Habib ART DIRECTOR Sheela Jeevan SENIOR SUB EDITOR Elizabeth McGlynn SUB EDITOR Salil Kumar AGENCY MAP RESEARCH Sahar Rafique, Neena Mathew ART CONTRIBUTORS Jean-Christophe Nys, Aya Farhat EXTERNAL AFFAIRS Manuel

Dias, Maguy Panagga, Catherine Dobarro, Randa Khoury, Lila Schoepf, Laurent Bernard PRINTERS Raidy Printing Group ADVERTISING The Gulf MEDIALEADER, PO Box 72184, Dubai Media City, AlThuraya Tower 2, Office 2402, Dubai, Tel: (971) 4 391 0760, Fax: (971) 4 390 8737, sales@mediaquestcorp.com Lebanon Walid Ramadan, walid@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: (961) 339 9087 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tarek Abu Hamzy, tarekah@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: (966) 1 419 40 61, Ghassan A. Rbeiz, ghassan@mediaquestcorp.com, Fax: (966) 1 419 41 32, P.O.Box: 14303, Riyadh 11424, Europe S.C.C Arabies, 18, rue de Varize, 75016 Paris, France, Tel: (33) 01 47 664600, Fax: (33) 01 43 807362, Lebanon MEDIALEADER Beirut, Lebanon, Tel: (961) 1 202 369, Fax: (961) 1 202 369 WEBSITE www.communicate.ae

NOVEMBER 2010 | SHORTS

Boom time UM Cairo’s summit makes digital seem doable – if marketers integrate it with their other media, and stick with it by Austyn Allison

T

OMAR MANDOUR. Coca-Cola’s regional general manager

JAMES HARRIS. UM’s head of digital for EMEA

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he end of September saw media agency UM host its inaugural Digital Boom summit in Cairo. The event was a gathering of technical and creative types to present their views on new media. It was obviously popular.

The organizers invited 400 people, and 800 showed up. Communicate has been to similar events in Dubai, but few with that level of support.

Speaking to Communicate, UM Cairo’s managing director, Dina Hashem, said, “We know consumers are ahead of us in Egypt; we know there are millions and millions of users of Internet and digital media, and we don’t know anything about them. That is what inspired this event.”

Speakers not only tossed about the usual slew of examples and statistics (how fast Facebook has grown compared to TV and radio; the size of the social Web compared to China; and so on), but also dug up plenty of insight into the nascent Egyptian market.

Digital in Egypt has only recently begun to grow. That means marketers can leapfrog much of the owned media that made up Web 1.0. Speakers advocated jumping on the social networking bandwagon as it gathers speed.

Once you’re in, though, you’re in for the duration, said Omar Mandour, Coca-Cola’s general manager

for Egypt, Libya, and Sudan. “The minute you step in, you don’t back out,” he said. “Because if you back out you will lose credibility, which will eventually reflect on your brand.”

In the two-way exchange of social media, brands must be prepared to face criticism from the public and act on it. “You had better understand that you are giving the consumer power,” added Mandour. “If you don’t have the guts to reshape your strategy because consumers are telling you you’re not making sense, then don’t go in.”

Tim Baker, former regional general manager of media agency Initiative, and now managing director of digital shop Hug, agreed. “Building a fan base is a long-term strategy,” he said. “We don’t get into it for a month, look at the numbers and then forget about it.”

Assuming a brand is in for the long run, it still shouldn’t forget its traditional media. James Harris, UM’s head of digital for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, told the audience old and new media are inseparable. We now read magazines on our iPads.

While marketers still distinguish between digital and offline media, consumers see all media as a way to get information and entertainment, he said. “We can’t really look at it as a jigsaw puzzle. Increasingly, digital is

in everything we do. In every piece of traditional media there is a link to digital, so we need to think of it as a fluid sort of mercury-type blob.”

Karim Khalifa, CEO of Digital Republic, said, “Digital media in isolation is not as powerful as digital media interlinked correctly, successfully, creatively, with traditional media.

It’s not a case of having a 360-degree campaign, with every single channel being used, but about properly interlinking the right channels.”

Coke’s Mandour warned that whatever channels brands use, consumers will be a step ahead. For example, “Consumers are going to start dropping their usual laptops and going to surf the Net on their phones.”

Mobinil’s manager of digital and direct communications, Rania El Bakry, also said youth in particular are not always where you expect them to be.

“You can do a great media plan thinking that people watch this program because it’s a youth program, but they don’t want that,” she said. “They are not in the channels you think they are.”

Rather, they are on social networks and mobiles. There’s an obvious interest in these channels among Cairo’s media community. If marketers are in for the long run, there should be a bright, integrated digital future ahead.

NOVEMBER 2010 | REGIONAL NEWS

Mindshare hosts media summit

Global strategy officer calls for “rebirth” of media agencies

Dubai. Mindshare MENA hosted its inaugural Mindshare Media Summit in Dubai last month, using it to highlight advertising media trends and changes.

Samir Ayoub, CEO of Mindshare MENA, opened the conference, saying, “The Mindshare Media Summit 2010 is part of our commitment to show the market how we are moving beyond the realm of media solutions to respond to market changes.”

“Understanding the optimum value and interaction between brands, consumers, and media channels will create competitive advantage for our clients,” he continued. “The summit provides us with inspiration and essential learning for the future of our partnership together.”

Nick Emery, chief strategy and client services officer of Mindshare Worldwide, delivered a keynote speech, addressing the death of the agency as we know it. “Media agencies need a fresh approach in order to survive,” he said. “They can no longer compete in price wars.”

He added that a new world order is emerging in the media industry: “Before, it was a top-down world of telling people what they want.

The new world is one where the consumer is in control, where a brand is defined by how people use it, and the media controls your brand identity.”

After throwing around catchy – if scary – phrases such as “planning

mutants,” “maverick researchers,” and “digerati,” he called for a “rebirth” of media agencies, where old and new practices can coexist.

Numerous other speakers took part in the summit, which was divided into four sessions: Setting the Scene, which looked at new media dynamics and examples of successful work from around the world; Digital Pioneers, which looked at the way the digital era is shaping the new advertising world; Responding to Change, which looked at how traditional broadcasters have tackled the transition to multimedia offerings; and Client Debate, which looked at effective consumer conversations through multimedia engagement.

introduce a video-on-demand option and links to social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, in addition to a tab option that allows users

to customize their homepage based on their news navigation preferences.”

Al Shirian places stress on the multimedia aspect of the channel’s news offering, saying, “Al Arabiya has continually succeeded in converging its on-air programming and newsgathering content across multi-media platforms such as Internet, mobile, and other marketing and on-ground activities, which enable its viewers to enjoy the same news-viewing experience at any time or place.”

As well as Arabic, Alarabiya.net is also available in English, Farsi, and Urdu.

 I TELEVISION Al Arabiya revamps website Dubai. Dubai-based television news channel Al Arabiya launched its newly revamped website, Alarabiya.net, last month. The site was unveiled at a party hosted by MBC Group, the broadcaster behind Al Arabiya.

“The redesign of Alarabiya.net represents a digital transformation for our viewers to understand and engage with the news we deliver,” says Dawood Al Shirian, Alarabiya.net’s editor-inchief (pictured, right). “It is the first news website in the Arab world to

12 I Communicate

 I OUTDOOR JC Decaux wins Saudi Airports Riyadh. Outdoor supplier JC Decaux has entered into a 10-year contract for the exclusive advertising concession covering all of Saudi Arabia’s 26 airports. Decaux is represented in Saudi Arabia by JC Decaux ATA, a 60-40 joint venture between Decaux and its local partner, ATA. The contract covers four international airports – King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh, King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, and Prince Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz Airport in Madinah – and 22 domestic airports in the kingdom.

In a statement, Decaux says the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) has been expanding and upgrading its terminals. “The 26 airports have shown continuous and robust growth, jointly handling 45.3 million passengers in 2009, with 39.4 million traveling through the four international airports,” says the statement, which attributes the GACA as the source of that data.

Jean-Charles Decaux, chairman and co-CEO of JC Decaux, says Saudi

Arabia is the 56th country where his group is present. “This is a strategic move that will strengthen JC Decaux’s position as the leading player in the MENA region, introducing a unique premium outdoor advertising platform. Our prime location networks will target high-profile audiences in the fast-growing markets of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Algeria. Through our airport advertising concessions in these regions, we will reach 100 million passengers a year.”

Our bad In our coverage of the launch of Universal Media’s strategic planning arm, Lighthouse, last month (see “The ‘curious’ case of Lighthouse,” page 12, Communicate, October 2010), we erroneously stated that Lighthouse’s director, Denh Dip, was previously “in charge of the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region” with UM in London. In fact, she was the insight and research manager at Universal McCann EMEA. We regret the error.

REGIONAL NEWS | OCTOBER 2010

Trends launches iPad application

VERY BRIEFS ISI International Sports Services announces inter-agency five-a-side football tournament Mojo Interactive wins Art Dubai account Euronews launches Persian service International Confederation of Music Publishers to host music rights workshop in Dubai

Dubai. Communicate’s sister title Trends has launched an application for the Apple iPad that will allow readers to leaf through the business monthly on the move. The app is free, although each monthly issue of the magazine costs $5.99 to download (the cover price for the print edition is 15 dirhams, or $5.)

Mediaquest Corp., which publishes Trends and Communicate, says the app – which can be downloaded from Apple’s iTunes App Store – is intended to pull in additional readers.

Google Enterprise appointments regional sales team

Trends was founded in 1998 and is positioned as “the leading international magazine on Arab affairs.”

Its writers report on and analyze the events shaping the political, social, and economic issues of the Gulf, Levant, South Asia, and North Africa.

Alexandre Hawari, co-CEO of Mediaquest, says, “Even though the print edition of Trends has an audited circulation of more than 50,000 copies a month, Mediaquest is still eager to attract new readers, and we believe the iPad application can help us do this.”

Mediaquest’s other co-CEO, Julien Hawari, adds, “Mediaquest is at the cutting-edge of new media; it would be wrong of us to ignore the popularity of the iPad in the region and the appetite for content through new technology. What’s more, the iPad version of Trends will carry advertising, which should be particularly appealing to those who want exposure to high-tech readers on the go.”

The Trends app is believed to be the first iPad version of a magazine in the Middle East.

Entourage launches new-look website IAA UAE chapter hosts Hani Soubra Abu Dhabi Ports Company hands media buying to PHD HGW Media to launch Rolling Stone Middle East BackLite Media moves to new Dubai Media City offices Rubicon and MEC to tailor international video games for Arab audiences CB Richard Ellis property consultants launch urban photography competition Former National Saturday editor Burhan Wazir to edit UK daily for Muslim readers

Anbaa Moscu celebrates first anniversary in the UAE I PRINT

Sport 360 launches Dubai. On September 28, Sport 360, a UAE-based daily sports newspaper, was launched in Dubai. The title bills itself as “the only sports-dedicated newspaper in the UAE, and even the world,” in a press release. (That release’s authors may have overlooked The Racing Post, launched in the UK in 1986 by Sheikh Mohammed,

Dubai’s ruler and vice-president of the UAE, and currently licensed to FL Partners, an Irish private equity firm. Technically it doesn’t cover as many sports, though.)

At the paper’s launch – which hosted 400 guests and featured displays of capoeira and a kickboxing competition – Michael Chalhoub, founder and CEO of Gulf Sports Media, the publishing house behind Sports 360, said, “We created

Gulf Sports Media with one great ambition: to become the leading publisher of sports information in the region. And thus Sports 360 was born. It began as a dream, inspired by the one thing sports can do better than anything else and where all else fails: It can unite us all.”

Sport 360’s publisher is Didier Brun, the former CEO of UAE daily newspaper Khaleej Times.

MediaMost launches Aviamost Chinese magazine Wolff Olins appoints ekadaa PR agency Laura Perez Diaz appointed director of communications by Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts

Desert Fish magazine ties up with online distributor Other Edition

Communicate I 13

NOVEMBER 2010 | INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Coca-Cola restructures marketing communications team Ex-Naked communications exec Ivan Pollard tapped for new role as vice-president of global connections Coca-Cola announced internally last month that it is making changes to the leadership team of its global integrated marketing communications and capabilities organization. That group, led by Wendy Clark, falls under Joe Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer.

“It’s recognition of a shift in the landscape,” says Clark, senior vice-president of integrated marketing communications and capabilities.

“Increasingly, we understand the idea of a liquid and linked landscape. And perhaps we weren’t structured for success within that landscape.”

Clark says the organization had been more siloed and, in some ways, put more emphasis on paid media.

It was a revelation to discover that of the 150 million views the brand has amassed on YouTube, only 25 V I AGENCIES Walmart presses its shops for efficiencies Walmart Stores is seeking proposals from its agencies for operating and cost efficiencies that could include consolidating its advertising and marketing services accounts in the US and globally, according to sources.

One person close to the firm expects the retailer – the largest in the world – to look into holding-company consolidation of agency assignments, with an eye toward improving services and lowering fees.

Interpublic Group of Cos. and Publicis Groupe are the two main holding companies whose agencies handle work for the US Walmart division, by far the biggest spender among the global advertiser’s units. Shops under those companies that handle pieces of Walmart’s US advertising include Martin Agency and Publicis & Hal Riney for creative work; Saatchi & Saatchi X for shopper marketing; and MediaVest for media duties.

WPP Group and Omnicom Group have PR and market-research assignments for Walmart in the US as well.

Levi’s opens review of $100 million global media business Levi Strauss & Co is launching a review of the global media account for its Levi’s brand. A spokeswoman

14 I Communicate

to 30 million could be attributed to content Coca-Cola had put into the marketplace.

The organization will now be structured around the principles of content, connections, and integration, Clark adds.

The changes have been in the works for about six months, although Clark has been evaluating CocaCola’s marketing organization since

she joined the team from AT&T just over two years ago.

“When I got here, I had to take time to learn the system,” she says.

“And identifying Ivan [Pollard] and wooing him here was something that took time.”

Pollard (pictured, above), formerly global partner at Naked Communications in London, will be relocating to Atlanta to take on the role of vice-

for the marketer tells Ad Age, “I can confirm that there is an RFP [request for proposal] out for media buying.

We’re working to create a consistent brand platform and leverage our global footprint to create efficiencies.”

flora, so that “M&S Flowers online” appears directly below “Interflora” in the sponsored links section.

A Marks & Spencer spokesman says, “This is industry-wide practice, which we say is not unlawful.”

Interflora does not agree. The case is being heard in the European Court of Justice, the highest court on the continent.

Interflora has two main gripes.

The first is that M&S is creating a link between its goods and the goods sold under the famous Interflora name, and the second is that, because its brand name is used by a large group of different traders, consumers may assume that M&S is genuinely one of the traders that have paid to be part of the Interflora network.

Levi’s spent more than $60 million on measured media in the US last year, according to Kantar Media, but the global account is estimated to be worth $100 million, with nearly 70 percent of that being spent in the US. According to people familiar with the situation, the review is an effort by the marketer to consolidate the nearly 20 media agencies it works with around the world to one or two agencies.

Interflora sues Marks & Spencer over use of AdWords Flower delivery service Interflora is suing UK department store Marks & Spencer for allegedly “piggybacking” on Interflora’s reputation.

M&S pays Google to promote the retailer’s own flower business in results every time a user searches on Inter-

N I BRANDING Gap to scrap new logo and return to old design Just four days after confirming its surprise new logo was, in fact, legit, Gap announced it was returning to its old design.

president of global connections. He had been working with Coca-Cola in his role at the agency, most recently leading the integrated agency push for the brand’s World Cup efforts.

The five other executives who make up the leadership team for the company’s marketing efforts will see slight changes to their roles. Internally, direct reports will also be shifting, while externally many agencies’ contact points will likely change. The company will also be adding talent, primarily to the team that will report to Pollard.

Rebecca Messina, vice-president of marketing capability and integration, Jonathan Mildenhall, vice-president of advertising strategy and content excellence, and Scott McCune, vicepresident of global partnerships and experiential marketing, will have extended responsibilities.

Marka Hansen, Gap North America’s president, informed the company’s marketing department of the change on October 11, acknowledging that the switch was a mistake and that the company would be postponing any changes for the foreseeable future.

