Communicate | Oct 2010

The marketing and advertising resource • October 2010 • Issue N° 70 • www.communicate.ae Hello operator: Weber Shandwick’s Andreas Keller on the BlackBerry Page 52 ban’s PR

ARAC and roll: TNS’s Stuart CampbellMorris on selling to Saudi women Page 60

Hough’s that: Memac Ogilvy Dubai appoints new executive creative Page 16 ­director

Review Bank to basics

Dubai Islamic Bank’s “The Man who Gave” is mercifully devoid of crescent moons. It’s still got a ­Ramadan vibe to it – and even its creators don’t claim it’s cliché-free (Page 68) – but it looks great.

branding Medical report

Omnia Middle East’s Matthew ­Ranson talks us through the vital signs that show if a health care brand is alive and kicking. And he tells us what medicine marketers can deliver if their medical brands (Page 64) are diagnosed as dire.

Research Polling in the aisles

Mindshare’s large-scale Out-OfHome Aptitude survey finds that not all demographics are created equal in Saudi Arabia, and that sometimes it makes more sense to focus on consumers’ “passion points” than on their age and gender. (Page 38)

Campaign Eye on the mall

location, location,

location (Page 74)

New technology means brands can know exactly where you are. We see how marketers are using that knowledge

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A MediaquestCorp publication Qatar.................... QR 15 Saudi Arabia......... SR 15 Switzerland........... SFR 8

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

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR | OCTOBER 2010

Look who’s stalking S

talking used to be so tricky. First you’d have to engineer a meeting – through buying a drink in a bar, walking a borrowed dog round the same park, or perhaps driving into a woman’s car to get her insurance details, address and phone number.

Then there were all the tools you’d need: binoculars, disguises, night-vision goggles, and so on. You’d need to plan, to make sure you were in position when she left the house, or lurking in the bushes when her class finished.

Even so, there were so many ways women can lose a concerned admirer. They can get on buses, blend into crowds, take out court orders, spray mace. It was tough.

But social networking has made a stalker’s life easier.

You can see who Milly’s had round for Christmas dinner, you can check out the registration plate of Molly’s new Audi, you can see Mandy’s holiday pictures from Spain.

And location-based marketing has brought us closer still. Thank you, Foursquare. Milly is unwrapping her presents at home; Molly is at the Audi dealership; Austyn is hiding a telephoto lens in Magaluf.

The same technology has made it easier for marketers

to go after their consumers, and it’s the subject of our cover story.

Like stalkers’ prey push predators away, so consumers keep ignoring marketing.

They just don’t get it, do they? Brands can do so much for consumers, if only the consumers would just let them in. But you can’t force someone to love you; you can only hound them till they panic and submit.

That’s why the communications industry exists: to make consumers understand how much they love brands, how much they need those brands to be there with them every step of the way.

Like a well-prepared stalker, a marketer has a bulging bag of equipment. It contains ads, jingles, logos, models, wobblers, danglers, press releases, giveaways, and more.

And, like stalkers, a persistent marketer follows its target everywhere. When he wakes up in the morning, the marketer is there in radio commercials; the brand joins him at breakfast in the pages of his newspaper; it is waiting at the bus stop; it is standing by the road; it is in his office, on his computer, where he shops, beside him, near him, close to him all the time. Yes, marketers know how to force contact.

But those being marketed to, like those being stalked,

still find ways to avoid those meetings. They switch off the radio, change the television channel, turn the page, look away. So a marketer has to try harder to be where its consumers are, to show – like a stalker with a stolen spaniel – that its brand is into the same things, that it is just like the consumer. And that it’s in the same place.

On page 22 we look at how marketers are using location marketing to speak to their consumers right at the point of contact. That’s not to say you can force consumers to love your brand. But you can keep a close eye on your customers with tools such as Foursquare, Places, and Gowalla, and show them you are watching and you care.

If you do, those consumers might just panic one day, and give in.

Alternatively, you could follow the experts’ advice we have solicited for our location-based marketing report. It might be more successful, even if it lacks the thrill of the chase.

Austyn Allison, managing editor editor@communicate.vg

Communicate I 3

CONTENTS | OCTOBER 2010

Contents

COVER: Location-based marketing 20

24 28

32 36

A sense of place: We check out checking in to see what location-based applications are out there, how they work, and how marketers are using them Experts mark the spot: We dip into the boiling pot of industry ideas to see what morsels of location-marketing inspiration emerge Coupon keeping on: Applications that know where consumers are and allow them to interact within retail stores could redefine loyalty programs as we know them Too little or too much: Whether you are a hyperactive or a hyperpassive checker-in, there’s an app to suit your habits It’s hip to be Foursquare: Why you need to check in now, not wait till later

SHORTS 8

10 12

Driven to distraction: It can be hard to write objectively about a childhood fantasy Box of tricks: We play with the new Xbox Kinect To the Lighthouse: UM’s new division is a bright idea couched in curious language

NEWS 14 16 18

Print. Communicate’s publisher buys titles from The Media Factory Advertising. Memac Ogilvy appoints new executive creative director Marketing. Burger King brings branded royalty to the UK

FEATURES 38

Research. Retail rethink: Mindshare study seeks to engage Saudi consumers at “passion points”

42 44 46 48 50

Public Relations. Bouncing back: Social networks are helping PR recover fast from the financial crisis Digital. Fenced in: Social networks such as Facebook can be selfish giants when it comes to sharing research within their walled gardens Digital. Duke’s up: Duke Nukem Forever may be the most anticipated video game for years, but the long wait means big marketing challenges Digital. Halo, is it me you’re looking for? The latest incarnation of the video game series is being marketed with a robot. An actual robot Digital. Taken over: What happens when your Facebook page overtakes your website?

DEPARTMENTS 52

58 60

64 68 74 82

X-pert Files. Talk to me: As the BlackBerry saga unfolded, did du and Etisalat engage with their consumers, or were they dialing a wrong number?

Weber Shandwick’s Andreas Keller finds out X-pert Files. Libyan on the edge: The Brand Union’s Duncan James on the state of branding in Tripoli X-pert Files. ARAC and a hard place: TNS’s Stuart Campbell-Morris on what his company’s latest Arab as Consumer study can tell us about the different types of Saudi women X-pert Files. Heal thyself: Omnia’s Matthew Ranson on how to brand health care Review. Box clever: Dubai Islamic Bank’s “The Man who Gave” might be clichéd, but it looks good Work. Selections from the regional and international creative scenes The Dish. Repeats, rhetoric, and rural America

OCTOBER 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

4 I Communicate

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 COVER DESIGN Alvin Cha ART CONTRIBUTORS JeanChristophe 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 WEB SITE www.communicate.ae

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OCTOBER 2010 | SHORTS

Vroom with a view While it might be tricky to be critical and objective while fulfilling a childhood fantasy, Communicate will shoulder that burden if it means a go in a Ferrari by Austyn Allison

E

ver since Communicate has been aware of cars, we have wanted to drive a Ferrari. So when we got handed a Ferrari California to review for one of our sister publications, we were terrified. Terrified of two things: one, that we would crash the thing; and two, that the Ferrari would not be as fantastic as our childhood fantasies.

Luckily, we handed it back in one piece, and it was ace. But we then faced another problem: We had to get into the objective state of mind that would allow us to pick on the flaws in a car we could never afford.

As journalists, we have a duty to our readers to present a balanced view of whatever it is we are writing about. We may not always succeed, but at least we should try.

In this case we must try and be critical of an 800,000-dirham,

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300kph supercar. But as a onceteenage man with the keys to a Ferrari, that sort of objectivity is hard to achieve. Especially for a journalist better versed in marketing than marques.

Specialist motoring journalists do at least drive competitors to the Ferrari from time to time, and are therefore able to draw comparisons.

Communicate’s other car – ahem – is a battered Jeep. It was a run-in fouryear-old when we bought it in 2006, but it’s still the most expensive and advanced vehicle we’ve ever owned (second place is a tie between a 1984 Golf GTi and a 1970s camper van.)

The Ferrari’s steering wheel alone is probably worth more.

Driving a Ferrari means people despise and envy you at the same time. That’s the way it feels, at least. People walking or driving past either stare or look like they

are trying very hard not to. Or that’s how it seems to us; when we encounter things we desire, we try to look cool and aloof. “Oh, is that a Ferrari? I hadn’t noticed.”

In this car, for once we’re on the other side of that cool wall. “Oh, am I driving a Ferrari? I hadn’t noticed.” Don’t make eye contact; it will spoil the magic.

We stop at a petrol station to fill up with gas, and the passenger in the Toyota next to us looks over, gives a thumbs up, and says, “Nice car.” We “modestly” say thanks, brushing off the compliment.

Seconds later the magic is broken as we realize we’ve asked for the regular fuel our Jeep takes, not “super” high-octane sports-car gas. We pay 1.30 dirhams for the drop that’s gone in, and drive away feeling foolish, a stranger in this world of excess.

But the pride comes back when we pull up next to a father walking with his son in Dubai Marina. We have decided to lower the hood to “see how smooth it is,” while we wait for a friend to pick up a pizza.

The California takes 14 seconds to become a convertible, and while it is converting, the father has his hand on his son’s shoulder, “letting him watch” the Ferrari do its thing.

The child points at the car and Communicate waves back, grinning idiotically. The child watches and, just as Communicate did at that age, decides that one day he must drive a Ferrari.

Later, perhaps, the father will temper his son’s enthusiasm by telling him knowingly how the seats in those things can actually be quite uncomfortable over long distances.

He read that in a magazine.

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OCTOBER 2010 | SHORTS

Box clever Could Microsoft’s newly tweaked console change the way we game? by Rania Habib

W

e are big Nintendo Wii fans at Communicate. Ever since we got our hands on a plastic guitar and fumbled through Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing,” we fell in love with the Wii. We’ve since laboriously honed our Guitar Hero skills (Mark Knopfler’s guitar solo has nothing on us), and expanded our Wii repertoire to sports games, beating our colleague at everything from tennis to bowling. So when said colleague invited us to the unveiling of Microsoft’s long-awaited Kinect, we were a little wary and also secretly excited.

Kinect – nicknamed “Project Natal” during its development phase – is Microsoft’s motionsensing system for the Xbox 360, and it will hit stores in the region on November 10.

After trying it out at the Microsoft offices in Dubai Media City, Communicate is still extremely excited. We stood about three meters away from the television

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screen connected to the Kinect, and swooshed our hand around the menu to start playing an adventure game that involved white-water rafting, minus the oars. We leaned to the right, to the left, jumped to collect points, knelt down to avoid hitting trees, and broke a sweat. It was all so simple: no controllers, no buttons, no nunchucks threatening to fly off your hand and hit the cat.

The controller-free gaming device recognizes voice, body, and hand gestures, and aims to make gaming effortless. It also broadens the category to include people who are not natural-born gamers.

A Microsoft representative says that while the Wii has done a great job of opening up the gaming market to much wider audiences, people still don’t like the idea of controllers. “With the Kinect, you are the controller.”

A Reuters report says that Microsoft hopes to steal some customers away from the Nintendo Wii

and the Sony Playstation with the launch of Kinect, and to breathe new life into what it calls an ailing console market.

Earlier this year, Sony announced the launch of Move, Playstation’s motion-controlled system. It went on sale in Europe in September.

Similarly to the Wii, Move employs a wand-like controller.

To make the Kinect even more attractive, Microsoft will sell the motion-sensor system in bundles: 699 dirhams for the Kinect and the Kinect Adventure game, 1,399 dirhams for the 4GB Kinect bundle, and 1,650 dirhams for the 250GB bundle.

Through Microsoft and thirdparty developers, there are 15 games currently available to play on the Kinect. Communicate tried out Kinect Adventure, but we also witnessed a dance choreography game being played, as well as Kinectimals, where players can raise and play with cute furry animals like lion cubs. Players (or their parents) will

also be able to buy actual stuffed Kinectimals, scan the toys’ barcodes into the Kinect, and be able to play with that animal in the game. All games can be linked to Facebook and YouTube, so that players can post pictures and videos (taken by the Kinect camera) of themselves playing games.

It’s safe to say we were quite impressed with the Kinect. The ease of play made us angry at that Wii controller lying around in our cupboard, because we’ve been unable to sync it with the system for months (we are also not the most technologically-savvy people we know).

But we also wondered: How would we play a Guitar Hero-style game on the Kinect? Will the Kinect mean endless nights of air guitar contests? While that may sound like fun, we can’t really smash an air guitar at the end of a song a la Kurt Cobain. Come to think of it, that may be a good thing.

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OCTOBER 2010 | SHORTS

The “curious” case of Lighthouse

UM launches new department to further develop its strategic research and planning offerings by Rania Habib Ten tips to become more curious 1. Take a different route home.

2. Swap desks with someone on the other side of the office.

3. Disagree with something in a discussion that you actually really agree with.

4. Invite “strange” people to brainstorm – faith healers, trapeze artists, greengrocers. They will give a new perspective on the world.

5. Spend €50 in the supermarket as if you were living a different lifestyle.

6. Eat something different, or have lunch at a place you have never tried before.

7. Swap iPods with a friend for a week.

8. Go back to school for a day.

9. Keep a “Curiosity” book. Write in it what interests you, what you like, what you hate. Cut out bits from papers and magazines.

10. Write down five words to describe yourself, and then try to live by them.

You can thank Lighthouse – media agency UM’s recently launched strategic arm – for those tips, put together to stimulate “Curiosity,” UM’s global planning process. Lighthouse was launched in Dubai in order “to further develop the agency’s strategic research and planning offerings, and enhance the quality of output presented to all UM clients.”

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Lighthouse is also “designed to generate strategic and research-driven insights and “ideation,” and is based on a set of in-house developed proprietary research tools and various collaborative processes and tactics, as well as an ongoing skills development and training program for all staff.”

Lighthouse also “aims at taking the agency’s planning capabilities to the next level and supporting teams to produce greater and clearer strategies.”

Not only is that a mouthful, it also seems like a load of wishy-washy, creative-wannabe yet corporate speak. While Communicate fully supports media agencies’ drive to become more creative and less square, we do not support wordiness, or wishy-washiness. Let’s get to the point: UM has launched Lighthouse in order to revamp the strategic planning process, to keep up with the evolving media agency-client relationship. With media agencies acting increasingly like advertising/branding/branded entertainment agencies, Lighthouse is undoubtedly relevant.

Whether taking a different way home or eating something we’ve never had before will jumpstart ideation is up for debate, but Lighthouse’s intention is solid, and in line with what other media agencies have been doing over the past few years. With consumers becoming more empowered and client expectations becoming more pointed, media agencies have had to step up their

game and move away from their traditional role of crunching numbers and placing ads. Recently appointed UM managing director, Zubair Siddiqui, says Lighthouse will allow UM to give its clients a “bigger offering,” which includes communications planning, activation, measurement, digital activity, and more.

Heading up Lighthouse in Dubai is director Denh Dip, who moved from UM London, where she was in charge of the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Dip says Lighthouse was designed so UM could deliver more than was requested by its clients, as the company felt that general research was no longer enough.

And while numbers will continue to drive the media agency, UM says it is committed to improving and building on its creative side, and focusing on its strength. Siddiqui says the main driver for Lighthouse is integration. “The whole idea is to weave everything together for clients,” he says, referring to how media agencies now handle where to position a TVC, to possibly create a TV show around it, to place a billboard, and take that billboard and turn it into a product placement.

Joe Nicolas, regional director for communication planning at UM, sums up Lighthouse’s purpose: “We’ve mastered numbers and figures, and we’re the best at doing it. Now we want to excel at creating.”

FINALLY, A NEWSPAPER WITH BALLS

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Isn’t it time you put some balls in your media plan?

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OCTOBER 2010 | REGIONAL NEWS

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

Dubai. Communicate’s parent company, Mediaquest Corp., has acquired various print and online titles from Dubai publishing house The Media Factory.

Mediaquest has taken over the publishing of legal magazine The Brief, insurance title Policy, football magazine FourFourTwo Middle East, and motoring titles Autocar Middle East and F1 Racing Middle East.

The latter three titles were licensed to The Media Factory by Haymarket Media Group in the UK. Mediaquest has taken over those licenses, as well as the rights to Autosport.com, a motor sports website.

The market-leading titles will continue to be supplemented by events such as Insurex and the Autocar Awards, as well as numerous print supplements.

Alexandre Hawari, co-CEO of Mediaquest (pictured above, left), says, “The titles we have acquired are all

market leaders in their respective fields.

Mediaquest has a proven track record of publishing quality magazines and we believe we can develop these titles further by taking them to new markets to exploit fully their potential, particularly in the Arabic-speaking segment.”

Tim Bulley, licensing director at Haymarket Media Group, says, “Haymarket is very excited to be growing its licensed portfolio with Mediaquest.

We have enjoyed a strong relationship with The Media Factory over the past six years, which through its unrelenting commitment to editorial excellence has built highly successful local editions of our brands.”

Andrea Slater, CEO of The Media Factory, says, “We have given these titles a good commercial start and we are more than confident that Mediaquest will continue to publish them to the same standard estab-

lished by The Media Factory. We wish Mediaquest a prosperous and beneficial future publishing these brands, as they move forward into an improving economic landscape.”

Mediaquest’s other co-CEO, Julien Hawari (pictured above, right), says, “We are fortunate to have created a talent pool of multilingual and experienced publishing professionals in our editorial, design, sales and marketing teams.

This gives us the great confidence to launch these titles into new markets, and provide readers and advertisers with a wider choice of quality media.”

The Media Factory has closed a number of titles in the past 18 months, including the inflight magazines for Qatar Airways and Thai Airways.

Mediaquest recently hired Simon O’Herlihy, who was previously with Dubai-based Motivate Publishing, as general manager for new business.

to $2.7 million – a $500,000 increase – making it the richest purse of the Tour’s “Desert Swing.”

“This partnership ushers in a new era for the championship and golf

in Abu Dhabi,” says Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of ADTA. “It is in many ways a coming of age for the championship and for Abu Dhabi’s ambitions as a credible golfing destination.”

“Golf is a very important part of HSBC’s marketing program, and the Middle East is a key region to the bank’s business,” says Simon Cooper, regional deputy chairman and CEO at HSBC. “We feel ADTA has established a top-tier event of the highest quality that fits extremely well with our brand.”

 I MARKETING HSBC becomes title sponsor of Abu Dhabi golf event Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) and HSBC have entered into a five-year partnership that sees the bank becoming title sponsor of the emirate’s PGA European Tour event.

The partnership means the tournament, to be held in January at Abu Dhabi Golf Club, will now be known as the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, and its 2011 prize fund rises

14 I Communicate

 I MEDIA Starcom MENA wins M&M Campaign of the Year London. Starcom MENA’s “Hiroshi and Osamu – Confessions of Corporate Spies” campaign for Chevrolet has clinched the media agency awards for Best Use of Content and Campaign of the Year at the Media and Marketing Awards in London.

The campaign, which ran across media platforms – primarily social networks – focused on two spies working for a Japanese car manufacturer, who are sent on a mission to see why Chevrolet’s vehicles are so much better.

Fadi Ghosn, chief marketing officer at General Motors, the auto company behind Chevrolet, says in a release, “This fully integrated campaign, led by social media, increased our ability to understand our audience and to experience in real time what is being said about Chevrolet. The results were remarkable and included a significant shift in the brand attributes of ‘favorability’ and ‘fun-loving.’”

Wael Hattar, head of Core, Starcom’s branded content division, says, “GM kept pushing the boundaries with us. When we did well in a medium we immediately tackled another, taking the audience through a full sensory experience.”

 I TELEVISION Melody launches new channel Dubai. Egyptian broadcaster Melody Entertainment has launched a free-toair 24-hour drama channel, Melody Drama 2, to complement its Melody Drama channel. The new channel will replace Melody Drama +2.

Gamal Marwan, chairman and CEO of Melody Entertainment, says in a release, “We are extremely delighted to announce the launch of Melody Drama 2, especially after the huge success of both Melody Drama and Melody Drama +2 reaching the number one position in the specialized drama channels during the month of Ramadan in Egypt, and top 10 in Saudi Arabia less than eight months after their launch.”

REGIONAL NEWS | OCTOBER 2010

 I ADVERTISING Emaar hands Downtown Dubai to Strawberry Frog Dubai. Real estate firm Emaar has awarded the creative account for Downtown Dubai to Strawberry Frog, an independent ad agency headquartered in the Netherlands.

The win comes three months after Strawberry Frog won Emirates airline’s $260 million global account.

The Downtown win comes after a three-way pitch against Saatchi & Saatchi and Young & Rubicam.

Robert Booth, CEO of Emaar North America (Strawberry Frog also has offices in New York), says in a statement, “Strawberry Frog demonstrated an incredible understanding of the exciting new world that is taking shape today, the ways in which consumers think in this new global environment, and the role that Downtown Dubai plays in this culture.”

The $20 billion, 500-acre Downtown project features the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, and The Dubai Mall.

Strawberry Frog chairman Scott Good-

son says, “We are proud to be working with Emaar Properties on Downtown Dubai as it establishes itself among the world’s greatest urban environments.”

Mamemo wins bank account and expands Dubai. Dubai-based Mamemo Productions, an events and branding agency, has announced a client win and a regional expansion.

Swiss private bank Clarinden Leu has hired Mamemo to produce its regional ad campaign, which will run across print and outdoor.

And Mamemo, which entered the Bahrain market earlier this year, has appointed Jeddah-based Imagine as its representative in Saudi Arabia.

Subway launches regional campaign Dubai. Sandwich chain Subway last month announced its first regional campaign, focusing on what it calls “the key feature offered at its outlets – customization.” The campaign is called “Make it your way,” and will run for two months across television, print, radio, digital, and outdoor.

The television commercial was produced by McCann Erickson in London. Arabization and the rest of the campaign, including media buying, was carried out by UAE-based AMC, according to Subway. Subway’s Middle East and Africa regional office and the brand’s regional marketing board outlined the campaign and oversaw AMC’s work.

Hisham Ghazal, Subway’s brand manager in the Middle East and Africa, says in a statement, “We aim to offer healthier options to our customers with optimum value through utilizing our knowledge and experience in the industry, while catering to the tastes of diverse markets.”

Those markets include the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,

Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon.

Subway says in the statement that the brand “is particularly leveraging the MBC Group’s television channels for three weeks to communicate the messages of customization and freshness.”

I PRINT Retail ME to relaunch Dubai. Dubai-based business magazine Retail ME, which covers – predictably – the retail industry, is to relaunch as the

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OCTOBER 2010 | REGIONAL NEWS

first UAE title from Indian publishing firm Image Group.

Delhi-based Image Group has recently opened offices in Dubai Media City’s Building Four, and plans to roll out other titles after Retail ME hits newsstands at the start of October. Image’s flagship title is Images Fashion, and the group also runs the India Retail Forum, which was due to take place in Mumbai at the end of September.

Retail ME will continue to be edited

by Lawrence Pinto. Sunita Sequeira will also work on the title.

Retail ME was previously published

by Concept Group, best known as an outdoor supplier. Concept closed down earlier this year.  I AGENCIES

Memac Ogilvy appoints new creative director Steve Hough has been appointed executive creative director at advertising agency Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai.

Hough has big shoes to fill, taking over from Till Hohmann, who left to become chief creative officer at JWT in Germany earlier this year.

In a May interview, Memac’s CEO, Edmond Moutran, described Hohmann as “one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.” (See “All we need is love,” page 70, Communicate, May 2010.)

Hough, who was previously executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi in Vietnam, acknowledges this legacy. “There are some terrific people here,” he tells Communicate.

“When Till was here, the agency made some great strides, and my job is going to be to continue that great work, build on it, take it forward, and to push and nurture the agency to be as good as we can be.”

In a press statement, Moutran says, “Steve brings a tremendous amount of experience, having worked with such prestigious agencies as Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO, Young & Rubicam, and Ogilvy & Mather.

We are pleased to have Steve join the team in Dubai as he will no doubt help us raise the bar even further.”