The logo, created by New York agency Laird & Partners, was intended to be a long-term commitment for the brand with a nod to the future.

The scrapping of the design – which re-created the retailer’s name in a bold Helvetica font with a blue gradiated box perched atop the P – comes after Gap was put through the ringer for its new look.

The company became the whipping boy of designers, who besides merely disliking the new logo were enraged at the suggestion that design professionals should help fix the mistake by offering up ideas for free.

Gap had posted a message on its Facebook account indicating that it would be pursuing a “crowdsourcing project” in the near term. But people familiar with the plans said that would not be related to the logo.

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NOVEMBER 2010 | OPINION

The Communiquestion

Word to the wise

We ask the industry: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

In our new section, we pitch a question to industry leaders. This time, we ask our panel to tell us the best piece of advice they have been given.

HUBERT BOULOS Regional managing director, MAC DDB Malcolm Forbes [former publisher of Forbes magazine] told my graduating class about entering the professional world: “Find what really switches you on and go do it. You will most likely succeed. If not, you will at least have enjoyed it.” That’s when I decided never to practise law – my formal academic training – and switch to advertising. I have never regretted it.

TONY ORSTEN CEO, twofour54 My boss once said to me early in my career, in about 1977: “You have to pay for talent.”

What he meant was not that talented people cost more money, but that talented people tended to be much more trouble than untalented people. He was completely right.

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ZOYA SAKR Editor-in-chief, anaZahra.com “The most important thing is to have a great attitude.

If you have that, people will always want to work with you. And when people want to work with you, they help you succeed.” Employers are looking less for skills and more for behavior, as this has become every organization’s key focus.

EDMOND MOUTRAN Chairman and CEO, Memac Ogilvy In the early days of Memac, we had simultaneously won the Silk Cut account, a couple of smaller ones, and American Express. The Amex CEO, George Efthyvoulides, paid our agency a visit, and from our conference room he saw me behind my desk in the adjoining office. Our eyes met, and he asked about me. When he was informed that I was too busy to join the meeting, he stood up and, before leaving, said, “When Eddie is not busy, ask him to call me.” I called him immediately and he asked me to see him. As soon as I walked into his office, he coldly said, “If you are too busy to attend a meeting with me, then what are you busy

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NOVEMBER 2010 | OPINION

with?” Since then, whenever there is a client visiting our agency, we all make sure he gets priority and our promised attention.

YOUSEF TUQAN TUQAN CEO, Flip Media The most important skill you can have is to know how to sell. Because you’re selling something every minute of your life – to your colleagues, your client, your partner, and to everyone you meet.

ALI ALI Director, Elephant Have fun. Having fun and good work go together somehow. When you are upset on a shoot and the meetings are bad and the energy is bad and the brainstorming is bad, then most probably the ads will be bad. I’m sure the people [at ad agency Fallon] who shot the gorilla [ad for Cadbury’s chocolate] in London were having a blast. I’m sure the shoot was hilarious. So having fun is a two-way street. You know you are having fun and you know you are doing good work.

COLIN GOTTLIEB CEO, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Omnicom Media Group A certain agency head who was running one of the agency networks in Europe once said to me in a very stuck-up English voice, “Dear boy, do the Nordic markets in the summer and the Latin markets in the winter.”

That was his advice when I took the job, and it’s the one piece of advice I’ve ignored. To me it was a classic example of English arrogance – playing the role of a European emir: “When it’s cold, go somewhere

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warm, when it’s warm, go somewhere cool.” I thought to myself, “I can really see you getting the feeling of collaboration in your markets.”

The best piece of advice I’ve ever received was: Anybody you meet, anybody you go and work with, treat them as equals or better, because there is always a gem of knowledge somewhere.

RAMZI RAAD Chairman and CEO, TBWA/Raad In 2003, when TBWA/Raad was just three years old, we faced a major problem with one of our key clients, who happened to be a TBWA global client as well. The situation was alarming, as this client had called for a full agency review when, in reality, the management team within the TBWA MENA network knew that we were potentially falling victims to the age-old problem of politics.

At the eleventh hour I received a call from JeanMarie Dru, the TBWA/Worldwide president and CEO at the time, who said: “Ramzi, don’t worry. You know the client and his products better than any other agency in the region. Be confident. You have a great agency with passionate and experienced brand leaders, account planners, and inspired creative people. Make sure to include in your presentation a personal letter from you to the client’s CEO reminding him of the obvious: TBWA’s transparency. Moreover, remind him that at any moment he is welcome to send his auditors to inspect your accounting books. Take it from me, this will be your strong edge since not one of the competing agencies can match this degree of transparency.”

I wrote that letter, and we renewed the partnership with that client and continue to service them to this very day. So, transparency continues to be the best piece of professional advice I have ever received.

OPINION | NOVEMBER 2010

ELIE KHOURI CEO, MENA, Omnicom Media Group There is nobody who is good and nobody who is bad.

Everybody has some good in them. And the whole magic of management is placing the right talent in the right place. Even if somebody is bad in a certain area, you must find the good in them. Then, if you look at that and match it with an opportunity in business, they will always produce excellent results. So it is about locating and placing people in the right place.

LOUAY AL SAMARRAI Managing director, Active PR “Don’t walk into cupboards, Louay.” This was the best piece of advice I ever received. It happened one day at a TV production house where I was being the usual up-your-own-backside ad executive pretending to be very important, very busy, and very necessary to the world when – Bang! – I walked, still talking away, into a cupboard instead of leaving through the door.

The guy I was talking to looked at me and started to say – through tears of laughter – that perhaps I should step back and take some time to evaluate where I am, rather than focus on the tactical here-and-now. This advice stuck with me and I have often drawn the parallel in my career in the advertising, marketing, and public relations fields.

HERMANN BEHRENS CEO, The Brand Union Middle East When I finished university and started my first job, my older cousin Sean pulled me aside and volunteered a few points, which have stuck with me and are as applicable today as they were then.

1. Make your own growth – ask for what you need.

2. Be bold – there is no room for the timid.

3. Sometimes it is better to say sorry than it is to ask for permission.

4. It’s amazing what a genuine smile can do.

MOUNIR HARFOUCHE CEO, Lowe MENA The best advice I got was from a client who, 12 years ago, asked me to think more creatively, just like the “To Let” (pronounced as “toilet”) company that impressed him. He particularly liked how they used every single touch point to advertise their “To Let” logo. “They are everywhere: balconies, cars, showrooms, fences – everywhere,” he said.

It took me five minutes to understand that he thought the “To Let” signs in Dubai were actually the logo of a company. It’s trivial, I know, but it was then that I began to wonder whether I should let go of this region.

I decided not to, but I had to put a “To Let” sign on my brain for a while.

NOVEMBER 2010 | OPINION

DIMITRI METAXAS Executive regional director, digital, Omnicom Media Group “Your job is to manage your manager and not the other way around.” Meaning: Be proactive (as you know what issuesyour management faces), ensure all deadlines are managed, and go to him with ideas and solutions instead of just problems.

YVES-MICHEL GABAY General manager, MEC MENA “Don’t work in advertising. It’s a crazy industry, you’ll have plenty of stress, long hours, and work like a dog with very little recognition.” All of this was true, but I’m still in love with this job. It fulfils all my expectations, I’m never bored, and I’m permanently looking for new communication solutions.

NASSIB BOUERI CEO, MENA, Y&R/Wunderman One piece of advice I got when I was in my early 20s was: “Always look ahead and keep walking towards your objectives. Never look back, and don’t stop to look around, as you will lose focus. Once you get there, you will enjoy the view much more when you look behind you”.

EDDY AZZAM Vice-president, Kuwait & Lower Gulf, Horizon DraftFCB “Think positive,” as a wise man once said to me in my early days as a corporate man. This is a thought that has been with me throughout my career, proving time and again that no matter what business adversities you face and how insurmountable problems may seem, with optimism and a positive attitude, all gets

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taken care of in a manner far smoother than one can possibly imagine.

FADI CHAMAT General manager, Abu Dhabi, PHD Pioneering “It doesn’t matter if we win or lose; what matters most is that we do our best.” In an industry as competitive as ours, defending, acquiring, and pitching for business is a never-ending cycle. The pressures it can induce in the workplace are sometimes unhealthy and borderline insane. So how do we cope? When there are so many variables dictating the result, we can only take comfort in the fact that we’ve done our best.

DAVID PORTER Media director, Unilever MENA From the finance director of a major agency: “Always have a view, son.”

From Don Corleone in The Godfather: “Never tell anyone outside the family what you’re thinking.”

From Ted Turner of CCN: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.”

CHOUCRALLAH ABOU SAMRA Managing director, Omnicom Media Group, KSA “Honesty is the best policy.” I received this advice at a very young age from a person I admired and loved: my father. It wasn’t meant as professional advice then, but I have strived to follow it as much as I can in my professional dealings as well as personal ones.

Today, some 40 years after first receiving it, I am still amazed how true the advice is, and how much it resonates with different people and in different situations.

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NOVEMBER 2010 | OPINION

KAMAL DIMACHKIE Managing director, Leo Burnett UAE, Kuwait, and Lower Gulf Twenty-three years ago, my boss never tired of drilling into me a timeless phrase: “Preparation, anticipation, and attention to detail.” What I respectfully accepted in the beginning proved to be a foundation that guided me throughout my career. May it become the byword for our industry.

AZHAR SIDDIQU General manager, Magna Global It comes from the book The Zahir by Paulo Coelho: “Invest in a favor bank.”

If you have the opportunity to help someone out or do a favor, grab it because it’s the best investment you can ever make.

JAIKUMAR MENON Vice-president, MCN Media “Donkeys work hard but horses win races.” I received this piece of wisdom from a client during the early days of my career. I guess he meant: Don’t just count on hard work; the world is far from being a fair place.

Well, 20 years down the line, I don’t have too many reasons to disagree. So what do I feel like? The philosopher in me stays busy constantly redefining “winning,” so I end up feeling like a horse every time.

We are happy to rewrite strategy to fit the creative, after all.

ALEX SABER Executive vice-president and CEO, MENA, Vivaki I was once told: “Feel free to be creative, funny, emotional, or sarcastic.”

SUNIL JOHN CEO, Asda’a Burson-Marsteller The best piece of professional advice, one that has survived the many years since I switched from journalism to public relations, was told to me by a hardened chief sub. Taking his blue-lead proofing pencil, he struck off my copy and said, “When in doubt, cut it out.”

MARWAN QUTUB CEO and co-founder, 3 Points Advertising “If you are in doubt, keep looking.” This applies to finding a life partner, a business partner, hiring a team member, assigning vendors and suppliers, and even clients, sometimes.

YOANN EL JAOUHARI Sales and marketing director, JC Decaux Middle East and Africa Quality cannot be compromised even under tight deadlines – once you commit to a task, you commit to perfection.

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AKRAM MIKNAS Chairman, Middle East Communication Networks Don’t give up. Apply lateral thinking.

ELIE HABER Regional managing director, Mindshare One of the best pieces of advice was: Learn how to turn bad luck into good luck. This is what I try to do while facing the current financial downturn.

The irony is that what makes people smart also makes them less smart. They learn from their mistakes.

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NOVEMBER 2010 | PUBLIC RELATIONS

Comms together

We preview December’s MEPRA Awards, and see what has changed since the association’s first event one year ago by Rania Habib

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REBECCA HILL. Executive director of MEPRA

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he second annual Middle East Public Relations Association (MEPRA) Awards will take place at the start of December, and Rebecca Hill, the association’s executive director, says there’s a lot to look forward to. “We are investing in our event,” she says. “It’ll be a few notches more professional than last year, and it’s a great opportunity to participate and be celebrated. It will be an appropriate and fitting event for people to showcase their talents.”

Hill says the number of entries is up from last year, with 95 submissions. “We have 85 best practise entries, five team entries, and five individual entries,” she says. “In 2009 we had 61 best practise entries and 12 individual nominations.”

Judges from the 2009 event reviewed the process after the prizegiving, and agreed it is a formidable challenge for one group to look at more than 60 entries. “We’ve split the judges into teams this year,” says Hill. “There are 22 judges, and they are a mixture of agency, inhouse, academics, and media. Some are participating in two judging sessions, and some just one, but the idea is to ensure no one person can influence the process. All of them have at least eight years’ experience in PR, if not more.”

Hill says the judges will be looking for campaigns that illustrate several points: “A good understanding of the issue, a strong strategy, research done before, during, and after the campaign to measure and evaluate results, clear planning and implementation, creativity, and good return on investment,” she says. “What we don’t want to see are AVEs (advertising value

equivalents, which measure the effectiveness of a PR campaign by comparing it to the amount of money it would cost to purchase advertising space) as a metric.”

MEPRA is a non-profit member association based in Dubai, and Hill says hosting annual competitions is healthy for the industry. “They showcase best practise for a profession that is still developing in the region, and they celebrate excellence for those who participate,” she says. “Many still view the role of public relations as issuing press releases and having a one-way dialogue. PR practitioners manage relationships and conversations between organizations and their publics – listening as well as conversing, leveraging different channels. The strategic value of communications is not widely endorsed, but the impact of negative communications can have far-reaching implications for a reputation – whether that reputation belongs to a person, an organization, a government, or a country. By having an awards program, and leveraging the case studies that are submitted, we can provide teaching tools for students and practitioners alike.”

While the shortlist had yet to be finalised as we went to press, Hill says that after a look at the submissions, she noticed a positive trend.

“There are far more government submissions this year, which is great. We also have healthy submissions in all categories, so it’s going to be quite positive for both the judges and the people who participate; they will see their submissions being reviewed by their peers, and in a very competitive environment.”

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NOVEMBER 2010 | COVER STORY

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COVER STORY | NOVEMBER 2010

Bad vibes Why do consumers love to loathe some brands? And what can corporations do to turn around an evil image? by Rania Habib

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2003 film documentary about corporations – named, obviously, The Corporation – explored big business’ legal status as a class of person (in the United States, corporations are entitled to most of the same legal rights as humans) and their behavior.

It came to the conclusion that some corporations behave like psychopaths. They are selfinterested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful, breach social and legal standards to get their way, and do not suffer guilt. The Corporation’s case studies of companies acting irresponsibly include research into the use of Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) by the Monsanto Company to induce higher milk production from cattle, and the privatization of Bolivia’s municipal water supply by the Bechtel Corporation.

If corporations are psychopaths who create brands, are brands psychopaths? Is this why some consumers continuously protest against some brands? While it may be outside Communicate’s jurisdiction to label brands as psychopaths, there are undoubtedly some that, in the eyes of consumers, act irresponsibly.

As a consequence, these brands come under fire from consumers, who are becoming more informed and empowered. Communicate wanted to ask regional experts for their advice to the owners of controversial brands.

OLD-FASHIONED. Alexander McNabb, group account director at Spot On PR agency, says some brands still act in old-fashioned ways at a time when dialogue and engagement between brands and consumers is paramount. “One of the missteps [oil company] BP took, for example, is paying $50 million to say sorry and show images of clean beaches,” says McNabb, referring to BP CEO Tony Hayward’s appearances on television and in print ads to issue a public apology for the oil spill that devastated the Gulf of Mexico. “Buying media is an old-fashioned way to react. The American public was outraged, and BP was criticized for spending money on that, rather than doing something about the spill.

It’s a very different attitude from what today’s consumer expects. Some big brands behave in

old-fashioned ways, communicating in a oneway direction, continuing without listening. You can only do that for so long now; the tide of opinion moves too fast.”

Starbucks, the Seattle-based international coffee chain, admits making “a big mistake” in the way it dealt with persistent rumors and criticism that have surrounded the company for years.

Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, has been accused of being an active Zionist, making insensitive comments about the Israel-Palestine conflict, and being a recipient of the Israeli 50th Anniversary Award from the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah, a Jewish orthodox organization. The coffee company has also been accused of funding the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). With so many accusations and rumors swirling around Starbucks, Rana Shaheen, corporate social responsibility and communications manager for Starbucks in the Middle East (where the brand is franchised to the Kuwaiti holding company Alshaya Co.), says the company realizes where it went wrong.