Hough began his career as a copywriter with Saatchi & Saatchi in

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London. Eight years later he moved to M&C Saatchi in Hong Kong.

He moved to New Zealand a year later, and in 2002 joined Ogilvy & Mather Singapore.

With Ogilvy, Hough won awards including a D&AD Yellow Pencil, a One Show Gold Pencil, and two Bronze Lions.

Then Hough moved to Saatchi & Saatchi in Kuala Lumpur, where he won a Gold Lion for his Amnesty International “Stamps” campaign.

At Saatchi in Vietnam, he picked up three more Bronze Lions.

Talking of his time in Asia, Hough tells Communicate, “It was a great privilege to work alongside some incredibly talented, world-class people. I learned an enormous amount about big brands and about winning awards.

“I’ve got a huge passion for creating advertising, and world-class work, and I’m hoping to share that knowledge with the people here, to raise the bar in this department and to produce more work that’s world-class.”

Of the Middle East, Hough says his initial impression is, “It’s a fascinating region, it’s growing very rapidly, and it’s attracting a lot more talent. The standard is already good, and now it’s a matter of getting more world-class work out.”

Amber announces account wins Dubai. Branding and communications agency Amber Communications has announced a series of account wins since the start of 2010.

New clients include global luggage manufacturer Samsonite, local retail brand KM, Emirates Medical Services, Fujairah International Hospital, and Dreamdays Gift Experiences.

In a statement, Amber says its services include advertising and PR, as well as branding.

“The first six months of the year have been extremely rewarding and busy, implementing revised strategies for our existing clients and for our new clients. A paradigm shift in our approach during the last quarter of 2009 was the key to these new client wins and growth,” says Sudhir Nair, Amber’s CEO. Our bad Last month we erroneously titled a news article, “ENOC hands PR account to Entourage.” The article stated that, “Emirates National Oil Company has signed Dubai-based Entourage Marketing and Events Management to develop a corporate communications plan for the company’s commercial interests in more than 20 countries.”

This was inaccurate.

That job, in fact, remains with ENOC’s PR company, Asda’a.

A statement from Entourage clarifies the situation: “ENOC entrusted Entourage to support its corporate communication initiatives across a wide range of channels including, but not limited to, group corporate website, corporate brochure and a host of BTL communication tools.”

We regret the error.

VERY BRIEFS Inca Tanvir Sunil Anand awarded doctorate Fifth Ring wins Emax PR account Ekadaa wins PR account for medical client Viva Ipsos introduces “Big Idea” service.

Hilton worldwide names Emma Corcoran as regional director of corporate communications Turquoise expands Dubai team Magnus Nystedt joins CPI on Macworld, PC World and GameWorld BPG Group and Blue launch joint venture Realestate.com.lb partners with MSN Arabia Performance PR appointed

by Abu Dhabi International Motor Show Standard Chartered and TBWA/ RAAD launch virtual Ramadan tent on Facebook Clement Dean joins Action PR as media relations manager Bonhams auction house appoints Z7 Communications as Middle East PR agency Al Aan TV appoints Pirana Advertising as creative and communications agency for Saudi Arabia and the UAE Go to our Web site for the full stories: www.communicate.ae

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All hail the King: fast-food giant’s bid to restore power Burger King campaign launches in UK following drop in sales Burger King is introducing the iconic King character in the UK as part of a new campaign with the tagline, “Taste is King.”

The 60-second spot, created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, broke last month during a prime-time airing of The X Factor talent show.

It launched just as Burger King confirmed it had agreed a $4 billion sale to 3G Capital Management.

The commercial is part of an integrated campaign for the brand that will see the King making a tour of major UK cities this month.

Residents of these cities, including London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, will be encouraged to follow the King, just as a growing horde of people do in the TV ad, to receive discounts and other offers at their local Burger King restaurants.

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

 I ADVERTISING Gap taps Foursquare co-founders for holiday ad campaign What do Foursquare co-founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai have in common with Lauren Bush? Gap, apparently.

The clothing retailer is readying a new campaign with an eclectic mix of celebrities and social-media execs, including Selvadurai and Crowley, as well as Bush, tied to the upcoming holiday season.

According to a source, the campaign will support various charitable efforts near and dear to participants.

In the case of the Foursquare co-founders, Gap has agreed to promote and make a donation to CampInteractive, a non-profit that works with inner-city youth, in exchange for their participation.

It’s not clear whether Gap is doing the same for all the other campaign participants, although it’s worth noting that Bush is the co-founder of the Feed Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to ensuring children have access to nutritious school meals.

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Pepsi expands Refresh project Less than a year ago, Pepsi caught consumers and the advertising industry off-guard in the US with its announcement that it would bypass the Super Bowl in favor of a cause campaign, Pepsi Refresh Project. At the time, the effort was considered a social-media experiment, a test case that could shape the way other major companies approached marketing.

Last month Pepsi officially moved past the experiment stage, with the announcement that it will expand the Pepsi Refresh Project to Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and will continue to fund the project in the US and Canada.

“When you look at the powerful movement that we are creating, there’s no question that we have on our hands something big,” says Ami Irazabal, marketing director at Pepsi.

“Good ideas need to expand.

They cannot be encapsulated, especially when something is working for the brand.”

social media, and in online ads.

The ad is also on Burger King’s UK website.

In the US, $1.3 million per month has been allocated to the Pepsi Refresh Project – which allocates funds to worthy causes, voted for on the Refresheverything.com website – this year, and that figure will be carried into 2011, raising the question of whether Pepsi will pour additional millions into the Super Bowl TV spots it bypassed last year.  I MARKETING Corn syrup seeks rebrand High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) by any other name would taste as sweet.

But it probably wouldn’t attract so much negative publicity.

The Corn Refiners Association has petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration, asking it to allow manufacturers the option of using “corn sugar” as opposed to high-fructose corn syrup on ingredient lists. The move is the latest in the association’s battle to change the public’s perception and understanding of HFCS. “It is clear that the name highfructose corn syrup confuses consumers and is misleading,” says Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association. “It suggests it’s high in fructose, which it is not.” It has the same fructose content as table sugar.

The FDA has 180 days to respond to the petition. According to Erickson, the FDA has only changed the

The King has made fleeting appearances in British ads for Burger King in the past but this is his first starring role.

Previous campaigns for the fastfood chain have been product-led, promoting new sandwiches, special offers or old favorites such as the Flame-Grilled Whopper.

The introduction of The King in the UK comes four months after Natalia Franco was installed as chief marketing officer of Burger King globally.

In the UK, Burger King’s sales fell by 2.3 percent in the year ending June 30, 2010, while rivals McDonald’s and Subway saw sales grow during the same period.

Crispin has done ads for Burger King in Europe, mainly the UK and Spain, for several years. name of an ingredient twice in history. Once was changing “prunes” to “dried plums” in 2000; the other was changing “low erucic acid rapeseed oil” to “canola oil” in the late 1980s.

FTC summons 48 food companies over marketing to kids The US Federal Trade Commission is once again handing out subpoenas to companies that market food to children and teens.

Three years after initially delivering “orders to file special report” to 44 marketers, the FTC last month began sending subpoenas to 48 firms in order to prepare a follow-up to its 120-page report issued in 2008, “Marketing Food to Children and Adolescents: A Review of Industry Expenditures, Activities and Self-Regulation.”

“This is a follow-up to measure the effects that self-regulation has had over the past three years,” says Carol Jennings, spokeswoman for the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices and Bureau of Consumer Protection. “We are supportive of industry voluntary efforts to limit their marketing to kids and this will see whether more is needed.”

Some have speculated that the new round of subpoenas was a prelude to congressional hearings and possible legislation, but Jennings denies that.

“We are not proposing any regulation,” she says.

OCTOBER 2010 | COVER STORY

ON LOCATION The latest smartphones know where you are. We see how brands can use this technology to reach consumers in all the right places

COVER STORY | OCTOBER 2010

Where it’s at: An overview Page 22 Industry address: Guest opinion Page 24 Redefining loyalty: Check-in drives custom Page 28 Personality splits: Hyperactive versus hyper-passive Page 32 Check in now: The time is right for Foursquare Page 36

OCTOBER 2010 | COVER STORY

Where it’s at

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

by Rania Habib

I

“ am at the Emarat gas station on Sheikh Zayed

LINA VASILOUDIS. Abu Dhabi Beach Rotana hotel’s director of marketing and communications

YOUSEF TUQAN TUQAN. CEO of Flip Media

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Road.” “I am at Choithram’s, The Greens.” “I am at The Dubai Mall.” Communicate asks, “Who cares?” If we thought Facebook and Twitter were dangerous outlets for people prone to TMI (Too Much Information), we now have the likes of Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Places to tell us when our acquaintances are at home, work, or play, and where we can find them. Location-based social networks are the new “It” thing, complementing more traditional networks such as Facebook and Twitter. But back to the question of “who cares?” Marketers, that’s who.

Location-based marketing, still so much in its infancy in the region that it’s considered über-niche, gives marketers the ability to geo-target advertising messages to consumers, depending on where they are. And with the recent launch of Facebook Places, location-based marketing is poised to take on huge proportions.

While Foursquare and Gowalla combined have a few million users worldwide, Facebook has more than 500 million. So integrating a location-based service to the popular social network is likely to make the trend explode.

However, Facebook Places is currently only available in America, where it has not yet given marketers and developers a way to utilize it. This is soon expected to change (see “David versus Goliath on location,” Page 42, Communicate, July-August

2010), and will bring a host of perks to locationbased marketing.

Back to the existing, worldwide, marketerfriendly location-based services. Foursquare is the most popular location-based social network in the region. Baher Al Hakim, “master chief” at Cloud Appers, a Dubai firm that creates Web applications, says that so far a handful of UAE-based companies have experimented with location-based marketing, and that they have done well to move in early on the trend. But, he says, others should be wary.

“The estimated number of Foursquare users in the UAE is 6,000 to 7,000, and out of those, only about 2,000 are active,” says Al Hakim. “That’s really nothing. It’s a new field that doesn’t have enough people, and even in the US they are still trying to figure out a way to monetize it.”

According to Ad Age, Coke Zero in the US created a Foursquare account to promote its sampling tour and street-team events on university campuses and at sporting events by sharing updates with its Twitter followers. Starbucks, the History Channel, and New York Magazine have also invested in locationbased social networks early, by using them to reward loyalty and provide insider information. Starbucks rewards loyal customers in the US with a “Barista badge” and went nationwide with its promotion, offering whoever unlocks the mayor badge a $1 discount on a frappucino.

COVER STORY | OCTOBER 2010

EARLY MOVER. In the UAE, Dubai shawarma restaurant Wild Peeta was one of the first brands to jump on the Foursquare bandwagon to market itself using the network’s gaming services, whereby any user who checks in to a location a certain number of times becomes that location’s mayor. “Once we filled out the Foursquare forms detailing our promotion, whereby we offered a daily free beverage to the mayor of Wild Peeta, and it was approved, all Foursquare users in the UAE received a message saying that we were having a promotion,” says Mohamed Parham, co-founder of Wild Peeta. “In terms of visibility and word of mouth, it was tremendous.”

Wild Peeta currently counts 82 followers on Foursquare. While that may not be many, Parham says that thanks to Foursquare’s open application programming interface platform, which embeds information into Facebook and Twitter, the promotion had a domino effect. “The exposure we got was very broad, and it was a very unique promotion for this part of the world,” he says.

Another brand that has ventured into location-based marketing is the Beach Rotana Hotel & Resort in Abu Dhabi. “I’d read a few articles about restaurants and bars in the US that use location marketing to boost business, so I thought we’d give it a try for Finz, our award-winning seafood restaurant,” says the hotel’s director of marketing and communications, Lina Vasiloudis.

Like Wild Peeta, Finz too wanted to elect a mayor.

“Whoever became the mayor had to present a certain number of restaurant bills to prove they were actually there [one location-based social network flaw is that people can check in to a place without physically being there],” Vasiloudis says.

“We received lots of feedback, both verbally and via Twitter. Nevertheless, the promotion was not as successful as we’d hoped, but it generated a lot of buzz. People in this region are just starting to

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

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

GREAT OPPORTUNITY. Yousef Tuqan Tuqan, CEO of Flip Media, a Dubai-based digital agency, is not keen to use Foursquare for personal purposes (such as informing people of his every move), but he does believe location-based social networks present a great opportunity for marketers. “I think location-based social networks are amazing and scary,” says Tuqan.

“Smartphones have changed everything. We now carry phones that always know where we are and are always connected to the Internet. So there’s a real revolution that’s taken place in the past two years with the concept of location-based marketing. The interesting thing is that with location-based marketing, brands are not just looking at us like ‘34-year-old male, works in advertising, Arab;’ they now look at who your friends are, where you are… and so the marketing messages become much more relevant, and brands can sell things to people more immediately.”

As with other marketing strategies, location-based networks have some challenges ahead. “The first is communication,” says Vasiloudis. “You can’t communicate your promotion effectively using only the application. It needs to be combined with Twitter, other social media, and even traditional media to reach the audience [in order to endorse promotions and encourage people to join].

Another challenge is that it is still too easy to check in to a venue while not actually physically being there. This results in people becoming mayor even though they might have never even set foot in a place. And, obviously, privacy is an issue too.

Not everyone wants friends or even strangers to know where they are all the time. But luckily, some applications have the option whereby you can check

MEASURABILITY. Vasiloudis says the biggest challenge with location-based marketing is measurability. “You can see how many people have checked in, but you don’t know much about them, you don’t know what they do or why they visited. This is very important information for us marketers, and hopefully there will be ways to receive this or similar information at some point in the near future.”

Tuqan says one challenge with location-based marketing, as with any other marketing strategy, is staying relevant. “Everyone is just going to jump on it, but where can you create value and produce interesting, useful things? There are good opportunities, and people have to do them well and not jump on everything.”

At Wild Peeta, Parham says they are aware of location-based marketing’s current limitations, but that the buzz it creates presents a great opportunity for the local chain. “It’s a terrific public relations opportunity for us,” he says. “Whereas the sales may not be tremendous from this sort of a promotion, the PR is. It’s very valuable to any business, particularly a small business like ours.”

So what does the future hold for location-based marketing? Al Hakim says it needs a couple of years to really take off in the region, and that by then, technology will have advanced to the point of “geofencing.” “That can be done through any smartphone, where the GPS will always be on and will always be broadcasting your location, so when you are in the vicinity of a restaurant you go to regularly, it will ping you with promotions from around your location,” says Al Hakim. “This will take location-based marketing to another level.”

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© Corbis

OCTOBER 2010 | COVER STORY

Industry address

We asked a cross-section of experts what uses they could think of for location-based services (LBS). Here’s what they said RAYAN KARAKY Regional general manager of digital operations at Publicis Groupe Media While social networks and search are eventual e-commerce funnel drivers, location-based services will yield most advantages in the offline world with actual transactions.

Before any businesses in our region kick-start their LBS discount coupons, they should encourage users to build their content on LBS platforms.

Think about tips and to-dos; a dull and empty page with “ice cream shop” on top will not cut the mustard.

1. Aggregator apps will flood into the world of LBS, allowing users to make better sense of the current versions of basic check-in. Imagine a tool that gathers all the deals in Dubai Marina and spills them out on your map, categorized and rated (or checked into) by your friends. Another version of that might be posting pictures of a certain venue by utilizing this app.

2. We don’t live in the land of coupons and freebies. While I wish the discount voucher was a carrot to our consumers, it isn’t. With that thought in mind, self-promotion is a very tempting angle to take. Picture More Café naming a plate in your honor because you maintained

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mayorship for a month. That would drive not only sales – through the winner and his entourage frequenting the café – but also exposure from this obviously savvy, wired, digital dude. Everybody wins.

ANNA GIBBONS Business director of Neo at OgilvyOne Middle East A brand’s message is so much more relevant when it takes into account not just what you are doing, but where you are doing it. All of a sudden, the digital, virtual space we communicate in on our computers, iPads and phones now has a link to reality. The trend toward location-based marketing offers many situations where a brand can be useful, rather than interrupting consumers’ day-to-day life.

Moving away from push advertising to create a value exchange is where brands automatically generate deeper engagement. At a basic level this might be a bank showing me where the nearest ATMs are, or property consultants and real estate agents providing me with information on nearby properties including pictures, video, and specs without me even having to go into their offices. And visiting a new city becomes easy

COVER STORY | OCTOBER 2010

with maps, walking tours, what’s on nearby, restaurant offers and gigs – all tailored to what I am interested in.

This trend works across all marketing and comms disciplines. Getting live feedback from attendees at an event via a quick poll or survey makes event planners’ jobs much easier – and as a reward they can pass on vouchers or coupons to those who participate, and help make next year’s event even better.

KAMAL DIMACHKIE Managing director for Dubai, Kuwait, and the Lower Gulf at Leo Burnett Directing customers to a nearby physical location is getting more sophisticated, thanks to mobile devices and emerging technologies – known to marketers as location-based services. Traditionally, one-to-one marketing was about targeting the right person at the right time. Location-based marketing has added one more very important layer: the right place. In that sense, location-based marketing is now the ultimate one-to-one form of marketing.

In actuality, this form of marketing has been in practice for some time. The technology today may be new, but the concept has been around ever since the first phone book listed only the businesses in a particular town or region.

However, the arrival of cell-phone technology and, later, Bluetooth has given further top spin to location-based marketing. Smartphones and location-based social networks allow users to interact, share, meet up, and recommend places based on their physical coordinates. This real-world connection to social media means more foot traffic and profits for business owners.

Additionally, with the introduction of Foursquare you can now even identify people individually. Foursquare enables any business with a physical location to not only communicate with customers online, but get more of them to actually walk in the door. This platform is wonderful for time-bound promotional activities and events. It is a great way to capitalize on specific surges of individuals who may frequent certain locations at regular and specific times.

Here are three interesting applications of such a tool: 1. It allows customers who check in or check in most to benefit from special promotions and discounts, or to access exclusive events during particular periods.

2. It allows customers who check in first to receive special discounts. The objective here is to encourage early arrival to stores to better manage traffic or offload stocks.

3. It widens distribution by running collect-and-trade initiatives of virtual products. This way, the customer who collects the most virtual products gains a discount or freebie.

AZHAR SIDDIQUI General manager at Magna Global, UAE Location-based marketing is still very new in our region. I think the familiarity with lo-so (location-based social) networks is just picking up among people here but the networks’ use for effective marketing purposes is still very, very limited. For me, three categories can clearly benefit from lo-so networks.

1. Retail. Location-based marketing has proved to be most effective in increasing traffic to retail outlets. It increases awareness and popularity, and helps pass out key information such as specials, promotions

and new lines instantly to social network users. Of course, how a marketer uses these networks makes a difference.

2. Restaurants and bars. This category has historically been most influenced by word-of-mouth. Marketers have always struggled to find a device or a vehicle to influence or drive word-of-mouth but there has not been a concrete model that has been proven to do this. Social networks are now emerging as a powerful influencer of word-of-mouth and something marketers can finally participate in. Tom Roy, our digital guru at Middle East Communications Network, likes to say the world today is about “word of mouse,” and marketers finally have the device to influence this: social media networks. Restaurants and bars can benefit from lo-so networks through appropriate promotions, specials, and incentives (for example, check in 10 times and get a free dessert).

3. Service-related businesses. The local barber, laundry, and supermarket can all use location-based marketing to increase loyalty, making the customer experience more rewarding, and allowing them to track and analyze their customers’ habits and movements. These personalized one-to-one businesses that depend on customer loyalty will benefit the most from this kind of new marketing technology.

DAVID PORTER Media director for the Middle East and North Africa at Unilever A precursor to marketers using this technology is that it needs to offer some scale, and location-based software hasn’t yet taken off in the region. Facebook Places is a USA-only service at present. Foursquare today had four people checking in in Abu Dhabi, and one in Dubai.

There seem to be three barriers: 1. The cost of mobile digital is significantly higher than in Western markets, and using one’s data plan overseas is prohibitively expensive. The region is a long way from affordable, always-on mobile Internet. Consumer pricing is a consistent barrier to the uptake of many digital technologies in this part of the world.

2. Western markets with more independent and mobile teenage populations have a greater chance of achieving scale. For example, New York dating agency members can use LBS to find dates in their area. That’s less likely to take off in GCC markets.

3. In a mall culture such as ours, consumers will not check in if they are going to get bombarded with unsolicited retail offers every time they stroll through their favorite mall. So commercial services will need to be opt-in and subscription-based.

With expensive bandwith virtually a given, it will probably need to be advertiser-funded.

Locally, location-based devices could help to locate lost or separated off-roaders, particularly if Garmin and the like provided an interface with their GPS hardware. Retailers are likely to be among the biggest users: Borders is already active in Australia, offering discounts to shoppers who check in to Foursquare in their bookstores. Shopkick is pioneering a similar approach in seven American cities.

Unilever is a committed early trialist of new technologies and moves are under way to build our brands’ know-how in this space, in markets that offer scale and affordability.

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© Corbis

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JASSIM ALI Regional director of digital development at Omnicom Media Group The proliferation of smart mobile devices with location intelligence and Internet capabilities, such as the iPhone, Android handsets, and BlackBerrys, along with locationsensitive platforms such as GPS, RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and Bluetooth, has opened new avenues for marketers to connect with their audiences. Location and device capability has added that missing cherry on top: relevance.

Three uses for location-based marketing might be: 1. Driving footfall to retail points. For example, telecom operator du’s Foursquare campaign in June and July rewarded the most ardent football fans visiting the du World Cup tents at Dubai Mall and Dubai Media City.

2. Building consumer engagement. For example, the award-winning real-life Monopoly game played out on the streets of London in 2005. (It was put together by Tribal DDB to promote the 70-yearold board game.)

3. Enhancing user experience with applications such as Shopkick.

ZUBAIR SIDDIQUI Managing director, UM Dubai 1. A consumer sentiment tracker. A real-time customer feedback tool to gauge what consumers are saying about your brand and enable an appropriate brand response.

2. A virtual reward program tool. Continuous – even

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real-time – tool for dialogue with consumers, capable of providing real-time gratification through point-of-sale offers. These can act as customer relationship management tools for businesses.

3. A replacement for Yellow Pages or classifieds. As a short-range provider of business information.

4. A tool for journalists. To identify a source for “What’s Hot” columns, identifying the places people like and visit.

5. A viral tool. Location-based tools are now connected with other social media platforms, enabling ideas to get viral.

6. A tool to deliver SMS advertising shots. Advertisers are always looking for opportunities closer to point of purchase or consumption, where the consumer is more receptive.

7. A data analytics tool. Companies can use tagged information to profile consumer tastes, preferences, and personas.

8. A geo-shopping tool. Adding digital info to bar codes will enable consumers to get more information about products they are buying online.

FADI ZUBEIDI Account director, Promoaction DDB One great idea that can work anywhere in the world is an in-mall application. Phone users will simply download a free app, and once they walk into a mall they start receiving all sorts of discounts and offers from shops. This application will help increase sales, and will definitely help the users get the best offers.

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Redefining loyalty programs The card-based system might just be going the way of the dinosaur or the two-way pager

T

he newest crop of location-based mobile apps rewards consumers for actions before they reach the register, and it could save them from fumbling for cards in wallets or loading down their key rings with plastic tabs. Mobile apps like Shopkick, Loopt Star and CheckPoints offer shoppers discounts and deals when they check in, walk into a store, or pick up products and scan their barcodes. One startup focusing on loyalty programs for hotels, Topguest, even rewards users for Tweeting.

“We realized a while ago that conversations about our hotels are happening on Facebook or Twitter without us,” says Michael Doneff, vicepresident of marketing for Viceroy Hotel Group, which offers discounts to users who check in at its hotels through Topguest. “These are guests who are passionate about our properties; why wouldn’t we want to reward that?”

This set of loyalty apps also takes the checkin-to-places phenomenon that Foursquare has popularized right to the mall or grocery aisle.