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NOVEMBER 2010 | COVER STORY

RANA SHAHEEN. Communications manager for Starbucks in the Middle East

LOUAY AL-SAMARRAI. Managing director of Active PR

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REBUKING THE RIDICULOUS. “At the time all these rumors started, management thought if they commented on them, they would be validating them,” Shaheen says. “The management felt that the rumors were absurd and ridiculous, and as a coffee company, we had very limited experience in addressing those types of rumors – imagine being in the coffee business and all of a sudden being faced with political criticism. So all of these factors combined did not help the brand reputation; we fully realize this was a big mistake we made over an eight-year period.”

Starbucks has taken active steps to address the issue, and Shaheen says the coffee company took the decision not to be silent anymore. “We will not just stand by watching our reputation being damaged, and our trust fractured with our loyal customers.”

She says the 2008 Gaza war saw the peak of the boycott for Starbucks, and was a time during which Starbucks stores became the stage for demonstrations. “Our partners in stores were faced with attacks and protests in Lebanon and Jordan, among other places, and we couldn’t take it anymore,” Shaheen says. “Having our partners on the front line of danger warrants a serious response.”

Louay Al-Samarrai, managing director of Active PR, a public relations and marketing communications consultancy, says social media has further changed the way brands must behave. “You need to address a problem and have dialogue, and be as interactive as possible,” he says. “You need to do that from a global and local media perspective, and on a community level. You need to be very active on social media and present your side of the story, and discuss with whoever may have an issue with you. Engagement and total transparency are key.”

SILENCE IS DEADLY. McNabb says while social media may be a recent tool, it is no different from its predecessors.

“The fundamentals remain the same: Communicate as much as you can,” he says. “If you’re silent, the community will inform itself. The great danger from social media is the same danger newspapers and television used to pose: It will fill communities with speculation.”

In a bid to repair its reputation, Hans van Bochove, director of communications and CSR for Starbucks in the EMEA region, says the coffee giant started addressing issues internally.

“You need to talk to your own people first, as they are your best brand ambassadors,” says van Bochove. “We started providing brochures in stores for people to read about what kind of company we are. We felt it was a very respectful way of starting to address rumors, rather than come out with big, bold ads. Instead of adopting a reactive way of communicating, we are looking for a dialogue.”

Van Bochove says Starbucks, from a communications perspective, is a front-runner on the online activity scene, but it lags in its communication with the Arab world.

“We have millions of followers on Facebook and Twitter, and so what the company is doing on a global level in the English language, we’re hoping to do the same in Arabic,” he says.

“The rumors are very persistent online, and in order to address them, we need to be a part of the conversation and to start engaging, not just with our partners [the term Starbucks uses for the brand’s employees], but with our critics.

We need to invite them, which is something that takes longer than just providing opinions, and have interviews, press releases, and websites in

NOVEMBER 2010 | COVER STORY

THE EVIL THING? Brands such as Coca-Cola have faced controversy in the past over their alleged support of Israel Arabic, and have people who are capable of having conversations online with them in Arabic.”

In what is regarded as the biggest sign of the coffee house reaching out to address rumors, Starbucks CEO Schultz gave Dubai-based news channel Al Arabiya an interview during which he addressed some of the issues the company faced in the Middle East (see page 36).

ALEXANDER MCNABB. Group account director at Spot On PR

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LISTEN UP. Adopting a positive approach to brand behavior, McNabb says, brands do eventually listen to consumers. “All brands are things made of humans, so when they are heavily criticized by consumers, they will typically change their behavior,” he says.

“If you’re selling stuff, people must be happy to buy it. If McDonald’s is unhealthy, it will move to become healthier. What’s exciting about social media and blogs and the like is that today, consumers have a megaphone; they can much more effectively say what they believe and think.”

Regionally, those brands that court the most controversy include multinational corporations such as Starbucks and Coca-Cola, often for their reported support of Israel, a known enemy of the Arab world for its illegal occupation of parts of Palestine. (Despite repeated requests, Coca-Cola was not available for comment.)

While the brands generate impassioned and harsh reactions from consumers who boycott their products, Al-Samarrai says passionate reactions generally don’t amount to much.

“I think the issue is – and I’ve heard this argument many times – if consumers are to boycott Starbucks, for example, successfully, are they damaging Starbucks itself, or are they damaging the local holding company that runs it

in Arab countries, and therefore putting people out of jobs?” he says. “It’s a moral judgment.”

Presumably that’s what McDonald’s wants to emphasize in a “10 facts about McDonald’s” leaflet it makes available in its UAE stores. The single-sheet flier mentions the food, addressing halal and nutritional concerns, but it begins with: “Fact one: McDonald’s Corporation is a publicly held company owned by millions of people around the world.”

Fact two is: “McDonald’s Corporation is a strictly commercial company that does not interfere or support any political or religious act.”

And in case an activist still isn’t convinced he should put down his placard, fact four is: “McDonald’s UAE is a 100 percent Emirati company and its relationship with McDonald’s Corporation is merely restricted to permitting the use of the brand and offering training and development.”

Similarly, van Bochove says it’s important to explain to consumers that Starbucks coffee houses are mostly operated by local holding companies in the Middle East, by groups such as Al Shaya.

“We source locally as much as possible,” he says. “We are investing in areas that we think are important, and we have to do more to make it clear that we are part of the community by stepping up our efforts for community involvement on issues we think are important, such as culture, education, and environment.”

McNabb says brands we love to hate suffer from a nagging problem, one that consumers won’t see being resolved. The problem is that corporations can no longer get away with the things they may have previously gotten away with.

“Corporations will behave badly where they believe they are not open to scrutiny,” he says.

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NOVEMBER 2010 | COVER STORY

2. Generally have an exaggerated sense of selfimportance that is not commensurate with their actual level of achievement.

3. Generally lack empathy and are unwilling (or unable) to identify with the needs or feelings of others.

4. Most often envious of those around them with advantages they do not have, and believe others are also envious of them.

5. Require excessive admiration and constant approval from those around them.

How do controversial brands affect consumer behavior, if at all?

Consumer purchases are strongly influenced by cultural, social, personal, and psychological characteristics. Cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influence on consumer behavior.

The most controversial brands will be marketed via influencing techniques, so some of those who dare to be oppositional or defiant to family and community will go on a secret buying spree.

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How do notorious brands deal with the behaviors and reactions of consumers, and what can they do to better address issues?

Good marketers are always snooping for consumer opinion. However, aggressive executives may delegate large marketing funds to bombard the target audience with a product repeatedly.

This will usually influence change in beliefs and attitudes. These in turn influence consumer buying behavior.

Feeling special

An expert’s take on how brands can be psychologically unbalanced

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r. Raymond Hamden, clinical and forensic psychologist at The Human Relations Institute in Dubai, weighs in on the notion of corporations as psychopaths, and tells Communicate how brands, like people, can suffer from narcissistic entitlement syndrome.

Dr. Hamden: Narcissistic entitlement syndrome is when executives are inwardly focused and oblivious to the people and organizations they are supposed to serve. They see themselves as special, believe they should have whatever they want, regardless of the feelings of others, and continually inflate themselves while putting others down.

RAYMOND HAMDEN. Psychologist, The ­Human Relations Institute, Dubai

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There are five major characteristics: 1. Generally preoccupied with fantasies of limitless brilliance, power, and success.

When present, do consumers’ protests and boycotts of controversial brands have any effect on the behavior of irresponsible brands?

Good marketers are sensitive to the consumer, and there will be regulatory modifications to the product.

An executive will have opposing documents and comments to counter consumer concerns, or promise consumer favor, but will rename and repackage the same product and go back to the consumer.

How has consumer empowerment affected brands?

When consumer empowerment is strongly lobbied by a reputable organization, it will affect the brand in question. But how many people regionally are the Ralph Nader types to work with governments for consumer protection and fair trade?

Do controversies tend to die down in this part of the world because of certain social or political constraints?

The people of this region tend to be feudal followers. This psychology is very much realized in parental influences.

Even when children are adults, the patriarchal and matriarchal system will remain in place with some resistance, but seldom opposition and defiance.

NOVEMBER 2010 | COVER STORY

Better latte than never

Starbucks boss Howard Schultz chose to address harmful rumors on an Arabic news channel

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n an interview with Al Arabiya in June 2009, Starbucks boss Howard Schultz said he did speak out against anti-Semitism, but strongly denied he or his company had ever done anything that could be construed as being detrimental to the interest of Muslims.

HOWARD SCHULTZ. CEO of Starbucks

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Excerpts: “We have been a business for almost 40 years, and I can say unequivocally that the Starbucks Corporation, and I personally, have never been involved or engaged on any level whatsoever in support of any country, any violent act, and certainly have never been in support of any one people versus another.

“I can’t deny the fact that I was born and raised Jewish, and I’m proud to be Jewish.

However, anyone who knows me or knows how we have built our company around this set of values, and guiding principles that are really linked to respecting humanity and the diversity of people all over the world, knows for a fact that these rumors and outrageous accusations are absolutely untrue.

“Less than two years ago, there was a shooting at a Jewish institution in which somebody was killed. So Jewish people got together, and I was there, and I spoke up against antiSemitism.

“I never said anything, nor would I ever say anything that would be skewed or against anyone who is Palestinian or Arab or Muslim. That was not the intent of the speech and it’s not what I said. But I did speak out aggressively that I was quite concerned about anti-Semitism.

“One of the lessons we’ve learned is that the rules of engagement [have changed] because of the Web and the Internet and how quickly a fact or fiction can travel around the world.

“Before you even know what has taken place, people have created their own level of belief based on someone saying something.

“We need a level of communication and discipline and sophistication to be able to combat those things that aren’t true.”

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NOVEMBER 2010 | MARKETING

Gaining purchase

Good shopper marketing can bring enormous benefits to brands and retailers, as well as consumers

by Rania Habib

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MARCUS EVANS. Chairman of Integer, TBWA/Raad’s shopper marketing division

CLAUS ADAMS. Regional director of OgilvyAction

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ubai has long marketed itself as a shopping hub.

It all started in 1996 when the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) was born. Fourteen years on, DSF is a major tourist attraction, and Dubai is home to some of the biggest malls in the world. From fashion to electronics to furniture to jewelry, Dubai is a shopper’s paradise. But are brands, retailers, and their host environments making the most of what they have and marketing to shoppers as best they can?

The shopper marketing discipline has blossomed in recent years, particularly in the US. Defined by practitioners as marketing to consumers when they’ve turned into shoppers, shopper marketing is a big hit with FMCG brands such as P&G and Unilever. Now the Middle East is catching up; over the past couple of years, big agencies have set up shopper marketing divisions in a region known for consumerism and abundant shopping opportunities.

Marcus Evans, chairman of Integer, TBWA/ Raad’s shopper marketing division, says one of the core factors that accelerated the discipline’s popularity is the media landscape’s fragmentation.

“It’s getting harder and harder to find an audience,” he says. “With that in mind, we know that shoppers are in front of shelves, and we know that the shopping process starts earlier and earlier, and we know that when a human being is in “shopper mode,” his currency is of action. When we’re talking about consumers, we’re dealing with possibilities.

With shoppers, we’re dealing with absolutes, so it makes sense for businesses to transfer significant spend to that point of definitiveness. We’re seeing

brands and retailers alike investing more and more in understanding the changes in behavior when consumers become shoppers.”

CLOSING THE DEAL. “Shoppers are different from consumers,” says Richard Nicoll, founding director of Saatchi & Saatchi X, the global advertising agency’s shopper marketing arm, in London, and current managing director of Saatchi & Saatchi X in Dubai. “In shopper marketing we should be stopping people, engaging them, and hopefully closing deals. You might call it opportunistic, but I would call it sensible in terms of understanding what a shopper’s need is, and what the barrier to purchase is.”

Despite many barriers to purchase, not least of them the economic crisis, shopper marketing has found, and keeps finding, ways to close the deal. Some argue that the crisis has, in fact, helped increase the popularity of shopper marketing, a discipline dismissed as short-term and tactical by cynics who think it relies on impulse buying, rather than brand-building.

“Our mantra is: Everything we do to sell must build the brand, and everything we do to build the brand must sell,” says Evans, arguing that shopper marketing is a strategic tool. “If you create effective shopper marketing communication, it has to build a brand. If it’s not building the brand, how can it be effective communication?”

Claus Adams, regional director of OgilvyAction, the brand activation arm of the Ogilvy network, insists the discipline is highly strategic.

MARKETING | NOVEMBER 2010

He says it relies on shopper insights to develop campaigns that seek to influence shopper behavior. “Shopper marketing comprises all the tools required to target consumers in an in-store environment: research, insight development, shopper segmentation analysis, advertising, messaging, environmental design, category management, customer marketing, trade marketing, and promotion merchandising, all of which work seamlessly in concert,” says Adams. “While the tools vary in their approach, they all share the same goal: to identify with shoppers, communicate benefits, and ultimately turn a shopper into a buyer.”

BELIEF IN CONTINUITY. Industry experts insist that shopper marketing is one part of many that make up a brand’s marketing strategy. Nicoll says that at Saatchi & Saatchi X, the belief is in continuity rather than consistency. “What works on a television ad may not have direct appeal in a store, but as long as there is continuity, what works in stores may be particularly relevant to shoppers’ needs.

It’s just a case of focusing on shoppers rather than consumers,” he says.

Evans says brands using the shopper marketing approach should make sure they are creating “onbrand experiences” every time. “Whether it be at the shelf, pre-decision, or ‘postail’ [what happens after a sale], shoppers have to have the same quality of experience. You’re building the brand at every touchpoint, and it has to be absolutely on-brand.

Even if you are providing an unexpected surprise, it still has to be on-brand.”

One of the major changes shopper marketing has experienced, and continues to experience, is the advent of the digital age. But while digital may have taken the shopper marketing world by storm in the US, it is still nascent in the region.

“Digital is the future, but I’m a realist,” says Nicoll. “I look around here, I see everybody using a mobile phone, but I’m not seeing them use it for anything other than talking to each other. If I got a brief from a client tomorrow, would the marketing director ask me to create an iPhone app so people could engage with the product?

It’s unlikely. I’ve asked marketing managers if their agencies will be incorporating digital, or if they are expecting their agencies to come back with digital solutions. And would they buy digital solutions if they were presented to them? Would they have the confidence to go for a digital-based campaign, rather than the things they are traditionally used to? I can’t answer that, and they can’t answer that. But I do know there are a lot of briefs coming through my door, and not a lot are digital-specific briefs.”

However, with shoppers using the Internet to research products, compare prices, download vouchers, and shop, Adams says digital media will gather “enormous” momentum in the future, particularly due to the young demographic of the MENA region.

“The region will see a demand for brands and retailers that reach out using the tools and technologies this demographic is already utilizing to

JOINING FORCES. Smart brands and retailers work together to provide shoppers with what they want connect, share, and communicate with each other,” he says. He adds that digital communications at the point of sale, along with product packaging, will give consumers a further layer of promotion, discount, information or utility, giving shoppers a content-rich experience and enabling them to make the right purchase.

LOW SPEND. With companies such as Unilever and P&G spending millions of dollars on shopper marketing every year, Nicoll says the discipline should be good enough for anybody. But regional shopper marketing spend remains low. “I’d be surprised [if] it was any more than 5 percent [of marketing budgets],” he says. “But it’s expected to rise. I don’t know if it will rise dramatically, because people tend to be cautious about something new, but it’s the ones who are brave who are going to win.”

Nicoll says marketers in the region need to be made aware that shopper marketing is not repackaged below-the-line advertising. He says it’s important that clients don’t expect abovethe-line and below-the-line agencies to do what a shopper marketing agency can do, and that the proliferation of shopper marketing agencies in town is a healthy sign. But is shopper marketing a fad that will be replaced by something even more savvy in a few years? Nicoll says even if the terminology changes, shopper marketing is here to stay. “Marketing to you on your own terms will never be a fad,” he says.

And while Evans says the Middle East still has some way to go to catch up with the kind of shopper marketing done in more developed markets, he too maintains good shopper marketing is definitely long-term. “It provides genuine win-win-win situations for all parties: the brand, the retailer, and the consumer,” he says. “If we understand the needs, wants, and motivations of shoppers, then smart brands and retailers will work together to provide shoppers with what they want.”

EVERYONE’S A WINNER Ogilvy-Action’s Claus Adams tells Communicate the point of shopper marketing is to benefit all stakeholders: brands, retailers, and shoppers.

If applied correctly, it can lead to a win-winwin situation.

AS A BRAND: It is about understanding how one’s core target consumers behave as shoppers in different channels, formats, and retailers. The brand subsequently leverages this intelligence to develop shopper-based strategies and initiatives.

AS A RETAILER: It is about understanding how a consumer of a category behaves as a buyer, either in specific stores (or segments of stores) or as specific shopper segments. This means tailoring platforms, assortments, shelves, configurations, in-store environments, in-store marketing, and merchandising to best meet the needs of these segments.

AS A CONSUMER/SHOPPER: When we shop, we look for brands and products that fit our need.

For example, if our mission is a big night in, we will be encouraged to buy brands when we are given suggestions on how to make that night better. When a brand is placed adjacent to other complementary brands that fulfill different needs for the night, our shopping is made easier. Couple this with products that are merchandised and packaged in a way that makes it enticing for us to grab them from the shelf, and our mission is much more easily completed. To tap into this behavior, brands must understand the various needs they fulfill from a shopper mission standpoint.

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Be true to your shelf

Arc’s William Rosen talks to Communicate about the definition of shopper marketing, and tells us that the discipline is not about tricking people into buying a product

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WILLIAM ROSEN. President and chief creative officer of Arc Worldwide

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illiam Rosen, president and chief creative officer of Arc Worldwide, the marketing arm of Leo Burnett advertising agency, tells Communicate that one of the jobs of shopper marketing is to align brand marketing with the retailer. “With the rise in the power of retailers, you need to recognize that even the biggest brands in the world, such as Coca-Cola, have to do shopper marketing,” he says. “There are no Coca-Cola stores, so you’ve got to sell through retailers such as Walmart, and develop a joint plan to win on behalf of the retailer and the manufacturer. I think that’s the big opportunity with shopper marketing.”

Rosen says that, when done right, shopper marketing is as powerful a brand-building tool as any other marketing discipline.

“Look at McDonald’s,” he says. “Twenty-five million people go through its restaurants a day, so they are reaching more people than they would ever reach with television in the retail environment, and it’s an opportunity to make a statement about what and who the brand is. It’s every bit as powerful as anything on TV or in print or online. McDonald’s is a retailer, so the retail experience is its brand.”

Of the cynics who believe the discipline is more of a tactical one, Rosen says the days of tactical shopper marketing are gone, and the discipline now focuses more on brand building.

“I think the old-school method was to be more tactical and less brand-building,” he says. “But the success we’ve had with our clients has been by doing both, and by understanding that you can build the brand and build the business at the same time. I think the fact the retail experience can play a powerful role in doing that is why marketers are spending more and more of their budgets on the retail environment.”

Does the discipline take advantage of shoppers? “No, you work with shoppers, you don’t trick them,” Rosen says.

“If the consumer is shopping online, you want to be online; if the consumer is shopping in-store, you have to be in-store. You can’t fight the consumer; you have to work with the consumer. When a brand has a purpose in people’s lives, we try to figure out how to use all the channels available to be connected to them. So you’re using the benefits, not taking advantage.”

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Electric avenue

Communicate joins Richard Nicoll in The Dubai Mall while he is in shopper mode, and pretending – for our sake – to look for a camera and check out some digital devices

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RICHARD NICOLL. Managing director of Saatchi & Saatchi X, Dubai

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he people who work at The Dubai Mall seem genuinely pleased to see you and are well informed. Asking for directions to a camera shop was a good experience and, obviously, I created a need. When shoppers come to these sorts of places they need two things: help and integration [a feeling of belonging]. A mall is not a place where you pop in and out, so shoppers need help and inspiration.

I see the Olympus store; why should I buy from Olympus? There’s an ad for one of their cameras with two people in the snow, which is irrelevant to Dubai. This is probably work that came from their below-the-line (BTL) agency, and they just ran this thing in-store. But shopper marketing isn’t BTL. It is trying to tap into the truth.

In the Canon store there is a bit of stuff that starts to mean a little more to people. A banner at the door tells tourists that their guarantee is valid in 53 countries, so obviously they’re targeting tourists.

At Jackie’s, a market-type store, there’s so much stuff. They are all about price, but what is amazing is that you would have thought they

would be massively into football. [We visited the mall at the time of the soccer World Cup.] I want to know that I can buy a television from here and a package now and they will install it for me in time to watch the game tonight. That would be a useful bit of shopper marketing.

In the Samsung store, you immediately get a feel for what the brand offers. They have a cool device at the back of the store. It’s a panel with the entire range of Samsung phones, and there is color-coding so you know at a glance whether you’re looking at a basic, multimedia, infotainment, style, or media phone.

If I want a business phone, I follow the colorcoding, which is everywhere in the store. It’s a smart way to help people understand and navigate.

It provides education, and inspiration. I’m not sure that this is strategic shopper marketing, but it’s more than just excellent point of sale.

– We didn’t buy a camera, or anything else for that matter, but if we had, it might well have been from Samsung, a brand Communicate hadn’t really considered before.

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NOVEMBER 2010 | TELEVISION

The bigger picture

Lebanon’s production industry may be flourishing, but politics is playing the role of the villain, holding it back from attracting major international projects by Ibrahim Nehme

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JEAN-PIERRE SIKIAS. Owner and general manager of Laser Films Beirut

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ean-Pierre Sikias, owner and general manager of Laser Films Beirut, likes to say the most important thing in production is what you put in front of the camera. Everything else, according to him, is detail.

Perhaps this near glorification by Lebanese producers of what goes in front of the camera is what has made the local production industry one to rival – a product of mixing just the right ingredients: skilled technicians, world-class directors, talented directors of photography, top creatives, competitive prices, and a strategic geographic location.

“It’s a strictly Lebanese advantage,” says Rita Hachem, executive producer at Joy Films, who adds that no other country provides such a diversity of people and locations in such a

compact and accessible space. There is also the adaptability and flexibility of the Lebanese to make things happen and solve problems – what she refers to as “the positive attitude.”

This consists of “the lack of red tape, the genuine willingness to keep the ball rolling, the innate spirit of being accommodating, and a great understanding of global cultures and standards,” she says.

It’s no wonder Youssef Ayoub, chairman and general manager of Intaj, says, “I can say we’re on an international level, in terms of equipment, lighting, camerawork, post-production services, crew, location, directors, etcetera.” According to him, production standards in Lebanon are “better than anywhere else in the region.”

Layal Haddad, managing partner at Film Pudding, says Lebanon today is the produc-

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tion hub of the region, “without any shred of doubt.” It offers deals that beat even major production centers in Argentina and South Africa, two countries that have long been regarded as production powerhouses.

Production is “one of the most flourishing industries in the country,” says Gabriel Chamoun, CEO of production house The Talkies – which explains why everyone wants to be a part of it.

During the past couple of years, the number of local production houses has mushroomed, as new entrants, lured by lucrative business and low barriers to entry, set up shop. The total number of production companies in Lebanon today is 30.

A CHANGING MARKET. This significant rise in the number of production houses, from less than 10 in the 1990s, has been facilitated by major changes in the market.

“The mindset of the people working in the industry has changed, and the way of work has changed,” says Ray Barakat, executive producer at Clandestino, a production house he co-founded more than a year ago. Barakat compares the production market dynamics today with the dynamics 25 years ago, when the industry was still in its infancy.

Between the early 1980s and late 1990s there were a handful of production houses in Lebanon. These companies, considered today the founding fathers of Lebanese production, have controlled the local market since.

They’re the ones with the big studios, high-tech equipment, significant machinery, large numbers of employees – and lots of overheads.

Yet, however big and powerful these companies may be, the shifts in the market dynamics, according to Barakat, were to the advantage of small production houses such as his.

“In the past two or three years, the whole film industry kind of expanded,” he says. “You now have three main equipment suppliers providing all the equipment one might need for a production, in addition to a large pool of freelancers with different production skills and talents.”

All the elements needed to make a good movie are now available. This wasn’t the case back in the 1980s and 1990s, when production companies owned everything in-house, a time when renting production equipment and relying on a network of freelancers, as opposed to full-time employees, were not options.

The market transformed at a time when budgets tightened, pressure on deadlines intensified, and clients’ need for the most convenient and accommodating production solution increased.

“A structure such as ours has become as efficient as a big structure, and is better suited to accommodate today’s clients’ needs because it’s more flexible than big, rigid set-ups,” Barakat says.

BIG VERSUS SMALL. The established production houses, however, have a different view.

According to Alain Toubia, executive producer

WE’RE ROLLIN’. Production houses in the country have come a long way since the 1980s at Fantastic Film Factory, the difference between big and small agencies is similar to that between supermarkets and small shops. He says small companies can survive “since they rely mainly on outsourcing and don’t have major operating expenses, apart from an office. They can take on small jobs, in addition to government jobs, which are normally done for free,” he says.

But Film Pudding’s Haddad says these small companies are not just surviving, but seriously competing with the big guys and getting half their work. She uses the word “boutique” to describe her own company, which she started two years ago in Dubai, moving it to Beirut after the economic crisis hit. “I strongly believe that the more you grow, the more you become like a factory and the less personal involvement there is,” she says. “We’re not a proper corporation as far as rules and regulations go. We’re closer to filmmaking; we have the passion for it.”

Haddad looks at the differences between the old and new companies from a generational perspective. “Big production houses need to understand that a 30-year-old creative in an ad agency no longer wants to work with a 60-yearold producer in a production house,” she says, hinting that most big companies are still managed by the people who started them 30 years ago. While Haddad accepts the older generation did a great job in setting up the business, she insists it’s time for them to bring new blood into their organizations. “As long as it’s different generations connecting together, we still have the advantage,” she adds.

GABRIEL CHAMOUN. CEO of The Talkies

LAYAL HADDAD. Managing partner at Film Pudding

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Chamoun, who heads one of the biggest production houses in the country, strikes a balance, saying it’s show reel, not size, that matters. He says, “You’re only as good as your last show reel, regardless of whether you’re 20 years old or 20 days old.”

WADIH SAFIEDDINE. Partner and producer at né a beyrouth

YOUSSEF AYOUB. Chairman and general manager of Intaj

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GETTING TOGETHER. This old-versus-new issue came under the spotlight after eight of the wellestablished production houses in town (Laser Films, The Talkies, VIP Films, Fantastic Film Factory, Intaj, Independent, Zoe Production, and City Films) decided to launch the Association for Lebanese Commercials Producers (ALCP). The news came as a shock to most of the production houses we spoke with. Not only were they not involved in the talks, they also had no idea they were happening.

The eight “founding members” took it upon themselves to initiate the project in May 2009, but didn’t include their fellow industry members in any meetings or discussions.

According to Chamoun, there was nothing secret about it. He says it was simply impossible to contact all 30 companies and invite them to each and every meeting. Even among the eight founding members, “it was very rare to have more than four people attending each meeting,” he says, adding that the plan was to announce the ALCP to all the other production houses and ad agencies before the news broke in Communicate Levant (see “Lebanon’s first TVC producers’ association established,” page 6, Communicate Levant, September 2010). An event to officially announce the association is in the planning stages.

The unofficial announcement, however, garnered mixed reviews. Hachem says the motif of such a body is the issue. “Is it for the good of the industry, or is it a cartel – to do with control and self-interest of the few?” she asks. “If this body wishes to set a standard to protect the industry from mediocrity and corruption, then we will fully embrace and support it, whether we are included or not. But if it is about control and playing Big Brother then we will not tolerate it.”

Gilbert Nahas, TV producer at ad agency JWT Beirut, says the small, new companies weren’t involved in the talks because of ego issues at the big production houses. “They think they’ve built the industry, which, according to them, gives them the right to think that they own it.”

Haddad says if the association doesn’t include everybody, it will lose. “If we want to make this industry more professional and take it to a higher level, we should all be together, especially if we want to compete as a production hub with other countries,” she says.

REGULATING THE INDUSTRY. While some production houses did not want to comment on this issue before they’re officially notified by ALCP’s founding committee, everyone seems to agree that such a governing body is necessary to better organize an industry that needs regulation, despite assertions that Lebanon offers standards similar to those of internationally recognized production hubs.

“We first need to give our crew their rights,” Haddad says. “Most crew still don’t charge overtime, and clients take advantage of this. They come to Lebanon because there’s no overtime. Instead of shooting a film in two days, they shoot it in a day that is 20 hours long.” She says even if the market were to become 5 percent more expensive as a result of charging overtime, “we’d still be extremely competitive.”

“We’re not building a syndicate or union, but an organization that will arrange matters until we reach a point when we’ll have a proper governing body that would protect the rights of everyone (composers, producers, directors, crew, etcetera),” Ayoub says. According to him, the association’s objective is to “define and put in place a standard for the industry, so we become like Europe and the rest of the Western world.”

He says the rules and regulations his peers are setting for the industry through ALCP follow in the footsteps of those in well-regarded international production markets.

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“We took what’s appropriate from each country, but adapted it to the Lebanese culture in a realistic way. For example, if you want to get a quotation for a hairdresser in the US, you have to include with him/her three assistants. If you were to force this rule in Lebanon, it would increase the production budget, which is already too limited.”

POLITICS AT PLAY. If the Lebanese producers are capable, through the ALCP, of controlling their practice, there is one issue that’s out of everybody’s hand: politics.

“We might have the best production services in the world, the lowest cost, the nicest locations, and the best weather, but if you have one event every week, such as people invading the airport or going down the street and burning tires, it’s not going to encourage people to come here,” Chamoun says, adding that Lebanon’s political instability is the main concern for foreign producers. “Even if they are not afraid personally, they have a hard time convincing agencies and clients that Lebanon is a safe place – most of the time.”

Wadih Safieddine, partner and producer at né a beyrouth, says Lebanon is a competitive market as foreign companies he’s never heard of are increasingly approaching him to come and shoot in the country.

But Pierre Sarraf, co-founder and partner at the company, says this slight ray of hope isn’t enough. “If we really want to attract big projects that will give a boost to the industry, we need governmental efforts and sternness in political decisions, which are completely lacking,” he says, adding that political backing of the industry would facilitate everything. Sarraf cites Jordan as an example, which, thanks to willingness on the part of the royal family, attracted the producers of the Oscar-winning film, The Hurt Locker. “The Lebanese government is completely incapable of giving tax incentives, facilitating airport procedures, or providing security to people,” he says.

“Lots of things still hold us back,” Haddad says. “We still have problems bringing film rolls into the country. In any other city, you’d fill in the necessary documents that allow you to bring in filming equipment. In Lebanon, whenever the film rolls arrive at the airport, security takes them for investigation. I honestly don’t know what they do with them, especially when they’re unprocessed [at which stage you can’t open the canisters to see what’s inside, or they will be ruined]. How can we talk about encouraging post-production in Lebanon when you have people who look at your footage for three days?” she asks.

Safieddine says, “You can promote Lebanon as much as you want, and show pictures at Cannes and other global events, but you won’t be able to attract the big shootings unless the government guarantees and facilitates these issues.”

FUTURE-FOCUSED. Until political stability and government facilitation become a reality, Lebanese producers will have lots of internal mess to clean up. Hachem says players in the industry must show the ability, willingness, and ambition to rise to international standards, while also wanting to work together constructively for the good of the industry. “They must be much more supportive of local talent and services and help promote and nurture their growth,” she says, and adds that companies must make the transformation from suppliers to production partners/consultants, drawing analogies with a chemist becoming a doctor, or a builder becoming an architect.

The ALCP will be a stepping stone to get there, or at least that’s what the founding members are promising.

It may be that what has made Lebanese production what it is today – a focus on what goes in front of the camera – is the rallying cry for its unity; putting disputes, small talk, and egos behind, and looking through the camera into the future.

For now, let’s just hope the cameras keep on rolling.

PIERRE SARRAF. Co-founder and partner at né a beyrouth

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The Producers

We speak with agency filmmakers about where the industry is headed and their hopes for the future

by Nathalie Bontems

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hen dealing with film production, it’s not all about production houses. There are producers representing clients with their own demands, points of view, and constraints. Communicate caught up with seven TV commercial producers working in agencies in Lebanon to talk about the regional industry and their hopes for the future.