Rather than checking in to alert your social network or post to Facebook, users can check in for discounts to use at the register or for points that add up to gift cards, prizes, or donations.

And there are some big-name proponents. Mikael Thygesen, chief marketing officer at Simon Property Group, just spent the past few weeks traveling to big-name retailers with Shopkick’s founder and CEO, Cyriac Roeding. “They have all been intrigued and interested,” Thygesen says of the meetings. “The fact that, for the first time, you as a retailer are going to be able to identify a shopper when they cross the threshold of the store, not when they’re at the point-of-sale and getting ready to exit the store – that’s a game changer.”

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Shopkick What it does: The app rewards shopper behavior, beginning when they walk through the door. Consumers rack up points for scanning products, testing products, or even visiting a dressing room. Rewards are doled out as special offers and discounts from the retailer, or as Shopkick’s currency, Kickbucks, which can be donated to charity or redeemed for Facebook credits, products, or gift cards.

Brands on board: Best Buy, Macy’s, American Eagle, Sports Authority. Simon Property Group will be rolling out Shopkick technology in more than 100 malls before the US holiday season.

Why it’s different: Instead of relying on GPS technology for check-ins like other apps, Shopkick uses a device in-store that emits an inaudible sound picked up by the user’s phone. That ensures consumers are only rewarded when they actually enter the store.

Swagg What it does: Swagg is meant to be a mobile wallet – consumers can buy, send, and redeem gift cards through the app, without the piece of plastic. Like creditcard companies, Swagg

Why it’s different: Loopt grew up as a social locationbased network like Foursquare and recently moved into retail with the launch of its Star extension. The app is also based on Facebook, which could prove fruitful now that the social network is turning on its new location feature, Places. “The reason we’re moving everything to Facebook is we’re close to a world when you can display your location to all your friends,” Altman says. “There’s about to be 100 times more geo-social data there.”

Topguest What it does: Launched in June, this service aims to convert your existing check-ins and Tweets about hotels and airlines into loyalty points for programs you’ve already signed up for.

When you check in on Foursquare or Tweet about a travel brand, Topguest automatically translates those social-media actions into points for a loyalty program. Brands decide the value of actions, like check-ins and social-media mentions, to rewards points beyond dollars spent.

GAME CHANGERS. New mobile apps reward consumers before they reach the register will reap fees on transactions. With an iPhone app slated for the holidays, Swagg also aims to consolidate numerous membership and loyalty cards for multiple stores in one app that keeps track of purchases and alerts when rewards are due. The app is also a vehicle for location-based offers and deals. Users can set their preferences to tailor the deals they receive – say, decline men’s clothing, prefer electronics – while Swagg collects on a cost-per-action basis.

Brands on board: American Apparel, with more expected in the near future.

Why it’s different: In a category crowded with venturefunded start-ups, Swagg enjoys the backing of Qualcomm.

The tech giant bought Swagg developer Firethorn for its mobile-commerce expertise and already enjoys relationships with major handset manufacturers.

Loopt Star What it does: Check in at participating stores on Loopt Star and get a discount to take to the register. The app recently launched “Rewards Nearby,” so users can find deals up to 20 miles away when they launch the app. The new feature puts the four nearest special offers at the top of the check-in screen and, since it launched, stores have seen foot traffic from the app spike, says Loopt founder Sam Altman.

Brands on board: Gap, Burger King, Steve Madden, Element, Paul Frank.

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Brands on board: Users can earn loyalty points at 4,500 hotels globally. It’s partnered with the rewards program Priority Club, which includes Holiday Inn, Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, and Hotel Indigo. Standard Hotels and Viceroy have also signed on.

Why it’s different: Topguest is not an app and doesn’t ask you to check in or post on yet another service. “Rather than trying to get consumers to adopt new behavior, we want to give rewards for things they’re already doing, like checking in on Foursquare,” says Geoff Lewis, Topguest CEO and co-founder.

CheckPoints What it does: When the app launches this fall, users will earn prizes such as iTunes songs or iPads, gift cards or airline miles for picking up and scanning product barcodes once they’ve checked in to a store. When the app is opened, it features a list of products that are worth points. Featured products from brand partners allow for bonus points or special promotions like coupons or buy one, get one free offers.

Brands on board: CheckPoints was to announce a number of brand partners at launch in the middle of last month, according to CEO and co-founder, Mark DiPaola.

Why it’s different: This app focuses on supermarkets, office-supply stores, and home-goods outlets, which house multiple brands. DiPaola calls it more product-focused than other apps. “When a user goes into these busy places with tens of thousands of products, we’re aiming to drive consumers to pick up specific products, whereas they may have walked past that product before, or not even walked down that aisle,” he says.

OCTOBER 2010 | COVER STORY

Split personality

Foursquare, Scvngr reward active users, while Shopkick, Xtify appeal to the passive by David Berkowitz

A

re you a hyperactive or a hyper-passive checker-inner?

The two breeds are emerging and diverging, thanks to the onslaught of location-based services. What’s changing now is that mobile technologies are finally in place to meet both types of consumer.

The hyperactive consumer is the one checking in everywhere on Foursquare, racking up badges and mayorships while leaving tips at every venue. Yet Foursquare is table stakes, as reflexive an action as putting a napkin on your lap when you sit down at a restaurant. A typical check-in session includes defending kingdoms and dukedoms on Yelp, inking more stamps on the Gowalla passport, and earning hundreds of points a day in Whrrl societies by leaving recommendations all over the world. For any of these apps, there are rewards for returning to the same businesses over and over, largely in the form of special titles, but sometimes tangible deals.

Scvngr is perhaps the perfect app for the truly hyperactive. It’s not just about check-ins and recommendations, but completing challenges and treks. Users who spend enough time doing

32 I Communicate

them in a store or wherever a brand posts them will often gain monetary prizes in return. The challenges are customized to the marketer and location, created by game designers to make them as engaging as possible so that the user will spend as much time as possible playing them.

Hyper-passive consumers are less of a known entity because there haven’t been as many options to serve them. The one with the most hype right now, if not the most promise, is Shopkick, an app that lets consumers earn kickbucks (all too reminiscent of Schrutebucks from the US version of TV sitcom The Office) just by walking into stores, and potentially even walking into different departments and locations such as the dressing room. There’s something for the hyperactive too, with extra points for barcode scanning and other tasks. But the real promise is for the relatively lazy who still appreciate the value of loyalty cards.

Then there’s Xtify, a real boon for the hyperpassive with geo-targeted deals delivered to the phone. On Android devices it works especially well, as any Xtify-powered app can continually serve up promotions as notifications without anyone firing up the app. Another version of

this is ShopAlerts, powered by Placecast and Location Labs, sending offers via SMS, social media, or other means. These do away with the concept of the check-in entirely, as they are all about showing up and getting credit for it. With all of these services, no matter how hyper-passive they are, opting in is still required, so it is all with consumers’ consent.

These offerings for hyperactive and hyper-passive consumers are redefining loyalty programs. Previously, the whole concept was based on buying stuff and getting some kind of credit that could generally be redeemed later for something of cash value. No one got any credit for just walking into a store.

This must all sound so alien to traditional retailers – the consumer who buys a can of Coke, or nothing at all, could wind up with the same rewards as someone blowing their whole paycheck in a store.

Now marketers are catching on that the hyperactive consumers are broadcasting their personal endorsements with every check-in, and the hyperpassive are willing to share constant information about their whereabouts, customer retention is just part of the value proposition.

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OCTOBER 2010 | COVER STORY

X-pert Files

Check in now

Yes, Foursquare is small, but 360i’s Sarah Hofstetter says size doesn’t matter

I

n a study published at the end of July, tech research company Forrester found that locationbased social platforms are too small for major marketers to concern themselves with. At least for now.

The reasoning Forrester gives is that location-based start-ups are still too small for major marketers to take great advantage of. Regardless of its current scale, here are four reasons why at 360i we’re including Foursquare and other location-based social networks in our client thinking today.

SIZE DOESN’T MATTER. INFLUENCE DOES. Forrester found that only 4 percent of US online adults have ever used location-based mobile apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt. Melissa Parrish, who authored the findings, believes that

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male-oriented brands should forge the way and other marketers should wait for a larger audience to adopt and embrace the platforms. We agree that male-oriented brands should invest early, but also see the opportunity going beyond these brands.

With 360i clients on Foursquare, we have already seen this highly influential audience linking their mobile social applications to the rest of their social graphs, and publishing their location to Twitter feeds and Facebook profiles. And for leading-edge platforms, this is not as small as it sounds.

Foursquare has more than 2 million users, Loopt 4 million, and MyTown 2.5 million. And these users are influencers who often have wider reach than the average Joe, so if they post their Foursquare updates to their other networks, a marketer’s overall reach can be even more significant.

Research suggests that people are using Twitter

COVER STORY | OCTOBER 2010

to converse with others and reveal many aspects of their daily lives, and as mobile social usage increases, others will pile on after them. Greater scale will come even quicker as digital behemoths such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter integrate location-based thinking to their massively successful social products.

Smart marketers should find a balance between spending their consumer dollars on reaching a mass audience with digital, and experimenting with smaller bets that can pay off in a big way to reach influencers who can help spread the brand message organically. Influence, not just scale, matters.

EARN IT, DON’T JUST PAY FOR IT. Despite what you may have heard, there are relatively simple ways for brands to engage with the masses on Foursquare without spending money. Marketers need to think beyond quantitative and consider more qualitative and niche when it comes to using specific arsenals to reach a proper target demographic. This is where location-based social networks are a smarter bet for more savvy marketers.

Coke Zero created a Foursquare account to promote its sampling tour and street-team events on college campuses and at sporting events by sharing updates with their Twitter followers, to terrific results.

It’s not just about influencer males: Many of the brands working with Foursquare in an official capacity – Bravo, History Channel, Starbucks, the city of Chicago, New York Magazine, and Wynn Las Vegas to name but a few – are not even reaching out to men alone. They’re smartly investing early in the growth of the networks, using them to reward loyalty, provide local details, and to provide insider information.

Whether you pay to play or not, those who have faith that their audience will like the product or message will ultimately spread the word about it to their friends and acquaintances. It’s a leap of faith for many brands, but ultimately one that other brands will take. So why not be among the first?

REMEMBER THE RETAILERS. Success in sales today, whether in packaged goods, automotive, or fashion, means keeping customers happy. Stores are, well, geographic locations where the products we spend our time promoting are sold. Precisely because of their role in bridging the divide between the real world and the digital world, we’re working on innovative uses of these networks to help make the digital less ephemeral.

Given the importance that many brands place on winning battles at the retail level, smart and innovative marketers should be conjuring up location-based campaigns as a value-add to their relationships with the retailers sooner rather than later. In short, it’s not only a consumer leadership and innovation argument, but a customer (that is to say, retailer like Walmart) argument.

WHERE TO GO? Foursquare has more than 2 million users INVEST IN GROWTH. Somewhere around 2006, Facebook opened its membership to those without .edu e-mail addresses, and followed up with branded fan pages. At the time, the fledgling social network only had a handful of members. Yet several brands were happy to oblige because the barrier to start a fan page was very low. There was no cost, they could engage the hardcore fans in a tight-knit community with twoway conversation, and these brands could use the network for instant feedback. Brands that invested in Facebook early on have reaped the rewards.

Fast-forward to 2010 and men between the ages of 19 and 35 are adopting Foursquare, as they did Facebook four years ago. Foursquare and other location-based social networks are growing.

As the big networks roll out their own take on location-based social networking, it’s clear that this hybrid is the way of the future. Value will only rise.

If Foursquare was last year’s Twitter, companies like SCVNGR and StickyBits are vying to be this year’s Foursquare. And major brands aren’t hesitating to work with them.

The sooner you get involved, the faster your influential fan network can go to work on your behalf and the more you can ultimately reap from these bleeding-edge platforms.

– Sarah Hofstetter is senior vice-president of emerging media and brand strategy at US-based digital marketing agency 360i.

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© arabianEye.com

OCTOBER 2010 | RESEARCH

Secrets of the Saudi shopper

Mindshare’s survey to engage consumers at “passion points” reveals some interesting facts about a lucrative but elusive market by Rania Habib

E

HADI JAWAD. Regional group director of business planning at Mindshare

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verybody wants to sell to Saudis. The kingdom is the region’s magic market, rife with youth looking to spend money and be at the forefront of all things cool. As industry watchers are keen to point out, Saudis are time-rich and experience-poor.

There may not be much to do in Saudi Arabia, but Saudi consumers possess purchasing power almost unrivalled in the region. And that’s why anyone and everyone advertising or marketing a product in the Gulf wants to sell to them. But the Saudi market is often divided into “youth,” “men,” and “women,” with little regard to the more intricate details of the consumer mindset.

When Mindshare, a media planning and buying agency, conducted its Out Of Home Aptitude (OOHA) survey in the country, it did things a little differently. Rather than focus solely on demographics, Mindshare conducted the survey in three parts – one quantitative and two qualitative – in order to figure out the attitudes and behavior of consumers, and to better understand the relationship between advertisement and brand usage.

“You cannot expect all people from the same demographic profile to behave similarly in terms of brand consumption and media,” says Hadi Jawad, regional group director of business planning at Mindshare.

“In my office, for example, there are five Lebanese men between the ages of 20 and 30. None of them has the same behavior when it comes to consuming media. One is a sports fanatic, another is a music lover who never watches sports, and

another is a fan of cooking who only watches cooking shows. When it comes to traditional research, all of them would be put under one profile, but in reality, they’re not the same. That’s why we have to understand how you can engage with them, and not just throw advertising left, right, and center,” he says.

Jawad says the research was a concentrated effort to engage consumers at their “passion points.” Researchers accompanied consumers while they shopped for household products.

They then held small group discussions, and also conducted face-to-face interviews with a larger sample of the targeted demographic.

After three months of following consumers and interacting with them at points of purchase, according to Jawad, the most interesting thing Mindshare found was the various types of shoppers. “There are promotion-driven consumers, brand-loyal consumers, switchers based on needs, and extreme loyals,” he says.

LOYAL FLUSH. “The extreme loyals are a very interesting segment for shopper marketing, because these are people who, if they don’t find their brand, will not replace it with another.

And this is specific to certain categories, not all of them. But Nescafé instant coffee is a striking brand in this category: 70 percent of consumers are extremely loyal to this brand,” Jawad says.

The qualitative part of the survey was conducted by interviewing 1,200 adults in order

© arabianEye.com

OCTOBER 2010 | RESEARCH

CASH RICH. Saudis possess purchasing power almost unrivalled in the region

to “quantify the affinity and effectiveness of various out-of-home touch-points.” “You have megacoms [three-by-four-meter billboards], LEDs, and mupis, and they’ve all been tested against different categories,” says Jawad.

“One of the interesting facts we found from the survey is that automotive advertising works better on megacoms, versus FMCGs, which perform better with in-mall advertising, such as in-mall mupis and LEDs. A good point to take note of is that we should consider what a suitable format for each category is, rather than putting all ads on lampposts and mupis.”

While this survey has been conducted only in Saudi Arabia so far, Jawad says there is more to come. “Saudi Arabia is an important market, but it’s not the only market we are covering. We’ll be covering the whole MENA region, and we’re doing it in stages. This year we’ll do Kuwait, the UAE, Lebanon, and Jordan, while next year we’ll extend to North Africa, and other markets we didn’t cover this year.”

So why all this detailed research across all of these markets? “Understanding consumers’ behavior is a key point for us to do proper media planning,” says Jawad. “We need to better understand their decisions within an environment of competing brands and products.”

POLLING IN THE AISLES

ACTING ON IMPULSE

Some OOHA observations on supermarket shopping

Percentage of consumers who buy on impulse as opposed to planning their purchases across supermarket brands. (Figures in percentages; based on responses of shoppers who personally make purchases in the categories.)

Consumers spend an average 60 to 90 minutes on a shopping trip to the supermarket.

Average budget per visit to the supermarket is 500 riyals.

Shopping lists are carried more by men than by women. Men’s shopping lists are more detailed.

Most items are listed by product name rather than by brand name.

Cereals. Kids are attracted to colorful packages and flavors (mainly chocolate), while mothers look for nutritional cereals.

Coffee. In Saudi Arabia, Nescafé is synonymous with instant coffee; consumers are very brand loyal.

Juices. Promotions play a major role in purchase decisions, particularly quantity-based promotions. Consumers buy gallons of juice, as the whole family consumes it.

Soap. Consumers prefer certain brands, mainly Dettol, but are open to promotions as long as they are for brands they trust, such as Lifebuoy, Lux, and Nivea.

Hair care. Consumers in Saudi – especially women – are reluctant to compromise on the health and quality of their hair for price reductions or other promotions; they are loyal to brands.

Cleaning products. Consumers look for promotions and are willing to shift from one brand to another to make the most of promotions.

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Impulse

Pre-planned

Soft drinks

63 37

Juices

61 39

Sweets/salty snacks

56 44

Dairy products

54 45

Water

48 52

Cosmetics, perfumes

45 55

Shaving and grooming

37 63

Packed/frozen food

36 64

Coffee and tea

36 64

Detergents

35 65

Shampoos and soaps

31 69

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itat

ion

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OCTOBER 2010 | PUBLIC RELATIONS

How social media is helping PR thrive

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

I

n 2009 Katie O’Brien was looking for an agency partner to help her launch a major digital effort.

The global digital marketing manager at ice-cream company Ben & Jerry’s issued a brief to a traditional digital shop and a traditional PR agency, Edelman. The plans they brought back were, in O’Brien’s words, “night and day.”

The biggest difference, she says, was that one understood social media better than the other – and it wasn’t the digital shop that got it. “The shop didn’t try to understand what we were trying to accomplish with the campaign,” says O’Brien. “What Edelman brought back was extremely strategic; it told a story and took into consideration all of the different spaces – earned, owned, paid, and social. It hit on everything.

I felt like they got our voice, and maybe because their roots are in PR, it was never just about buying banner ads with Edelman.”

Like every other marketing sector, the PR industry took a beating in 2009. But unlike after the last major downturn in the PR business, which was brought on by the dot-com bust and the September 11 attacks in 2001, the industry is experiencing a much quicker rebound this time around – and a good part of the credit goes to social media.

With marketers looking for both social media and digital guidance, PR has seen increased business. And there are broader assignments from current clients, closer relationships with chief marketing officers, and a much bigger pipeline of new-business pitches.

PR, up until now, “wasn’t central to a corporation’s overall branding strategy,” says John Suhler, co-founder and president of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private-equity firm that publishes annual reports on the state of the PR industry. “There is now an

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opportunity for the PR profession and practitioners to use these [digital] tools and make PR a more important part of the communications arsenal.”

In their second-quarter earnings calls, Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group of Cos. reported increases in business of more than 7 percent for their PR divisions. Tom Harrison, chairman and CEO of Omnicom Group’s Diversified Agency Services, which oversees the holding company’s PR shops, including Ketchum, Fleishman-Hillard, and Porter Novelli, says part of the improvement in business is because of the dual role PR plays for marketers.

“PR can prepare a brand or product for its target market while also preparing the market for that new brand or product,” says Harrison. “There isn’t another discipline within the communications services that can do that for a brand.”

“More and more it’s being taken for granted by marketers that social media and digital fall in the PR space,” says Harris Diamond, CEO of Interpublic’s Constituency Management Group, which oversees Interpublic’s PR shops such as Weber Shandwick, Golin Harris, and MWW Group. “And the whole engagement concept and lack of trust people have in authority figures, or characters telling them what to buy or where to invest, plays to our strengths.”

PR shops have played major roles in developing, creating, and executing digital and social efforts for key clients. Ketchum has worked on efforts for Kodak, Dr Pepper, Best Buy, and FedEx. Weber Shandwick has helped clients such as Pepsi and KFC, while Edelman has handled efforts for eBay and Quaker. PR agencies within WPP were behind Ford’s highly praised Sociable Drive campaign.

ConAgra tapped Ketchum to work on the

digital effort for Chef Boyardee’s Club Mom, launching in December. While many marketers have automatically given this type of work to digital shops because social media largely lives online, digital is really just the way social media is distributed, says Brett Groom, vice-president of content activation at ConAgra. “The space is about listening and understanding what has impact with consumers,” he says. “PR agencies are more fundamentally aligned with the social-media structure, and [know] how to figure out what things might resonate with consumers far better than a digital shop, which is more about the technology.”

Edelman CEO Richard Edelman admits that the digital shift is critical to the business increase, but says companies have never faced more challenges to their reputations than they do now, which has resulted in even more work. “We’re seeing the combining of corporate reputation and brand marketing, and that plays to PR’s strengths,” he says.

MaryLee Sachs, worldwide director of marketing communications at WPP’s Hill & Knowlton, says internal communications work is also driving new business. “Marketers are beginning to realize that the consumer is not the be all and end all, and that there are a lot of other stakeholders that can influence the business, most of all employees,” she says.

The fact that there’s debate over whether marketing and PR should remain separate is evidence of PR’s growing importance, says Ray Kotcher, CEO of Ketchum. “You are going to start seeing decisions about whether marketing should report to PR,” he says, adding that he’s witnessed significant budgetary shifts from creative agencies to PR shops at some clients.

OCTOBER 2010 | MARKETING

“Walled gardens” hit Web analytics With marketers’ owned media now hosted by social networks such as Facebook, attribution analysis is a growing challenge by Jack Neff

T

racking the effectiveness of advertising on the Web was hard enough. Tracking it in the era of “walled gardens” could become that much tougher.

The rapid shift of Web audiences and marketer attention toward closely controlled properties such as Facebook or Apple’s iAd platform is presenting a growing challenge for Web analytics. Nearly a quarter of online time at the PC is now spent with social media, the lion’s share of that on Facebook, according to Nielsen Co. With more of marketers’ “owned” media – their online relationship marketing programs – now hosted within Facebook, that only becomes a bigger challenge.

“A number of companies have invested heavily in their analytics platforms over the past five years,” says Michael Stich, group director of strategic planning for Bridge Worldwide. “They’ve spent a lot of money on reporting and scorecards.

This really does put a black hole in the middle of those scorecards.”

By far the biggest issue, because it has by far the biggest and most diverse audience, is Facebook, which now counts a quarter of the world’s Internet users as members and more than 40 percent of the total US population as monthly visitors, according to Compete.com.

“Attribution analysis,” or determining which of numerous digital media gets credit for a sale or a targeted behavior when the same person has been exposed to many ads and offers, is hard with

44 I Communicate

Facebook because the site limits the data it will share, Stich says.

This spring Facebook did unveil an improved – and free – Insights program with more demographic data about pages’ fans, but it still doesn’t offer the range of analytics marketers are used to for their own websites or e-mail programs.

A Facebook fan, whatever the count, isn’t the same thing as a website visitor, says Hemen Patel, president of CRM Metrix, which handles Web analytics for such marketers as Procter & Gamble Co. and Coca-Cola. Nor is a Facebook fan page really free, he says.

“Even though the platform may be free, the agency is charging $250,000 to $300,000 to maintain it,” he says. “Then we see figures like 300,000 fans, but only 300 do anything actively… The question becomes, ‘Am I really going to sell $1,000 worth of Tide to this one person over a lifetime?’”

The numbers of active fans may be low but, Stich says, both Facebook and marketers are focusing more on the passive aspect of fanhood – receiving news and status updates from brands.

Surveying those fans on pre- and post-exposure purchase intent or behavior can help solve some of the analytics issue, he says.

Patel says Coke and others are starting to survey fans on Facebook about such things as how much Coke they drank when they first became fans, versus later over time. That can eventually allow marketers to determine how

much it’s worth to spend per fan on Facebook programs, he says.

But just knowing how many fans truly read a brand’s status updates – and when – is tricky. “Right now, people are arguing that everyone who’s a fan gets these updates, and therefore it counts as an impression,” Stich says. “I don’t necessarily agree, because not everyone reads every single update.”