CAROLINE ABDELNOUR. Leo Burnett

GABRIEL ABOUDAHER. Leo Burnett

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On Lebanon being the region’s production hub Gabriel Aboudaher, Leo Burnett Lebanon is a hub for the region (that is to say, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula). We are all aiming to bring work from Europe. At Leo Burnett, for example, we do movies for Eastern Europe. But it’s not easy. Among other things we don’t have the adequate cast, hair dressers, and so on to cater to Eastern Europe. In Prague they do. That’s why instead of bringing everybody here, we go there. However, our competitor is Egypt. They don’t offer great quality, but have better prices than we do.

Gilbert Nahas, JWT Cairo is a hub in itself and for itself. It doesn’t need anybody. But Lebanon is becoming a regional hub.

Filming happens in the streets of Beirut every day.

This is because Dubai is not as strong as it used to be, locations are not available, and prices are around 25 percent higher than in Beirut. Produc-

tion companies keep opening in Lebanon because they feel there’s work to do here. Eventually, it will move again between Dubai and Beirut, but the cycle is now in favor of Lebanon.

On the booming of new production houses Gabriel Aboudaher Our main problem is that we like to work with filmmakers, but many production houses are now being opened by businessmen. The good companies are the ones with real producers on board, who care about quality. Of course, we can always pick and choose, but unfortunately some of these businessmen go directly to the client and the agency finds itself obliged to work with people like that.

Gilbert Nahas This is not a good thing. Others may tell you that it’s great because prices will go down. But if the prices fall, nobody will care about quality. Producers’ mindsets will be money-oriented instead of quality-oriented. Besides, my policy is always to try and give work to everybody. But I cannot distribute work to 30 companies.

Michèle Abdo, M&C Saatchi In general, variety allows for healthy competition.

Having some 15 companies (as opposed to 30) would still give us a wide range to choose from,

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with different approaches to the same production.

It doesn’t mean that we’d all make them work with us. Each one of us could encourage one of the new, young production houses, provided we were convinced of the quality of these people.

Caroline Abdelnour, Leo Burnett The problem is that the crew, mostly freelancers, remain the same, so we find the same people working on every production. Having 30 production houses won’t help in that matter; they’ll be useless because we’ll keep using the same crew over and over. So these production houses should get together and work on creating a real hub instead.

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On criteria when choosing a production house Michèle Abdo Integrity.

Caroline Abdelnour Added value – the one who will go the extra mile to get you the best result.

Gilbert Nahas Reputation. It’s all about the person who’s behind the production house. If we don’t know the person, we’ll be afraid to entrust him with a job, however small. Production is about people.

Omar Boustany, Memac Ogilvy Most of the people we work with are people we already know and with whom we have shot a number of TVCs. It’s not about the 30 current production houses; I don’t know most of them.

We work with only a few. The newcomer should have a past in one of the big production houses so that we know him. If you take someone like Ray Barakat, who launched Clandestino, he’s very well known and respected. He has had a lot of experience with The Talkies and his partners are also recognized. It worked immediately and he’s fully booked. But nobody will go for a new company with producers nobody has ever heard of; that is just trying to cut the prices down.

Gabriel Aboudaher At the end of the day, we have a client and the production house will be meeting this client. So we need this person to be trustworthy for us to be able to give him our client’s product. This is why we need this personal relationship.

On the generational gap between the founding fathers and the new entrants Gabriel Aboudaher There is a gap. It is very difficult for a young producer to work with someone from the old school.

Michèle Abdo It really depends on who the person is. Most of us worked with the big gurus of Lebanese production, but they are the exception rather than the rule. The majority is around the same age as the average agency producer.

MAKING THE CUT. In a tough industry you are only as good as your last project Caroline Abdelnour The older producers have know-how; they’ve been in the field for years; they’ve done many different commercials. Now it’s a very personal relationship and a matter of individuals getting along well.

Gilbert Nahas What matters is the result. It’s much more difficult, for example, to work with the so-called businessmen than with the “gurus” who have years of experience and know the job. Besides, it’s not only we who are working with them – the whole crew is, too, and has to get along.

On the TVC producers’ association (see page 46) Caroline Abdelnour It’s a good start but they should spread it. Our industry needs to grow. We have the chance to be one of the low-cost centers, but we need to fight even-lower-cost places such as Egypt in order to bring work from abroad. If production houses don’t work together, it won’t work. We’ll remain at a minimal level.

Gilbert Nahas This association, which doesn’t concern us directly, seems unfair in the way it was done. There are 30 existing production houses, so there should be 30 producers joining it. They did it with only eight, which doesn’t serve a thing. If the association decides to level the prices, for example, an outside com pany may not respect the decision.

However, it would help us if they were all united. Then we could start an association of mixed agency TV producers to tackle the real issues.

But not a selection of each. They cannot hope to organize the industry when less than half of them are in the association.

OMAR BOUSTANY. Memac Ogilvy

OMAR FRANGIEH. Impact BBDO

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Michèle Abdo We’re all in agreement and it’s happening indirectly anyway. The event we are working on with the universities is coming from us and we feel that we own it.

On what should be improved in Lebanese production Omar Frangieh, Impact BBDO The industry should be more professional. Instead of opening 30 production houses, we should stick to 15 and have, on the side, more specific and efficient services companies. In order to cover the whole region, we need production houses to provide us with more services and more specialized detail.

Michèle Abdo We don’t have enough talent in each category.

We need specific talent for specific jobs within the production process. We don’t have wardrobe stylists, for instance, so we always have to get involved, although it’s not our job.

SLICE OF LIFE. Variety allows for healthy competition On a future committee of agency TV producers Caroline Abdelnour We’ve been thinking about this for more than a year.

The idea is to create an organization that would group all TVC producers to help this field grow. We knew each other, but we weren’t really mingling in professional terms. The industry needs more bonding. However, it’s a pity that some agencies [such as Grey Worldwide] are not participating.

But they will join at some point, I’m sure.

MICHÈLE ABDO. M&C Saatchi

RACHAD AZAR. FP7

GILBERT NAHAS. JWT

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Gilbert Nahas What would it be like if one day all agency TV producers were to speak the same language as production houses? At least if we sit together it’s a big step. Then we can take our ideas to production houses to share and discuss what needs to be done or not done. It could be the beginning of something. Besides, we need to help one another.

Omar Boustany We’re happy to meet, because usually we are competing. In terms of quality, this lobby could yield results. Now, we will keep competing against one another; this is the logic of the market. The point isn’t to speak in one voice and become one, but to agree on crucial points.

Gabriel Aboudaher One of the objectives of this committee is the action like the one we’re preparing for universities [the industry is planning a workshop to tell students production is about more than just directing and camerawork]. We’re doing it for the industry, to help the market evolve and find solutions. We will be more productive if we are part of a community.

That way we can better reach our objective.

Caroline Abdelnour This is why we have a project at the moment that focuses on informing universities and students about the real needs of the market and various fields that are involved in production. For example, if I need to create a mask, I’ll need a good make-up artist who can do that. There are a lot of good people around, but not at the higher level.

Gilbert Nahas We have a lot of directors, a lot of producers, and good lighting and grip equipment people, because we are obliged to have them. Otherwise there simply isn’t any film. But there’s a gap: We don’t have specialized art directors, good make-up artists, and so on.

Omar Boustany Some positions are overcrowded and others are lacking in talent, such as food stylists, make-up artists, etcetera.

Rachad Azar, FP7 The problem doesn’t always come from us [the production industry]. Sometimes the client refuses to use someone local, even though he might be Lebanese. McDonald’s in Lebanon, for example, refuses to have a Lebanese food stylist. Sometimes the client is only happy to bring someone from abroad.

Caroline Abdelnour If we had a very good hair stylist for my shampoo ads, I would use him. And I’m sure I could demonstrate to the client that it’s the right thing.

On the Lebanese production industry being healthy and moving forward All: Yes!

NOVEMBER 2010 | DIGITAL

Captcha-ing a new opportunity Solve media allows brands to use security type-in technology by Todd Stone

D

o you remember the last time you purchased tickets online, or wanted to leave a comment on a website that required you to sign in first?

You were probably asked to decipher a code, called a Captcha (an acronym for completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart), of distorted letters and type it into a box. And, if you wanted to get to the next step, you had to focus quite carefully on reading those characters. It kind of required your undivided attention, and that’s kind of, well, exactly, what advertisers are looking for.

What if, instead of typing a non sequitur, you typed “Just do it,” the Nike slogan? That’s where Solve Media comes into play. The company, which was created in the US around a year ago, has been working furiously to perfect a security technology that allows advertisers into this space – and they officially launched in September.

“Ads are just getting bigger and louder as attention online is getting so scarce,” says Solve Media CEO and founder, Ari Jacoby. “So we’re fishing where the fish are,” he says, referring to this untapped space where users are forced to spend time.

You might wonder how the security system still works when all the user has to do is re-

54 I Communicate

type a perfectly legible slogan or fact about a brand. Well, even though these new ads, called “type-ins,” all look the same to the naked eye, no two are identical because they each have slight variations in pixelation.

“We built a security technology company and then layered an advertising company on top of it,” Jacoby says.

Jacoby, 34, co-founded a media company called VoiceStar in 2004 that enabled advertisers to more easily track which ads yielded the most business. That company was acquired

by Marchex in 2007, but last year Jacoby was able to “re-assemble the band,” as he puts it, and get most of his old staff to work on this new venture. There are about 25 employees, including the company’s president, Todd Lieberman, divided between a New York office and a network operations center in Philadelphia.

One of Solve Media’s bigger clients is Toyota, which has a type-in ad that features a mother holding her baby. To the right it says, “Star Safety System,” and at the bottom it asks the user to type in those three words.

“Advertisers are looking for message comprehension,” Jacoby says. “And you know what they say, ‘If you write something down, you remember it.’”

He may be right, and Toyota seems excited about the new advertising opportunity.

“Banner ads are easy to ignore,” says Kim Kyaw, senior media strategist at Toyota, “so we’re very intrigued by this.”

Kyaw says that instead of paying by CPM (the cost of reaching 1,000 users), Toyota pays each time someone types in its message, which she calls an “engagement.”

Jacoby says his company’s business model is to work with advertising agencies to create campaigns for its clients using type-ins. Solve Media then splits the revenue with the online publishers, such as Meredith, for example, which will run a type-in ad on the website of its “Parents” property to safeguard against users cheating the system on their Cutest Kid contest.

For publishers, this is a completely new revenue stream that doesn’t require them to create new content. Andy Wilson, senior vicepresident of digital marketing for Meredith Publishing, says the company has been using Solve Media since January (September was the official launch, but the technology was used and tested quietly for nine months), and it has seen great results.

“We’re making money in an area where we hadn’t before,” Wilson says.

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

Fernanda Romano

Global Creative Director of Digital and Experiential Advertising Euro RSCG Cyber Cristal Jury President

Mauricio Sabogal

Worldwide Managing Director Initiative Media Cristal Jury President

Competitions are open for the MENA Cristal Festival BEFORE FRIDAY 22ND OCTOBER: - Direct & Promo - Cyber - Media

BEFORE FRIDAY 29TH OCTOBER - International Production

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

NOVEMBER 2010 | DIGITAL

That sinking feeling

With more than a million websites looped in, when Facebook goes down, it takes others with it

by Irina Slutsky

M

ore than a million websites are looped into the world’s largest social network via Facebook Connect. Its social plug-in – the increasingly ubiquitous “like” button – generates at least three billion clicks a day. And for many brands, a Facebook presence has outstripped their own websites. With the network providing sharing tools, authentication, and even commerce for so many sites and brands, what happens when it goes down for more than two hours, as it did on September 22?

A Facebook outage cannot crash the Web, but it could be a real pain. Think of Facebook as the phone line in your house. If the phone line is down, the rest of your house is still operating. You can still take a shower, cook a meal, take a nap, mow your lawn. Everything but make a landline phone call.

If you’ve incorporated Facebook into your Web presence, “there will be a big hole in your website,” says Michael Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media, a company that provides social-media marketing services to clients such as the National Hockey League in the US. “That will happen to some of our clients, such as NHL.com.”

Lazerow says that while these Facebook assets are down, the site around them could be slow to load and operate, and advertisers can’t get full credits for their ads served. And, no, you can’t use the like button.

That’s exactly what happened on CNN. com’s front page for two and a half hours – users simply couldn’t log in through Facebook Connect

56 I Communicate

to comment, like and share articles with friends.

The Facebook Connect box stared back at them empty, waiting to be filled in with information while Facebook fixed itself.

Other non-Facebook social-graph indicators, such as CNN Newspulse, which lists the 10 mostviewed stories on the site, continued to function during the outage, as did the rest of the CNN site, CNN’s own registration function, and other Turner properties.

KEEP IT IN THE BACKGROUND. “The ideal scenario is that our two systems are segregated enough that when Facebook goes down, there is no impact on the front end of our site,” says Dermot Waters, senior director of product development at CNN. But a slow load or a blank box is not a company’s only problem if its site doesn’t just use the Facebook API for simple registration or personalization purposes, but rather builds its entire functionality on top of it.

Consider a company such as Zynga, creator of games FarmVille and Mafia Wars, with 360 million monthly active users. About 90 percent of Zynga activity takes place inside Facebook.

“Every minute Facebook is down probably costs Zynga $10,000,” says Seth Goldstein, founder of StickyBits, a company that lets users link barcodes to photos, text, and other files. “But there’s nothing you can do; it’s the way of the world. There’s

no such thing as API [application programming interface] insurance, although there probably should be.” A Zynga representative declined to comment for this story.

Most developers and technologists are quick to forgive Facebook for its glitches. “When Facebook goes down, it’s a bummer. But if you were scaling to 500 million, you’d have your issues too,” says Goldstein. Other companies that have scaled quickly, such as Twitter, have far more outages than Facebook and far less usable developer tools.

Development firm Inigral.com co-founder Joseph Soafer went all-in and built his company’s biggest product, Schools, which creates mini social networks for admitted college students, completely inside Facebook. “Outages are something that you have to be aware of,” Soafer says, “But the other option is to build something that would see much less usage and is less interesting and engaging.”

As a tech guy, Soafer says Facebook.com goes down very rarely – in fact, the outage on September 22 was the first in four years.

But for a Facebook product such as FB Connect to be used by a million websites, that’s a drop in the bucket. Who knows what could happen as those tentacles reach further and deeper into more and more crevices on the net? Peter Relan, chairman of CrowdStar, says, “As Facebook and FB Connect become integrated into the fabric of the social Web, Facebook outages will be more noticeable – sort of a double-edged sword for a Web brand.”

January 2010 /N° 139

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

January 2010 /N° 139

Some people only see what’s on the surface.

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Hijab-free zones spring up in Cairo

Wealth, family ties offer no protection

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

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NOVEMBER 2010 | MEDIA

Media rivals become partners

“Co-opetition” is in full bloom as roles blur among marketers, advertising agencies, and publishers

by Abbey Klaassen and Rupal Parekh

A

fter landing at McCann Worldgroup with the charge of turning around one of the world’s largest agency networks, CEO Nick Brien called in Jack Griffin to deliver a speech to his management team.

At the time an exec at publishing giant Meredith, Griffin had helped build its integrated marketing group into a powerhouse customer-relations management and digital shop. The choice of speaker was met with some uneasiness. After all, Griffin wasn’t just putting out magazines; Meredith had gone head to head with McCann Worldgroup in pitches for big Chrysler business.

But, as Brien tells it, he told his team to get over it, that in the new world order, agencies and publishers are “partners in the morning, competition in the afternoon.”

That dynamic had a place in the marketing business even before WPP CEO Martin Sorrell started calling Google a “frenemy.” But there’s no denying that co-opetition – a term Silicon Valley gave us – has grown fiercer and the lines blurrier. Media sellers have launched legitimate marketing-services divisions that work directly with clients; marketers have aggressively built their own media and content platforms, creating

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competition with some of the same people who sell them ads; and agencies have scrambled to build all sorts of new capabilities, from consulting practices to digital-media-buying platforms that usurp ad networks and portals.

It’s a big pool and everybody’s in it.

“Co-opetition is in full bloom,” says Griffin, now CEO of Time Inc. “It’s driven by the client.

The client hires the agency; the client hires a media company. You can look and say publishers have gotten into the marketing-services business or the search business. But you see agencies are, in fact, developing customer relationships through demandside platforms and databases of online users that are housed in agencies. The boundaries that used to be very clear are not so clear anymore.”

KRAFT WORK. Take Kraft, which thinks of itself not just as the maker of Singles cheese and Oreo cookies, but as a legitimate media company. It launched a magazine, Food & Family, in the early part of the decade, but last year began charging for the formerly free quarterly. Today Food & Family boasts more than one million subscribers shelling out $7 a year (a full-price

MEDIA | NOVEMBER 2010

annual subscription is $14). Putting a price tag on these experiences is what differentiates them from more traditional custom products.

They’re not simply marketing vehicles; they are moneymakers, albeit tiny ones compared to Kraft’s main business.

“It’s clear we have to offer these services on top [of products],” says Lisa Mann, vice-president of customer experience at Kraft. While technology is increasingly the enabler for this trend, the business reason has everything to do with a broader consumer-focused mission. For Kraft, that’s helping mom come up with food solutions for her family. “I’d argue [the online app] iFood Assistant was in development for 10 years,” says Mann. “It’s about what service I am delivering to the consumer and what technology or publishing asset will get me there.”

For marketers, playing in the media and services game is driven by opportunity: a desire to promote their own ongoing consumer experiences, provide better brand utility and, in rarer cases, turn marketing expense into an investment.

For agencies and media companies, it’s about survival. Their models are under threat and they need to adopt a new suite of capabilities and move higher up on a marketer’s food chain. Eighteen months ago, Ogilvy CEO Miles Young announced his ambitions to transform the hulking global agency into a highervalue offering for clients by devoting resources to a consulting business – not exactly what “Father of Advertising” David Ogilvy might have had in mind.

SCALE AWAY. But in short order, Ogilvy Consulting has gone from something experimental to a 100-person unit that’s become a significant revenue generator for the WPP agency. “It’s our fastest-growing segment,” says Young, noting that US revenue has jumped 30 percent year-on-year from a mix of its advertising clients and other companies. “The need to move from the merely transactional to the more added-value – this has become particularly acute in the area of media disaggregation for agencies,” he says. “By definition, ideation isn’t that scalable, so we have to find other ways to scale.”

Of course, blurring the lines is risky business and often doesn’t work.

The pressure is mounting these days on companies to be jacks-of-all-trades and, well, you know how that saying goes. And just because you can afford to buy up different companies or staff up new offerings doesn’t mean you should. In fact, it could seriously confuse your business proposition. Microsoft, as recently as last year, ranked as a top 100 national advertiser, top 100 media company and top 25 agency company, according to Ad Age’s DataCenter, but the giant ultimately felt it necessary to unload digital agency Razorfish, which now sits under Publicis Groupe.

Cautionary tales include ill-fated experiments such as Bud.tv – the beermaker’s bold plan to attract 2 million visitors monthly to Web-based humor and sports programming – and Honeyshed, David Droga’s attempt to reinvent the online shopping experience by dropping brands into vignettes.

IN THIS TOGETHER. (Clockwise from top left) Kraft’s Food & Family magazine; David Droga’s Honeyshed; Bud.tv; Kraft’s iFood Assistant “It’s fine to be optimistic and bold about something that’s new in this space, but given the economic climate, the promise of certainty is more responsible than the allure of massive potential,” Droga had said at the time of Honeyshed’s closing. Droga execs say one of the biggest issues with Honeyshed was the cost – in terms of both time and money – to keep feeding the beast with content. Which is why Droga now looks at the future of content and ongoing sustained relationships as a platform play where content can come from any number of sources: users, third parties, existing media players.

DON’T DO IT YOURSELF. Dave Knox, a former P&Ger who last month jumped to become Rockfish Interactive’s chief marketing officer, agrees. He says one of the biggest fears for many traditional agencies in the space is that they feel they have to create everything themselves. He points to companies such as Associated Content and Six Apart as fitting the new media mold. “Look at the emergence of what we’d call a media company today,” he says. “Is Yelp a media company?

Definitely. But how much of that content is created by Yelp?”

That means learning to play nicely with competitors – and knowing when not to. “The landscape that’s been created in the brand world is filled with tension,” Knox says. “Think about the traditional brand – you’ve got a PR agency, design agency, traditional agency, digital agency, social agency.

Throw a publisher in and it gets more complex.”

“The real opportunity is for people who have a mindset toward collaboration by nature,” he continues. “The ideal opportunity for marketers, brands, agencies, and everyone else is how can we each do what we’re really good at.”

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NOVEMBER 2010 | MARKETING

Shooting stars

Why celebrity endorsement strategies are still an essential marketing activity by Dean Crutchfield “

E

verybody lives by selling something,” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island. Agents, chief marketing officers (CMOs), and dealmakers will always get starry eyed around the big names of “celebrity” because brands love endorsements, and consumers buy into “celebrity.”

Questions remain, however, as to whether the international obloquy related to the Tiger Woods crisis dealt a devastating blow to celebrity endorsement. In light of the risks, is the celebrity endorsement deal still worth it?

Companies know there’s risk when they choose a celebrity endorsement approach. Many have learned the hard way that it becomes a reflection of themselves; just ask Coca-Cola, with its speedy capitulation of its Michael Vick sponsorship. If you put a face to a name, it’s more likely you’ll remember it, and marketers

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know the same goes with hitching celebrities to their brands.

Recent studies of hundreds of endorsements have indicated that sales for some brands increased by up to 20 percent upon starting an endorsement deal. According to Anita Elberse, associate professor at Harvard Business School, some companies have seen their stock increase by 0.25 percent on the day the deal was announced.

There is, however, the issue of overexposure to consider. We receive more than 3,000 commercial images a day; our subconscious absorbs more than 150 images, with roughly 30 reaching our conscious mind. Therefore, practice has it that if you use a celebrity endorsement strategy you accelerate the potential for your brand to reach the conscious mind of the consumer, especially given research from PR firm Weber Shandwick that finds peer endorsement trumps advertising.

DECLINE AND FALL. So if word-of-mouth is the No. 1 purchase decision-maker, why are some CMOs displaying recalcitrance toward big names that can create so much brand buzz and peer recommendation? Are we witnessing the decline and fall of “celebrity”? It’s true that not every brand needs a celebrity – the star has to be relevant to the brand and the consumer. More importantly, if there were a face for every brand out there, it would be a calamity.

On the upside, celebrity endorsement has the power to instigate and inspire, enlighten and enrage, entertain and edify the consumer. Its inherent benefits are that it can be leveraged across multiple channel experiences (and potentially services), cuts through advertising clutter, creates a brand narrative and allows for channel-specific optimization.

Ultimately, celebrity endorsement is always worth investing in if you have the right person. It’s an

MARKETING | NOVEMBER 2010

expensive but easy option for companies, but it should be treated like a marriage with added creature comforts that make the partnership invaluable: The opportunity to create new markets and/or tap into an activation base of fans. Such was the strategy behind Patrick Dempsey’s Unscripted men’s perfume for Avon.

The ability to spark sales by enticing consumers to learn more about the brand. LeBron James is one of the top three paid athletes in the world and generates a brand halo.

The means to promote a unique, relevant, and sustainable brand attribute that might be hard to attain otherwise. Nike’s rapid success in the golf category was chiefly because players wanted to lay claim to the No.1 golfer in the world.

The option to build reciprocity into the partnership by supporting the celebrity endorser’s brand.

Lady Gaga knows how to sell, and business publications praise her business smarts as she masters social media and expands her brand beyond music.

The grounds for innovating the product or service offering. Rihanna’s “Umbrella” song hit big at the Grammys, and her designs for Totes’ umbrellas hit big at the retailer.

The challenge to a preconceived notion.

Givenchy used Justin Timberlake’s endorsement for the women’s perfume Play for Her. The collaboration that can make an impact on the business model of the partnership. A noteworthy example is Sean Combs taking 50 percent ownership of Diageo’s ailing grape vodka, Ciroc.

All are sound criteria for a celebrity endorsement strategy, but the split over the Tiger Woods affair conflicts with an otherwise inviolable marketing convention: using celebrities to market the offer instead of featuring the product or service’s value for consumers and the value that underpins their manufacture.

And what about the role and risks of social media? Celebrity endorsement is often stymied by constraints and contractual limitations; does leveraging social media represent the next evolution for celebrity endorsement and brand advocacy? Ninety five percent of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media, which can get the brand into the conversation because social media enables consumers to adopt new behaviors.

And CMOs need to incorporate these new behaviors into celebrity endorsement strategies because social networks make up marketing’s most powerful media: recommendation. Although fraught with danger, social media’s potential for making celebrity endorsement a multi-platform juggernaut rests not with what happens inside it, but what it makes occur outside.

Horror and probes over the past 18 months demonstrate that celebrity endorsement strategies are a scary, inherently unstable, but essential marketing activity, as brand share is too strong an incentive to keep celebrity endorsement down.

An estimated $50 billion is invested globally in corporate sponsorships and endorsements. While a majority of that is spent on sports marketing, celebrity plays a dynamic role.

WINNING FORMULA. Brands love endorsement and consumers love celebrity

THE POWER OF PROBLEMS. However, the machinations over value and values are the debate of the industry. The bottom line: The more problematic high-profile celebrity endorsers are, the better bargaining power CMOs have.

CMOs understand the value of owning celebrity endorsement and using it to bolster the customer relationship. They know that few brandbuilding strategies can deliver on the bottom line as much as celebrities, simply because the product will sell better. Newer forces are also fortuitously propping up the celebrity endorsement boom with B-, C- and reality TV-listers constantly seeking new ways to blur the lines between commercial and entertainment worlds. Even C-listers such as Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of Jersey Shore can lead to little marketing triumphs.

In the US, celebrities show up in more than 15 percent of total advertisements, according to Millward Brown, and the number is far higher in markets such as India (24 percent) and Taiwan (45 percent). So, before we shoot a golf ball through celebrity endorsements, let’s recognize that they’ve never gone out of vogue, nor will they, because the rewards of relying on an endorser can far outweigh the risks.

What we search for in celebrities is not so far from what we search for in our friends. The secret is never to trust an animal no matter how many legs it has.

– Dean Crutchfield is chief engagement officer at Method, a brand experience agency with offices in New York, San Francisco and London.

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©Getty/ Gallo Images

NOVEMBER 2010 | DIGITAL

Buying audience? Forget cookies Privacy issues aside, cookies have big limitations for advertisers by Michael Baker

T

he past several years have seen an explosion in online advertising inventory and audience fragmentation. Agencies have promised “disintermediation” of ad networks as ad exchanges and targeting technologies have advanced, bringing literally hundreds of data gatherers and other “audience brokers” into our business. With more agencies buying more inventory than ever before through audience-targeting technologies, it’s time for advertisers to think critically about whether and how this trend helps them understand and engage digital consumers.

As the media “context” espoused by publishers wanes in importance, cookie-based “audience segments” and user profiles have become more vital. While this raises privacy concerns, brand buyers are more concerned with other key limitations of audience buying based on cookies.

Scale problems. Ever wonder why all the examples you see about data buying are about the “Auto Intenders” segment? It’s because this is one of the few cookie-based segments with enough scale to be interesting. Similarly, re-targeting website visitors, while effective, doesn’t help a brand discover and convert new customers.

Lack of competitive advantage. Cookie-based audiences are available to all media buyers, and the same data is often sold to many competitors.

So not only is the advertiser failing to strategically differentiate, but worse; it’s paying an inflated cost of media due to competitive bidding on ad exchanges for a limited number of impressions attached to the same cookie list. Indeed, research indicates a 300 percent cost of media increase on average for cookie-based audience buys (in addition to the cost of data).

Lost insights. The current agency “trading desk” focus on buying cookie lists is undermining the

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ability to deliver novel insights about a client’s consumers – a core problem. Cookie myopia misses the importance of creative, media context, and, moreover, the unique mix of all of these elements that cause a consumer to engage with a brand.

WE DON’T NEED PERSONAL DATA. It’s clear that some consumers are creeped out by the compilation of data profiles that come so close to one’s actual persona. So, why do we persist? Think about it – we don’t really want the profiles, do we?

What we want is the best way to find prospective customers – the ones who might actually want to buy our products. So why don’t more technologies use the data coming from actual responses to send ads to the right people without caring who they are?

At our company we call this “thin” data; not the thicker, cookie-based data that others deal in, but the simple impression-level ad data that comes “for free” when a brand advertises. This data includes seemingly low-value information, such as the time, place, and creative content of an ad. But it all ties to downstream engagement (or lack thereof) between the consumer and the brand. And therein lies the magic: The true opportunity for data-driven advertising comes from precise measurement and processing of a brand’s own ad media and website data. We obsess about “one-to-one marketing,” but in reality there are discernible “performance patterns” that small clusters of consumers reliably repeat.

PROCESSING SOLUTIONS. This industry needs data measurement and processing solutions that work across platforms, not just display, but mobile, video, and eventually Internet Protocol Television. I think

we can all agree that this data solution won’t be based on a persistent, cross-channel cookie. Of course, cookie-based profiles don’t play much of a role in emerging digital channels such as mobile.

It may not seem like it to audience buyers today, but this might be great news for us all.

The cookie enabled advertisers and publishers to more effectively measure digital advertising and it enabled individuals to enjoy a better user experience on the sites they visited. But cookies were not designed to do what today’s audiencetargeting industry demands. Demand-side platforms (DSPs) have become a sexy segment in the past few years because of the scale they give buyers.

Imagine how much more value could be derived from DSPs if the scale wasn’t just about the “push” transaction of buying an audience segment, but was also about the “pull” insights gleaned across multiple media – media in which cookies-based profiles play no role.

Every advertising study I’ve seen recently points to optimization based on creative being far more effective than optimization based on demographic. That kind of optimization requires the kind of scale that only the most modern DSP technology can provide. So, while you’re welcome to enjoy that 30 percent lift in your 0.05 percent click-through rate, Mr. Profile-Buyer, we’ll be busy building the cross-media ecosystem that we’ll all be calling digital media sooner than you think.

– Michael Baker is CEO and co-founder of DataXu. Prior to that, he was vice-president at Nokia, where he created and ran Nokia Interactive after its acquisition of Enpocket in 2007. He was a partner at GrandBanks Capital, and an executive vice-president at Engage.

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NOVEMBER 2010 | TELEVISION

In-store TV still fighting for attention Why a little something called “the taint” still matters by Jack Neff

B

ob Wolinsky calls it “the taint.” He means the residue of doubt spawned by decades of in-store TV ventures that never delivered as planned, despite the seemingly unbeatable premise of putting TV ads in front of shoppers just as they’re deciding whether to buy.

Wolinsky heads the latest foray into in-store TV, Automated Services, which was set to launch a test of its 3GTV network in nine Bloom stores around Washington DC last month. But, he acknowledges, “the taint is so devastating that it makes it very difficult to engage someone in an open conversation” about in-store TV. He believes he’s solved problems that dogged prior in-store TV ventures. His solutions include a yet-to-be-revealed content approach he likens to “short-attention-span theater,” cheaper technology for wiring stores, and systems that ensure ads actually get delivered to screens and monitor shopper flow through the store.

But “the taint” has caught up to bigger- and better-funded players than Wolinsky. While most in the industry blame poor execution, some are questioning the concept.

The biggest and most recent bold plan came two years ago, when behemoth Walmart joined its longtime in-store TV partner PRN, analytics firm

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DS-IQ, and media shop Starcom MediaVest Group to launch the Walmart Smart Network.

The new network addressed prior shortcomings with Walmart TV by building screens directly into end-cap displays, customizing messages by store and section, measuring response, and refining messages based on sales.

Walmart expected to deploy the upgraded network in all of its stores by early this year. That didn’t happen, and it’s not yet clear when it will.

SHORT SELL. A spokeswoman for Walmart says, in a statement, that the network operates in 1,200 stores (well under the 2,700 targeted two years ago) and continues to be installed in new ones.

She adds that the retailer is “encouraged by increasing advertiser interest.” Walmart realizes in-store messages need to be shorter and focused on finding new products. It is focusing on such innovations as weather-triggered campaigns, mobile integrations, and Spanish-language ads, she says, adding, “We are seeing well-designed and thoughtful campaigns successfully drive and lift impressions.”