He suggests “backing into” a number by putting clickable links into messages, measuring clicks, and creating an audience estimate based on standard click-through rates. It leaves a lot to be desired, however, compared to measuring the sales impact of brand e-mail programs, which is often possible through marketing-mix modeling, according to Gregg Ambach, managing director of Analytic Partners, Cincinnati, a marketing analytics firm.

“When I send out an e-mail blast,” he says, “I know how many people opened it and when. I know how many people clicked through if there was something to click through to. There are just far more touch points [than with Facebook newsfeeds] that get me closer” to analyzing sales impact.

For all the data challenges, it’s hard to beat the cost or the access to a huge shopper base, many of them on mobile devices, says Rich Lesperance, director of online marketing for Walgreens. “What they’ve done for brands has been phenomenal,” he says. “It’s hard to complain that their metrics aren’t good enough when in this world you get what you pay for.”

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OCTOBER 2010 | DIGITAL

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

S

o Kevin Costner, Axl Rose and Duke Nukem walk into a bar ...

It’s no joke – at least we don’t think so.

In the entertainment industry, there are a few properties legendary for cost overruns and lengthy delays – among them Waterworld in 1995 and Guns N’Roses’ Chinese Democracy, which was finally released in 2008 after a 15-year gestation period. Now add to those one of the gaming world’s most-anticipated titles, Duke Nukem Forever, which might actually be coming to the market after 13 years in development.

Duke Nukem, for those who managed to escape the firestorm of chatter on social media and blogs last month, is a crass-talking, womanizing macho action-hero stereotype and the lead character in a first-person shooter game from Gearbox Software. On Sept. 3, within an hour of the developer announcing at gaming show PAX that the title will be launched for PS3 and Xbox 360 next year, Duke Nukem was a top-trending Twitter topic. Duke racked up tens of thousands of blog postings along with hundreds of digital and mainstream media news stories, many among them not quite believing that after more than a decade – a lifetime in the gaming world – Duke would actually blast his way onto the modern-day console.

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The original Duke Nukem was a shoot-’emup PC game that appeared in 1991 and went to the top of shareware lists (where players could download a free trial) and stayed there for two years.

Duke Nukem II for the PC was released in 1993, followed by Duke Nukem 3D in 1996. The last game has endured and even became available on Xbox 360 via its Live Arcade in 2008. This latest incarnation, Duke Nukem Forever, was first announced in 1997. At the time, Titanic was in theaters and the first Harry Potter book had just been published in the UK. What’s been the hold-up? 3D Realms, the original developers of Duke Nukem, certainly intended to release the title. More than half-adozen dates were announced – and blown – over a decade, and sneak peeks were shown at the E3 gaming show a number of times.

However, both the perfectionism of the game creators, who changed game engines at least twice at the cost of significant cash and development time, and their inability to “lock down” the game – that is, stop adding to it and start polishing it for release – ultimately sealed the game’s fate as perennial vaporware, according to a Wired article last year.

by Beth Snyder Bulik

In the interim, Duke has survived through online fan tributes and forum chats, as well as hundreds of online videos. Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox and a developer on the original Duke game, says that was the reason he chose PAX, a conference of video-game players, as opposed to the more well-known E3 conference for industry insiders in June, to announce Duke’s return.

“This is not a game one can make promises about,” he says, thanks to the many years of unfulfilled promises. “We knew we would get attention no matter when we announced, but attention alone is not helpful for this title. We had to convert it from being a joke to a triumphant moment we all want to get behind.”

Unlike typical rollouts, which start with an announcement of the title followed by demos months later, DNF had to be announced with demos and real game play at the same time, he says.

The first stage of marketing will be to instill confidence. For the second, Pitchford won’t be specific about plans, but says that Gearbox, working with publisher 2K Games, intends to get demos into players’ hands, before launching what he calls a traditional “large-scale” media campaign.

The message: Duke Nukem Forever is real this time.

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OCTOBER 2010 | MARKETING

Halo launches with a bang

With teasers, live-action spots, Web films, Pepsi partnership, can Microsoft top franchise’s past success? by Kunur Patel

T

hree-hundred-million dollars in first-week sales, two Cannes Grands Prix, and “advertising” that took the form of a traveling museum exhibit. That’s what Microsoft’s Xbox got for its last marketing blowout for the Halo videogame franchise. With the latest installment out last month, how in the extraterrestrial world is it going to beat that?

After teaser shots, the marketing for Halo: Reach, the fourth release in the franchise, ramped up in the first week of September. It was the biggest game campaign from Microsoft in the marketer’s history, says Michael Stout, global product manager for Xbox.

There was also a robot. Xbox launched a website on September 5 through which users could manipulate a real-life robot in an undisclosed San Francisco warehouse to build a monument out of lasers for this game’s protagonists, Noble Team.

Independent digital agency AKQA handled the interactive component, while Interpublic Group of Cos.’ AgencyTwoFifteen handled strategy and video. Both agencies were involved with the previous Halo 3 campaign, which swept 2008 ad awards shows, including two top prizes at the Cannes Adverting Festival.

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“We’re not looking at it as trying to top what we’ve done,” says Scott Duchon, executive creative director and partner at AgencyTwoFifteen. “But we’re trying to find a new way to find success for Halo. How do you market the story before [the fictional character and main protagonist] Master Chief? We approach it as a particular story that needs to be told, not the franchise. That’s why it’s a different approach altogether.”

It’s going to be quite a task for this latest Halo release to get any bigger. It’s a top 20 video-game franchise, according to the NPD Group, and to get higher in the ranks, the nineyear-old franchise will have to best titles such as Mario Bros., Lego, Madden, and Grand Theft Auto. Microsoft has sold more than 34 million Halo games since it debuted in 2001. Franchise games and merchandise brought in nearly $2 billion worldwide.

And while Halo 3 grossed $170 million in first-day sales in 2007, setting a record at the time, last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the record to beat with $310 million in first-day sales.

“You don’t have to know anything before going into it,” says Taylor Smith, director of global marketing communications for Xbox.

“We’re trying to tell the story in broad strokes and universal themes that people know all around the world, and get our core fans even doubly excited.”

To that end, spots and Web films feature live action, as the Halo 3 Believe effort did, rather than the game footage so often found in gaming ads.

Partnerships are also a ploy to reach new audiences. Xbox has again partnered with PepsiCo, this time for its biggest brand integration to date. Starting last month, 300 million Mountain Dew bottles and 30 million bags of Doritos began featuring Halo packaging and under-the-caps sweepstakes. Xbox also rolled out a highly integrated promotion with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

“As a gaming franchise we have the luxury that people want to come to us,” Taylor says.

“But we also need to be out there in pop culture: That’s how Pepsi fits in and broadcast fits in.”

Xbox declined to disclose budgets for Reach, but the campaign at the very least beats the Halo 3 effort, which came in at $6.5 million in 2007 paid media, according to Kantar Media.

Microsoft spent $12 million in media for its video-game division in 2009, according to Ad Age Data Center.

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OCTOBER 2010 | DIGITAL

Facebook: the new brand site

“Like” it or not, trend serves as another telling sign of social media’s growing dominance by Jack Neff

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hile the tech world obsessed about when Facebook would turn on location and morph into a “Foursquare killer,” the social network has quietly become something else: the biggest relationship-marketing provider for brands.

For many marketers, their Facebook fan bases have become their largest Web presence, outstripping brand sites or e-mail programs either because a brand’s traditional Web-based “owned media” is atrophying or because more consumers are migrating to social media.

Coca-Cola, with its 10.7 million Facebook fans, has three to four times the Facebook fan base as MyTown and Foursquare have registered users. (There are at least 11 brands whose Facebook fan pages have quietly grown bigger than the biggest geo location providers.) That certainly trumps US unique visitors to Coke’s brand website, which fell more than 40 percent to 242,000 in July compared to a year ago, according to analytics company Compete.

Kraft Foods’ Oreo is the No. 3 brand page on Facebook, as tracked by analytics company DBM/ Scan, with an 8.7 million fan base growing at a clip of 71,000 a day. But the multi-brand site where its Web presence has been hosted, NabiscoWorld. com, saw US traffic decline to 321,000 in July from 1.2 million in the same month last year.

50 I Communicate

While fan pages may work a lot like a marketer’s traditional “owned media,” they’re not actually owned by the marketers. Facebook hosts the pages and provides analytics for free, but growing marketer dependency on the network for customer relationship management programs, combined with simultaneous declines in traffic for many of their own brand websites, could give Facebook a valuable revenue opportunity.

Clearly, much of the audience migration from brand sites to Facebook pages is by marketer design.

Increasingly, tags on TV and print ads that used to direct people to brand websites now direct them to Facebook fan pages, says Daniel Cummings, business development director for DBM/Scan, a firm that tracks relationship marketing programs for packaged goods, quick-serve restaurants, pharmaceutical marketers, and retailers.

DBM/Scan thinks of Facebook as “a big-list broker like Experian,” Cummings says, albeit with big differences, such as being free – for now.

DBM/Scan tracks 560 such branded Facebook fan pages created since April 2008. Pampers has seen its Facebook fan count shoot north of 327,000 in recent months. But Pampers.com has lost even more people in terms of traffic, much of it driven by its e-mail programs. The site’s unique monthly US visitor count was 560,000 in July,

down almost half from 1.1 million a year ago, according to Compete.

The decline of Web traffic isn’t universal for marketers with big Facebook fan followings. The current reigning champ of branded Facebook pages, Starbucks, has seen fairly steady Web traffic over the past year, according to Compete, even as it built its Facebook count to 12.7 million fans.

But like other retailers or fast feeders that have maintained Web traffic amid growth in Facebook fandom, Starbucks.com also has a substantial ecommerce traffic.

Similarly Walgreens, while building a Facebook fan base of more than 500,000, has seen no drop-off in traffic, which hit 6.7 million in July, according to Compete.

Within Facebook, Walgreens is finding that what works best are fairly frequent short updates, often ones posing a question that prompts a response, says Rich Lesperance, director of online marketing for the retailer.

Facebook is now telling marketers such as Procter & Gamble Co. to focus on status updates rather than other applications that can be harder to adopt or track, says Michael Stich, group director of strategic planning for WPP’s digital and relationship marketing agency Bridge Worldwide, which works with P&G.

Illustration: Alvin Cha

OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

X-pert Files

Tough call

Weber Shandwick’s Andreas Keller examines how du and Etisalat handled their customers’ concerns over the UAE’s proposed BlackBerry ban

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ANDREAS KELLER. Regional PR director for the Middle East and North Africa at PR firm Weber Shandwick

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think we can all agree that the only thing hotter than the desert sun this summer has been the sizzling BlackBerry controversy that could make an impact on the lives of approximately 500,000 subscribers in the UAE. To recap: On August 1 the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced that it would suspend the smartphone’s messenger, e-mail, and Web services, starting October 11, if its demands were not met. The details of this dispute have been widely reported, so I won’t dwell on them too much. To make a long story short, the BlackBerry service was launched in the UAE in 2007 and the TRA has been trying to bring its services in line with local regulations ever since. At the heart of the issue is the fact that Research In Motion (RIM), BlackBerry’s parent company, has its data center in Canada, which means that all communications that take place on the device go straight to Canada and are stored there. This poses a security risk, says the TRA, as well as other complications.

I have a BlackBerry, but my employer provides it, so I don’t directly deal with either du or Etisalat.

If the ban does get enforced, it will affect the way I work, so I have been keeping an eye on the issue. My commentary is based on what I have read and heard.

There are four key players here: The TRA and RIM are at the heart of the dispute, while du and Etisalat have been indirectly affected. It would be an understatement to say that both operators have not exactly endeared themselves to UAE residents

over the years. Both have been accused of being out of touch with consumers and offering questionable customer services and products. Many BlackBerry users still have a bitter taste in their mouth from the last time Etisalat tried to get them to download the infamous and battery-sapping “performance patch,” designed to give the operator the ability to read subscribers’ e-mails and text messages.

KEY POINTS. Before we take a closer look at how du and Etisalat tackled the latest issue, let’s first recap the fundamentals of communicating in a crisis. As a brand, you need to 1) Prepare as much as possible so that if something does happen, you are ahead of the game. 2) Address the issue head-on and communicate often when you have accurate and valuable information to convey. 3) Make sure your CEO is at the forefront of your communication efforts. 4) Be transparent and sensitive when addressing stakeholders.