Late last year the parent company of PRN, Technocolor, the primary operator of the Walmart

Smart Network and Walmart’s older in-store TV network, among those at several other retailers, filed for bankruptcy. Although PRN wasn’t apparently the cause, Paris-based Technicolor has been trying to sell the unit as part of its restructuring plan after emerging from bankruptcy earlier this year. But PRN CEO Richard Fisher says his business has posted a profit consistently for 10 years, including the first half of this year.

He says only Walmart can say why the Smart Network has rolled out slower than planned, but notes many new ventures have been effected by the recession, which intensified just as the Smart Network was launching. He blames delays in selling PRN on Technicolor’s determination to get fair value.

Fisher acknowledges in-store TV’s image problem, but has a different take on “the taint.”

The perception of failure has been fueled, he says, by startups – he counts about a dozen – that burned through venture capital and investor patience long before they could reach the scale needed to be meaningful to national advertisers.

That’s not PRN’s problem, Fisher says. With 206 million monthly consumers reached, according to Nielsen data, it’s bigger than the next nine in-store video players combined.

TELEVISION | NOVEMBER 2010

WHAT’S IN A NAME? Another problem is the very term “in-store TV,” Fisher says. Although PRN has used it in the past, he prefers “retail media,” a reflection that it’s not about conventional TV commercials in store and can incorporate other types of digital communication.

Peter Hoyt, executive director of the In-Store Marketing Institute trade group, pegs in-store TV’s failure on two reasons. First, wiring any retailer for TV is expensive, and the investment costs are likely to be too steep to be recouped by advertising sales.

Second, he says, “Nobody’s really cracked the code on the content. Nobody ever went to a store to watch a commercial, so if you’re looking to put a 15- or 30-second spot on your in-store TV, it will fail.”

PRN and others have run ads ranging from two to eight seconds for in-store TV, but they’re not without creative challenges. The obstacles that make 15-second ads difficult get bigger still when cutting the time down even more.

At best, marketers can convey a quick offer with the time they have on TV in store, says a longtime shopper-marketing-agency executive, and such messages can be conveyed cheaper through circulars or shelf ads.

Could it just be that in-store TV, good as it always sounded, is a bad idea?

Hoyt finds it “very telling” that News Corp. chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch, who knows plenty about TV, owning the largest US in-store media network, NewsAmerica Marketing, has never pushed in-store TV. He does, however, see it working under the right circumstances. Look at Checkout TV (another PRN product) and Gas Station TV at pumps in the US. Both rely on longer-form ads and temporarily

KIOSK AND MAKE UP. EZ Face shows consumers what cosmetics would look like on them captive audiences, although they work much more like in-home TV and aren’t positioned to drive many impulse sales, he says.

TEMPTING TECHNOLOGY. Wolinsky is banking on better execution to make the difference.

Beyond TV, in-store digital applications are growing in number and, apparently, impact.

Carmen Bauza, Walmart’s vice-president and divisional merchandise manager of beauty, spoke glowingly recently at the HBA Global Expo in New York about EZFace, a digital kiosk now used

in about 50 Walmart stores that photographs a woman’s face, then shows simulations of it with various cosmetics shades.

Stop & Shop has had success with Modiv handheld units that work with loyalty-card data to generate offers and streamline checkouts by letting customers scan their own purchases in the aisles. And a source familiar with the matter says Modiv is preparing to launch an iPhone app that can do the same thing.

Meanwhile, Hoyt contends the bulk of shopper marketing tech development today is screens on shoppers’ mobile phone devices, not in-store TV.

outdoor ads are trying to play an integrated part in contextually relevant campaigns. Witness Clear Channel’s recent rollout of dynamic digital partnerships with advertisers such as E! News and the Los Angeles Times, both of which used billboards to broadcast real-time headlines to drive traffic to their respective newscasts and websites. More recently, Baton Rouge-based Lamar Advertising held a pro-bono campaign alerting consumers along the Gulf Coast to a toll-free hotline

to report fraudulent claims associated with the oil-spill recovery.

Time-sensitive marketers such as retailers, local political candidates and movie studios have also upped their investment in the medium this year to ensure their ads get seen in time – in many cases a strategic shift away from TV dollars, as more and more ads get skipped by DVRs. Programming the millions of screens that have cropped up in every imaginable location has been no easy task. But companies such as IndoorDirect, Gas Station TV, and Reach Media Group, are seeking to change that, with key partnerships with publishers such as MTV, The New York Times, and others to keep consumers engaged in the most remote locations. Über-producer Mark Burnett recently partnered with independent production company Vimby to develop original content for out-of-home screens, while Starbucks has announced the addition of content from iTunes, SnagFilms, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal to its in-store digital network later this fall.

BILLBOARDS AND BYTES Digital out-of-home today by Andrew Hampp There’s a lot more to outdoor these days than just billboards. Although traditional outdoor is in the midst of its first quarterly rebound since 2008, growing 3.6 percent to $1.9 billion in the second quarter of 2010, its video-based counterpart is picking up some major steam, too.

Digital out-of-home is any place-based video screen where consumers can view unique content and ads, from grocery stores to taxicabs to gas stations and all locations in between.

PQ Media valued the size of the sector in the US at $1.8 billion in 2009 (compared to traditional outdoor’s $5.9 billion), while Veronis Suhler Stevenson pegged it closer to $2.5 billion once in-cinema ads and digital billboards were factored in. Organizations such as the Outdoor Advertising Association of America and the Digital Place-Based Advertising Association continue to monitor the revenues and trends of each industry.

As the advent of mobile and app-based advertising makes everything about location,

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NOVEMBER 2010 | MEDIA

Delivering the right message

Creative and strategy are just as important as the media means by which they are dispensed, and often have a bigger sales impact by Jack Neff

B

laming the messenger, as opposed to the message, has a time-honored history, but perhaps nowhere more than in marketing, where blame or credit for campaign success has focused increasingly on media plans in recent years as marketers use increasingly sophisticated analytics.

But creative can have a much bigger impact on effectiveness and sales than media.

It’s no wonder media gets lots of scrutiny. It’s the last stage of the process, and thus the proximate cause of the results, and the biggest outlay in most marketing budgets. Yet a large and growing body of evidence points to advertising messages and the strategy behind them playing at least as much of a role in marketing success as the media plans that carry them.

The “blame the media” focus recently became clear to Lakish Hatalkar, who heads integrated communications planning, package design, and innovation for Novartis Consumer Health. It was while he was organizing a panel he had been asked to moderate on marketing accountability for a meeting of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association.

“We were only talking about media,” he says.

“If you go to almost any marketing accountability session, they all talk about things such as TV versus print versus digital and what’s the right mix. It’s like the tail wagging the dog. This should not just be about media choices.”

What marketers say, and whom they try to say it to – the creative and strategy – are at least as important as how they say it. That’s how Hatalkar, and the Procter & Gamble Co. marketing framework he grew up with and helped develop, see things.

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QUANTIFICATION QUANDRY. The creative often has a far bigger impact on sales than the media choices, says Gregg Ambach, the managing director of Analytic Partners in Cincinnati, boasting more than two decades in marketing analytics.

One problem is that the creative impact on sales is often harder to quantify, analyze, and predict.

“You can do more to move the needle from an effectiveness standpoint with creative than anything else,” Ambach says. “The media mix may have a bigger effect on efficiency – on getting the results at a lower cost,” he says. “But in terms of how big the volume bump is, creative is going to be the single biggest change you tend to see from one campaign or one piece of advertising to the next.”

But unless marketers run their ads in such a way as to test the creative in the market – different ads in different geographies, for example – it’s hard for marketing-mix models to pick up the difference in impact from different creative. One way to try is by factoring copy test scores into the analysis, but that poses problems too, Ambach says.

“There is a relationship between copy testing and in-market performance,” he says, “but as a former boss of mine put it, it’s a relationship you want to squint at, not stare at.”

Another factor that may make marketers scrutinize media more closely than the creative, he says, is that they have a lot more personally invested in the creative. The marketer either developed the strategic brief, approved the creative or both, he says, but is less likely to have developed the media plan.

Research based on marketing-mix modeling actually suggests the importance of creative relative to media has risen over time, says Mike Hess, executive vice-president of research, marketing science, and consumer insights at media agency Carat. He points to research led by Wharton Professor Len Lodish revisiting in-market advertising test results from Symphony IRI, which indicate the role of strong creative, as measured by copy test scores, was actually greater in 2007 than in 1995.

CHANGING TIMES. But one reason marketers are more likely to focus on media is that a lot more has changed there than with creative. What worked as an advertising message hasn’t changed nearly so much in the past 15 or 20 years as the media landscape, Hess says. “There used to be four or five touch points. Now there are more like 25 or 35.”

Still, Sunny Garga, principal of MPhasize Analytics, believes the accountability focus now is swinging away from media and toward creative.

“I think the pendulum had shifted too much to media and media mix,” he says. “What’s really driving this [shift back toward creative focus] is that clients are realizing that not all creative fits all media, that creative has to fit the media.”

He says the analytics and data in models have improved to the point that they’re better able to separate impact from creative and media than before, and he’s increasingly encouraging clients who have copy test scores to make them available to feed into the analysis.

0700-00002 EUROSPORT ARABIA-B2B_ads_Comunicate 33x24_Q.ai

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NOVEMBER 2010 | DIGITAL

Finger on the button

Brands such as Levi’s and Urban Outfitters are leading the way, using clicks of approval to tailor marketing by Kunur Patel

F

acebook has been collecting thumbs up on everything from Levi’s black denim leggings to Sarah Palin videos since April. But where do all those clicks of approval go? And when are brands going to benefit?

When the social network launched its open graph and “like” buttons that could be seeded anywhere across the Internet, it began to layer brand and media preferences on to its more than half a billion user profiles. At the time of the announcement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg evangelized about a Web that could morph to suit individual users’ likes and social networks.

In exchange for hosting like buttons and spreading the gospel, brands and publishers could gain access to approving users’ Facebook feeds, but not much else – until recently. Now, some new programs from the likes of shopping search engine TheFind and retailer Urban Outfitters point to a future where brands can actually flip the pipe to use all that data to personalize their own websites.

TheFind recently launched a search option where users could refine searches based on stores and brands they’ve liked elsewhere on the Internet.

After logging in with Facebook credentials and searching for products, users can visit a “Shop Like Me” tab to see results only from stores or brands they’ve liked elsewhere. Facebook Like lets the site tailor search results to user preferences without having to collect that information itself, says Siva Kumar, CEO of TheFind, which had 13.7 million unique visitors in July, according to marketing research firm ComScore.

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Having users list their preferences at TheFind is “a lot of work for people,” he says. “We looked at likes, and what is attractive is that there are 500 million users who have done a lot of that already.”

Two million of Facebook’s users, for example, have liked Nike, 1.6 million have liked Walmart, and 1.2 million have liked Best Buy. “Facebook is becoming the loyalty card of the Internet, just like your key chain,” says Tom Wentworth, vice-president of Web solutions for technology company Ektron, which is developing products for corporate websites to tailor visits based on the user’s social graph. Wentworth says Home Depot is considering Ektron’s technology to better send its consumers down the paths that suit their interests.

BOHEMIAN? LIKE ME. Levi Strauss integrated Facebook likes into its website shortly after the open graph launched. Rather than having consumers simply like the brand, users can like individual products and styles of jeans. There’s also a friends search tab, where, once signed in with your Facebook login, you can see all the jeans your friends have liked.

But Zuckerberg’s vision of a personal Web doesn’t come without hurdles. Levi’s likes for individual products took a lot of custom-designed technological tinkering – it wasn’t as simple as dropping the thumbs up in a line of code. Bookseller Borders has also implemented likes for individual titles on its site, and Urban Outfitters

recently began to rank products based on likes, displaying the most thumbs-upped products first.

But most use of the feature still focuses on affinity for the overall brand, as opposed to distinct products or services.

“Adding the buttons is easy,” says Kumar.

“But the second part is using that information for a better experience, and very few sites have done that.”

Beyond search, one Facebook software firm, Vitrue, is building tools to let marketers send distinct messages to its fans based on their likes and preferences. For example, it hopes to slice and dice Levi’s fans based on products they’ve liked to serve legging coupons to legging likers, rather than all sales and promotions to all likers.

“The hurdle with large brands is one more of coordination between the marketing department and the IT department,” says Vitrue’s Bradford.

“Marketing owns the Facebook pages and, in many cases, IT owns the website.”

There’s also the question of consumer adoption – do people think of likes as a way to catalog the boots they loved in Vogue, when we’re used to using the like button to applaud Facebook updates on promotions at work or changed relationship statuses? Also, what happens when likes paint us into corners that limit our Web surfing?

“It’s about not scaring people, but the other area to watch out for is: If you personalize too much, it can be dangerous,” says Ektron’s Wentworth.

“You don’t want to make premature assumptions about somebody.”

NOVEMBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

Q&A

Energy efficient

Why OMG EMEA boss Colin Gottlieb is looking to the Middle East for the spark to ignite his network

by Rania Habib

C

olin Gottlieb, CEO of Omnicom Media Group (OMG) EMEA (Europe, the Middle Eastand Africa), was in Dubai last month for a visit to the OMG offices in Dubai Media City.

Communicate sat with Gottlieb to chat social media, talent, and research.

What has brought you to the Middle East on this trip?

I am here because the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are extremely important within my region, because the team is outstanding, and because [regional managing director of OMG] Elie Khouri is a good friend. So there are lots of good reasons.

I make it my business to go to specific places; I’m going in and out of markets the whole time, predominantly on client work. But there are a few areas that I deliberately look to go to at least twice a year, and this is one of them.

It’s a good chance to meet the team, and there is a lot of best practice here.

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How important is the MENA region, and why?

Before autumn 2009, MENA was important in terms of the energy from the region – especially from the Arabian Gulf. Since 2008 it has taken on an even bigger importance, because there was clearly a challenge in 2009 for everybody. The importance of the Middle East and North Africa for us has just increased and increased. In 2009, we opened our office in Morocco, which is doing very well. Egypt is also very important. Prior to 2008, the region was young, fast, and growing.

Now, because of the economic situation, it has taken on an even bigger role.

In the context of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the team here [handling MENA] is now effectively sitting alongside the UK and Germany in terms of size and importance.

Will the region remain important?

Yes, definitely. I mean, what keeps up our GDP growth here (although by comparison to what it was before, that growth is low now) is the fact

DEPARTMENTS | NOVEMBER 2010

that the region is still growing and there is still energy. The biggest challenge for marketers – and I’m including agencies – is growth. How do you drive growth? In a number of markets, it is extremely difficult to drive growth.

So, not surprisingly, a lot of our clients are also looking at this region, and everybody is coming to the Middle East. Everybody. The region is on everybody’s radar, so I am lucky that we’ve got Elie, the team, and some great people.

They’re smart, they’re young, they’re hungry, and they’re opinionated; it’s great.

What are the main changes you’ve noticed in the region over the past couple of years?

Some things have shifted, other things haven’t.

A good thing is that there is now a growing sense of maturity, because of the tough times. When I first came here in 2005, it was just amazing – fireworks. Now there is more of a mature outlook in terms of the development of the work, the thinking behind it, and the demands that clients are making.

Also, there’s an obvious digital trend. We are in a region that has 190 percent penetration of mobile phones. There is so much going on, especially in the mobile ecosystem. I think the Middle East is unique in that respect.

An area that is not changing as fast is the old issue of measurement. I still think it’s remarkable that in terms of television audience recording, the region is obviously still way behind. There are still good reasons for that. (Well, I’m being somewhat ironic when I say “good.”)

The incredibly powerful youth has gone through a major growing-up phase, and the next three to five years in the Middle East present an astonishing opportunity. There’s just something about the pull of this region. God willing, as long as things remain stable generally, there will be a phase when the young adults start to become even more powerful than they are now.

The social media and digital teams are now two separate entities at OMD. Tell us a little about that.

We’ve now got a social media team here of just under 10 people, and they are doing some amazing stuff.

We have Dimitri [Metaxas, group director at OMD Digital], who set this up, who is very good, and who is an absolutely integral part of the team. What I like about the way he drives it, along with his whole management base, is that they look at the beginning of a trend and just go for it. In the case of social media, the level of practical expertise required for that is different from search and different from display.

I think it was typical of the team here to say, “It’s highly specialist, it’s a big opportunity, it’s a need; let’s have a dedicated team.”

It’s doing really, really well. Everything the team does is probably 15 percent faster than anybody else. That’s what I mean by a sense of maturity.

Rather than just saying, “We’re growing at 6 or 12 percent,” or whatever, there is a sense of, “We’ve now got scale, we’ve now got markets.”

BRIGHT OUTOOK. Gottlieb says the region presents an “astonishing opportunity” for OMG’s clients OMD was recently ranked the top EMEA and global media brand by Research Company Evaluating the Media Agency Industry, and was voted the MENA Cristal Agency of the Year in 2010. How do you feel about that?

It makes my job easier, to be honest. I’m happy and I’m relieved. None of this is rocket science, is it? There’s a phrase created by someone else, but I’m happy to steal it: “freedom in the framework.” When I first heard that, I said that’s exactly it; that is absolutely how we function.

The framework is clear: I completely trust Elie, and I completely trust the team. Elie and I have known each other for the best part of 10 years so if there’s anything he wants to check, he’ll call me first, but it’s that freedom that allows the team to go and do stuff. And if they do

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NOVEMBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

THE UGLY TOOTH. Earlier this year, an OMD media stunt saw snacks wandering Dubai for the agency’s chewing gum client, Wrigley’s stuff, it’s normally good stuff, it wins awards, and it wins new clients.

The single biggest, most important thing is talent. If you are here, you are part of a community. Not only is it good to work for OMD or PHD [OMG’s two media shops] because of fame or success, but also because it’s a really good place to work. There’s a lot of freedom, a very clear strategy, and trust, which is how we keep it going. It’s down to the people.

DIMITRI METAXAS. Group director, OMD Digital

ELIE KHOURI. Regional managing director, OMG

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OMG has a research company, Integral. How valuable is that when there are so many third-party research companies that could do that kind of work for you?

I am not a researcher at heart. I am a strategist. I like creating stuff. So what I want from research is for it to give me insights, because from the insights I can create stuff. Creativity for me is putting two abstract things together – and what you get from that you can’t get from a book or set of tables, and that is what we are selling.

Research, for me, is an extremely important means to an end. If I said to you, “The Middle East is one thing,” you’d look at me and ask, “Is he serious? The Middle East is anything but one thing.” It’s the same for research. There are so many different facets to research: whether it’s qualitative or quantitative, whether it’s audience measurement, whether it’s to do with brand tracking, etcetera.

Research is a huge palette of different stuff.

We are trying to create real nuggets of insight so planners, or anybody who wants to create anything, can look at it and say, “Ah, OK, I understand it.” For me, what’s so important

about having an in-house research facility is that it gives us the opportunity to tailor specific pieces of research.

If you look in-depth at third-party research, the research can be flawed. If you don’t have the specialty in-house, you’re blind. You’re just taking a set of statistics that a third-party is producing.

Now, if you are looking at those statistics and they are absolutely sound and robust, fantastic.

But that is just going to be one sliver of research.

If you’re advising a client in communications, you have to have the best in-house research facility. You can’t just Google it.

We should have people in-house to look at all forms of research and be able to give our teams fantastic nuggets of information from which to then drive strategy. Research for us is fundamentally vital because it powers people who will hopefully have the time and skills to look at the information and say, “I’ve got an idea, I’ve got an absolutely shit-kicking idea,” and then rush to the client with a considered, well-argued, robust proposition. So the client will sit there and say, “Fantastic, that’s what I paid for. I’m delighted.”

For us, that is vitally important. And I think it is vitally important for a lot of our major competitors; it’s not totally unique. What’s interesting about what’s been created here with Integral is that it is a separate company. During a presentation this morning, I was so impressed with Integral’s capabilities that next week in New York, I’m going to take it as best practice and present it to the board meeting. It’s really good stuff.

GCC

Levant

OTHERS

SENIOR DESIGNER

PR COMMUNICATIONS MGR

ART DIRECTOR

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent artwork skills Strong Typography skills Strong communication skills

Qualification: Degree in Marketing Experience: 4+ years Experience Skills: Proficient in MS-Office Strong communication skills Excellent command of English

Qualification: Degree in Commercial Arts Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong creative skills Strong leadership skills

Job Reference:JB1571670

Job Reference:JB1356323

Job Reference:JB1572156

MEDIA EXECUTIVE

JOURNALIST

SENIOR PRODUCER

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3 - 5 years Experience Skills: Proficient in MS-Office Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English & Arabic

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 4+ year Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English & Arabic Strong experience in a similar role

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 5+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent experience in a similar role Strong teamwork skills

Job Reference:JB1571664

Job Reference:JB1573566

Job Reference:JB1571770

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

HEAD OF TV PRODUCTION

DIGITAL ACCOUNT MANAGER

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 4 years Experience Skills: Strong creative skills Excellent communication skills Excellent networking skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 7+ years Experience Skills: Proficient in MS-Office Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English & Arabic

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3 - 5 year Experience Skills: Excellent command of English & Arabic Good communication skills Excellent analytical skills

Job Reference:JB1573091

Job Reference:JB1571653

Job Reference:JB1556571

WEB SR. DESIGNER

COMMUNICATION MGR

CONFERENCE SPECIALIST

Qualification: Degree in Journalism Experience: 5 - 6 years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Proficient in Illustrator & Photoshop Strong experience in a similar role

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent command of English & Arabic Excellent communication skills Ability to work under pressure

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 5 years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong organizational skills Proficient in MS-Office

Job Reference:JB1573089

Job Reference:JB1001106

Job Reference:JB1549644

JUNIOR PR EXECUTIVE

3D MAX MODELER

COUNTRY MANAGER

Qualification: Degree in Public Relations Experience: 2+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Proficient in MS-Office Strong command of English & Arabic

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 2+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong computer skills Strong creative skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 4 - 5 years Experience Skills: Excellent leadership skills Excellent communication skills Ability to work under pressure

Job Reference:JB579096

Job Reference:JB1556568

Job Reference:JB1573151

Brand Central (KSA)

Vertical Media Services (KSA)

Al Jazeera English Channel (Qatar)

O2 Marketing Communications (UAE)

MS&L (UAE)

S A D D A Marketing & Business Solutions (Jordan)

Y & R (Egypt)

Tameem Group of Companies (Lebanon)

M&C Saatchi MENA (Lebanon)

Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc (USA)

Wunderman (Egypt)

Leo Burnett (Lebanon)

UNITECH (Lebanon)

IDC Middle East & Africa (Morocco)

Fawaz Al-Hokair Group (Kazakhstan)

How to apply to jobs on Bayt.com 1.

2.

3.

4.

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

GCC

Levant

OTHERS

SENIOR DESIGNER

PR COMMUNICATIONS MGR

ART DIRECTOR

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent artwork skills Strong Typography skills Strong communication skills

Qualification: Degree in Marketing Experience: 4+ years Experience Skills: Proficient in MS-Office Strong communication skills Excellent command of English

Qualification: Degree in Commercial Arts Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong creative skills Strong leadership skills

Job Reference:JB1571670

Job Reference:JB1356323

Job Reference:JB1572156

MEDIA EXECUTIVE

JOURNALIST

SENIOR PRODUCER

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3 - 5 years Experience Skills: Proficient in MS-Office Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English & Arabic

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 4+ year Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English & Arabic Strong experience in a similar role

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 5+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Excellent experience in a similar role Strong teamwork skills

Job Reference:JB1571664

Job Reference:JB1573566

Job Reference:JB1571770

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

HEAD OF TV PRODUCTION

DIGITAL ACCOUNT MANAGER

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 4 years Experience Skills: Strong creative skills Excellent communication skills Excellent networking skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 7+ years Experience Skills: Proficient in MS-Office Excellent communication skills Excellent command of English & Arabic

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3 - 5 year Experience Skills: Excellent command of English & Arabic Good communication skills Excellent analytical skills

Job Reference:JB1573091

Job Reference:JB1571653

Job Reference:JB1556571

WEB SR. DESIGNER

COMMUNICATION MGR

CONFERENCE SPECIALIST

Qualification: Degree in Journalism Experience: 5 - 6 years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Proficient in Illustrator & Photoshop Strong experience in a similar role

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 3+ years Experience Skills: Excellent command of English & Arabic Excellent communication skills Ability to work under pressure

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 5 years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong organizational skills Proficient in MS-Office

Job Reference:JB1573089

Job Reference:JB1001106

Job Reference:JB1549644

JUNIOR PR EXECUTIVE

3D MAX MODELER

COUNTRY MANAGER

Qualification: Degree in Public Relations Experience: 2+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Proficient in MS-Office Strong command of English & Arabic

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 2+ years Experience Skills: Excellent communication skills Strong computer skills Strong creative skills

Qualification: Degree in relevant discipline Experience: 4 - 5 years Experience Skills: Excellent leadership skills Excellent communication skills Ability to work under pressure

Job Reference:JB579096

Job Reference:JB1556568

Job Reference:JB1573151

Brand Central (KSA)

Vertical Media Services (KSA)

Al Jazeera English Channel (Qatar)

O2 Marketing Communications (UAE)

MS&L (UAE)

S A D D A Marketing & Business Solutions (Jordan)

Y & R (Egypt)

Tameem Group of Companies (Lebanon)

M&C Saatchi MENA (Lebanon)

Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc (USA)

Wunderman (Egypt)

Leo Burnett (Lebanon)

UNITECH (Lebanon)

IDC Middle East & Africa (Morocco)

Fawaz Al-Hokair Group (Kazakhstan)

How to apply to jobs on Bayt.com 1.

2.

3.

4.

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

NOVEMBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

Regional Work

Everything happens at Once.

Client: Once. Advertising Agency: Spirit. Location: Beirut.

Creative Director: Maya Saab. Senior Art Director: Wissam El Karout.

It just fits.

Client: TCT Express Services. Advertising Agency: Bold, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Art Director: Mohamad Baalbaki. 3D Artist: Ecleposs. Retoucher: Mohamad Baalbaki.

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

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NOVEMBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

International Work

Ambi Pur Bathroom.

Advertising Agency: Jung von Matt Matt, Stuttgart, Germany. Creative Directors: Armin Jochum, Fabian Frese.

Art Director: Nicole Grรถzinger. Copywriter: Oliver Flohrs. Photographer: Attila Hartwig.

The Simpsons Movie.

Creatives: Gabriel Queiroz, Ricardo Balbin.

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

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DEPARTMENTS | NOVEMBER 2010

International Work

IBM: Smarter planet.

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy, Paris, France. Creative Director: Susan Westre. Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Ginevra Capece.

Associate Creative Director/Copywriter: Fergus O’Hare. Client Account Director: Suzanne Assaf. Agency Account Directors: Kim Ball, Ben Messiaen. Graphic Designer/Illustrator: Noma Bar. Illustrator: Tanya Holbrook. Typographer: Sid Tomkinst.

The new Audi A1. A big idea condensed.

Advertising Agency: BBH London, UK. Creative Directors: Kevin Stark, Nick Kidney.

Art Directors: Mark Reddy, Adrian Rossi. Copywriter: Alex Grieve. Designer/Illustrator: Rich Kennedy.

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

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NOVEMBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

International Work

For little monsters with big imaginations.

Advertising Agency: BBH Asia Pacific, Singapore. Executive Regional Creative Director: Steve Elrick.

Art Director: Eirma Webster. Copywriter: Angie Featherstone. Photographer: Xuan Ong, Groovy Studio.

Lego.

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett, Moscow. Art Directors: Arina Avdeeva, Rodrigo Linhares.

Creative Director: Mikhail Kudashkin. Designer: Dmiry Jakovlev. Illustration: Ninjafilms. Art Director: Sergio Lobo.

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

80 I Communicate

NOVEMBER 2010 | OFF THE RECORD

The Dish Literally watch “After surrendering the first set tamely, Pakistan showed their tenacity to stay in contention by leading for a major part of the second before being literally pipped at the net Iran in a thrilling set 28-26.”

– We don’t know what Emirates 24-7 meant in this volleyball report, either.

Alone time We were flattered to receive an invite to a “GoSolo entrepreneurship workshop” to learn about earning money to fund a startup last month.

The people running it sound like they know what they are doing; the company “provides its clients with a range of quality, affordable services revolving around strategy and finance,” according to the invite.

And it is obviously keen to promote going it alone, hence the “GoSolo” workshop name.

So the title of the company should echo that lone-ranger spirit, right, promoting solitary success? It’s called Tandem.

Smiles ahead We often get requests for copies of our magazine. Sometimes those “requests” are more akin to demands.

So it’s always nice when someone flatters us before asking us to send him a Communicopy – as did the Saudi Arabia communications manager of a well-known energy drink.

“I hope everything is beautiful at your end,” his e-mail began. “I have in my hand now your beautiful and informative September issue of Communicate.”

We blushed like a schoolgirl and went running to send him a copy.

Flight of fancy This month’s award for stating the obvious in a press release goes to MCS Action on behalf of the Government of Sharjah’s Department of Civil Aviation. “Greater pilot training one of the keys to aviation safety,” apparently. Who would have thought?

Tech that We’ve been receiving a lot of e-mails of the less targeted variety from

82 I Communicate

someone called Ipan at something called The Market Wire recently. On the few occasions we’ve paused to read a line or two before hitting the junk button, we’ve noticed that a lot of the e-mails seem to be press releases about IT stuff we would never publish in Communicate. We wouldn’t publish it because a) that’s not what we cover; and b) we don’t understand it.

The headline, “Blue Zone selects DragonWave backhaul solution to enable quick, cost-effective WiMAX expansion,” for example, might as well be written in Klingon. Luckily the release then puts everything in layman’s terms for us.

“DragonWave Inc. (TSX: DWI) (NASDAQ: DRWI) a leading global supplier of packet microwave radio systems for mobile and access networks, today announced that The Blue Zone(tm), a fixed wireless provider in the Middle East and North America, has selected DragonWave’s Horizon Compact to enable quick, cost-effective WiMAX service expansion to business and residential customers across Jordan. The DragonWave solution will deliver low-latency microwave backhaul at speeds reaching 200 Mbps.”

Waha who?

We all love a bit of suspense. Don’t we? Waha Capital obviously thinks so. They sent us an invite last month “to attend a press conference where a major announcement on an international scale will be made.”

What could that be? We read on for clues. “Speakers at the press conference include Salam Rashid Al Noaimi, CEO, Waha Capital and Another CEO of a global company.”

So we’re pretty sure we know what that’s about, then.

Poet’s corner

The Inner Child Workshop in Theta is a new concept that I have put together to heal and integrate our Inner Children.

Based on my learnings from ThetaHealing(TM) and Inner Child courses that I have gained greatly from, this workshop has been created under divine guidance; with some additions/editing to clear with amazing speed...removing the myth/belief that healing takes time, and/or that we have so many Inner Children to clear and therefore it will take time.

The first workshop of Level 1 of this course last evening was a very healing one for all those that participated. … All must bring a blanket/sheet and a teddy bear or any soft toy.…

With our parents not really knowing, they helped to create this Inner Child. Society also helped with the creation. And most of us deny that there even exists such a part of us. When this child self is not allowed to be heard, or even acknowledged as being real, a false or co-dependent self emerges. We begin to live our lives as victims.

Then we have situations that arise in our lives in which we keep having unresolved emotional traumas. The gradual accumulation of unfinished mental and emotional business can lead to chronic anxiety, fear, confusion, emptiness and unhappiness.

I will be conducting a session and assisting you towards finding, clearing and healing at least 3 inner children that you have which you didn’t even know existed in Level 1.

Level 1 workshop will concentrate on the first seven years of your life, paying close attention towards clearing The Infant Self (0-2 yrs), The Toddler Self (2-5 yrs) and Pre-School Self (5-7 yrs).

Level 2 workshop will concentrate on the second seven years of your life.

– From an invite Communicate is still baffled to have received.

Hard sell It’s hard to keep newspaper sales up, and to ensure titles perform at their best. UAE daily 7 Days is doubtless as aware of that fact as anyone.

So its website description seems to have taken on a novel approach to making sure the title can rise to the stiff challenges facing the industry.

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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