Both operators came out fairly quickly with their respective communications and followed similar strategies, although there were some slip-ups along the way. They proactively texted their respective customers on August 1, the same day the TRA announced the news. Most BlackBerry users probably got the news from their operators before they read about it in newspapers, which is what you want in this type of situation. The key question is: Did they reach all their customers with the SMS or was it

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WRONG MESSAGE. Etisalat and du need a more sophisticated communications strategy hit-and-miss? They also updated their websites fairly quickly. The operators, however, took several days to come up with alternative solutions. It’s unsure how early they knew this was going to happen, but they should have pushed to have their respective solutions available two or three days after the initial announcement.

Etisalat’s text directed customers to its website for information and updates. However, according to Abu Dhabi-based daily newspaper The National, “initial attempts to access Etisalat’s BlackBerry page did not succeed.”

Etisalat then sent out a press release on August 3, which elaborated a little more on the SMS text, but essentially contained similar information with no real concrete news. I’m guessing its strategy was to reach a broader cross-section of the community.

But why wait two days to do this and have no new information to announce? A chief technology officer for a major media company that has a group contract with Etisalat told me that he received a letter from the CEO on August 17, two weeks after the initial announcement. Perhaps an e-mail from the CEO would have reached customers quicker.

WORDS APART. Du came out with a statement on August 2, a day earlier than Etisalat, which essentially contained the same wording and information. It may seem petty and trivial, but in times of crisis each word you choose in your communication comes under the microscope. Du, for example, told customers that more information would be available in the “coming days,” while Etisalat said it would have more information “soon.” The first is much more specific.

One mistake companies can make during times like these is communicating for the sake of communicating. Information without substance can trigger an adverse reaction from consumers. Each time you communicate with your customer, it is an op-

54 I Communicate

portunity to make an impression by providing value or relevant information. As the telecom landscape becomes increasingly competitive, communicating effectively will become paramount. If brands mishandle this part of the process, it will affect their business down the line, when consumers have a bigger choice of operators. There have been some grumblings in the market about how both operators tried to capitalize on this opportunity to lock customers into 12-month contracts with replacement phones and get more money out of them. Using a crisis for your own benefit at the expense of your customers is definitely in the “what not to do” crisis playbook.

Etisalat held a press conference on August 3.

Du opted to have one the following day with its CEO, Osman Sultan, to announce its “Rest Assured” plan. Unfortunately, the key message focused on how the issue would affect the company, not its customers. The CEO was quoted as saying that the BlackBerry suspension was unlikely to affect du’s business significantly. While this may be true, it gave the impression that the company cared about its own interests first. Downplaying the news was a mistake because it alienated du’s 100,000 BlackBerry subscribers.

A press conference is an appropriate setting to announce big news if you want to reach a crosssection of the population. As du was talking to an audience of primarily mainstream media, it was probably more interested in the business aspect of the story. But who are the primary stakeholders directly affected by this issue? BlackBerry users.

The communications efforts of both operators should, therefore, have been designed to assuage their concerns. A more direct approach to reaching customers would have perhaps yielded better results. The operators could have set up exclusive one-on-one interviews to ensure the right delivery of their messages, or opted for online sessions with their CEOs to answer questions from customers.

SOCIAL WORK. In this context, social media should be one of the primary tools for both operators. BlackBerry users are active in this space, and it’s probably the best and most cost-effective medium to reach them directly. Both operators are on Facebook, but it appears not a lot was done to leverage the network’s reach.

They are also on Twitter, one of the fastestgrowing social media platforms in the UAE. Du was the first to be active on the network, and as a result has managed to establish a good rapport with the Twitter community, answering questions and engaging with online users. Often it’s easier to go through @dutweets than through the firm’s traditional customer service channels. The company responds to questions, solves problems, and you can see users really appreciate it. I think both operators did really well on Twitter around this issue.

On August 1, just before lunch, du came out with a series of Tweets to inform its followers of what was happening. Etisalat, on the other hand, didn’t proactively offer information, but responded to many users’ questions and concerns. The bottom line is that both operators have a presence on Twitter, and it paid off for them.

On the whole, du and Etisalat were very proactive in communicating with their customers and responded relatively quickly to the issue. But, in hindsight, the strategy and selection of communications tactics could have been a bit more sophisticated and targeted. But I believe how they responded is a marked improvement from what we have seen from local companies in the past.

BOLD STATEMENT. A couple of days after the TRA announced its decision on August 1, David Yach, RIM’s chief technology officer, came out with a bold statement. “I believe they’ll have trouble pulling the trigger to shut down BlackBerry. Most governments in the world rely on BlackBerry,” he said. It may have been a spur-of-the-moment quote, but one thing you don’t want to do is make brash comments that could antagonize the regulators who are ultimately responsible for deciding your fate. Several local journalists told me that they grew extremely frustrated with RIM’s inability to issue a statement for an issue that took on such global proportions.

RIM finally came out with one around midAugust, saying that it “genuinely tries to be as co-operative as possible with governments in the spirit of supporting legal and national security requirements, while also preserving the lawful needs of citizens and corporations.” Nice wording, but the truth is the statement should have been made much sooner, a day or two after the TRA’s announcement.

The regulator’s role has been downplayed in all of this. It was the TRA’s announcement that triggered this issue, but it had a very clear message, which was given credibility by the fact that RIM was experiencing similar issues in other markets.

The successful agreement reached in Saudi Arabia gives all UAE BlackBerry users hope. Both parties are hopeful of reaching a conclusion.

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OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

X-pert Files

The case for brands in Libya

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

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ibya is a country that is opening up. In 2003 Tripoli voluntarily renounced terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and shortly thereafter Western sanctions on the country were lifted. Having shed its pariah status, Libya is now seeking a place on the global stage via multilateral organizations like the United Nations, and is committed to opening its economy.

Libya has large deposits of oil and gas, and is currently experiencing a boom in construction, healthcare, tourism, and financial services. A new airport is coming up in Tripoli and cities are being built on the outskirts of the capital. The country’s per-capita gross domestic product is one of the highest in Africa – $15,200, according to the 2009 CIA Factbook. And the sentiment among Libyans we have spoken to is that the country is ready for growth, and to provide a good standard of living for its people.

We will explore in this short piece two key challenges that brands face in Libya, based on our experience in the market, and see how, if overcome, they can contribute to the re-emergence of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (to give Libya its full title) on a regional and global stage.

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

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THE ROLE OF BRAND EDUCATION FOR PRACTITIONERS. The first challenge we found is one common to emerging nations whose ambition outstrips the current supply of market knowledge – that

of brand education among practitioners of the brand. It is a general rule (judging from our experience) that many markets, as they emerge and look to create new infrastructure, and energy, financial, and social projects, turn to management consultancies. Across the world the likes of McKinsey, Booz and BCG are well known and need no introduction.

Too often, then, marketers are handed a robust business plan that shows them how the business will make money, but all too often that plan is then worked on by the marketing team and the communications agency. Not to take anything away from them, but this results in a brand born out of a communications idea, not a brand that can inspire and direct retail design, staff service styles, uniforms, in-store experiences, product innovation, and quality assurance of build on the ground – for example, of a new bank or hospital.

For brands to be truly successful, this “middle step” must be considered.

It is clear that in Libya, due to sanctions and social factors, much of the talent, although extremely proficient, is simply not exposed to global learnings, which must be tailored to the local market and not merely followed blindly.

Brands shouldn’t be just a logo, a “face” for something that does not deliver on a promise.

Brands in Libya should help to contribute not only to economic growth, but also to societal regeneration. This can only be done through “walking the talk,” not more communications without action.

THE ROLE OF BRAND LIBYA FOR CONSUMERS. Emerging nations often encounter a wave of nationalism, which, if tapped into, can really propel the brands being created.

In the United States and Europe, many institutions have been built to commemorate people behind key political movements, religions, and battle victories. The famous Trafalgar Square in London, built to commemorate the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, a British naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars, is one such example.

In Libya we have seen people – from chief executives to marketing managers to taxi drivers – express a sincere and deep-seated optimism for the future, for the opportunity for the country to stand up and be a global player.

At this early stage of development, brands can be created that tap into this optimism; brands that help to create the social fabric of the new society, brands that make Libya’s citizens proud to be Libyans and proud of their hospitals, roads, banks, and schools.

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OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

X-pert Files

Lifting the veil on Saudi Arabia

Women in the kingdom are now increasingly confident and assertive, and brand owners targeting them would do well to recognize that, says TNS Middle East & Africa’s Stuart Campbell-Morris

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STUART CAMPBELL-MORRIS. Regional CEO at research firm TNS Middle East & Africa

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round the turn of the century, the chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi, Kevin Roberts, introduced the concept of Lovemarks. At the time such a brand communications strategy might have been a little premature for Saudi Arabia, but no longer. The third TNS ARAC – Arab as Consumer – 20/20 Woman study shows that the era of “brand as relationship” has arrived, at least among Saudi women, so it’s time to catch up – with Mawadha – Arabic for close emotional bonding – brand communications.

Like Lovemarks, a Mawadha brand communication shows in its storyline, characterization, and tonality that the brand shares the target audience’s values and beliefs – and the potential for the emotional bonding this generates is greatly increased when these values and beliefs recognize the latest trends in society.

The study focuses on Saudi Arabia, the largest market in the region, and on women as the main agents of change in Saudi society.

The first ARAC study ran in 1987, the year commercial television was introduced in the kingdom.

Back then brands had very little significance in consumers’ lives beyond a means of product recognition – as a label. The next ARAC study ran in 2001, five years after the advent of satellite TV. As a result of the changes that momentous event triggered, brands took on a more meaningful role for consumers, as an identity badge of the emergent individualism in the society.

For the first time in the Saudi market, TNS was able to segment the market psychographically, based on the degree of individuality different groups of consumers aspired to. In other words, a conserva-

tive, collectivist society had started to evolve. It had started to modernize and “mature.”

The latest study shows that this trend toward individualism and self-actualization has now moved much further, nurtured by the reforms championed by King Abdullah since he took the throne in 2005. Saudi women are no longer all stereotypically subservient, compliant personalities. They are now self-confident and assertive, with their own agendas, their own sets of goals, ambitions, aspirations, and priorities. And brand owners targeting them would do well to recognize that if they want to effectively connect with them.

To form a lasting, emotional bond with Saudi women, brand communications today need to recognize them as individuals, as well as daughters, wives, and mothers.

ACCELERATED CHANGE. King Abdullah has vigorously pursued a series of reforms to bring women into the public sphere.

The education system has become co-educational in parts; the under-secretary at the Ministry of Education is a woman; women are now regularly included on official foreign trade missions; they are pictured in the daily press appearing unveiled among various dignitaries; women’s rights, and social issues such as domestic abuse, are regularly featured in the media.

This has sent a message to the Saudi population that the official strategy is no longer one of “progress without change.” Social change is now seen to be endorsed from the top.

OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

SLICE OF LIFE: Nestlé ads create characters who embody the essence of the brand personality In the study we have identified 11 societal changes Saudi women feel are affecting their lives significantly, and which brand owners must understand.

It also presents the case for understanding how the women address or cope with these changes. TNS has identified six distinct personality types among Saudi women today (see next page). The one-word labels are meant to capture the essence of each type.

WHY PERSONALITY SEGMENTATION? Market segmentation is always a challenge. It is often ultimately discarded as impractical – after seeming insightful at first, the segmentation can’t actually be applied, or its link to consumer behavior remains tenuous.

The most common starting point when thinking of segmenting markets is geo-demographics: location, age, and sex. This makes it easier to identify consumer segments and target them.

However, in mature markets this is rarely enough, as people there differ in other ways as well. We all have different needs in life, different aspirations. We differ emotionally. And in mature markets, where competition is well developed and many products deliver functionally, it is the emotional triggers, our emotional connection with brands, that make the difference. And make no mistake: The Saudi market today is well developed and mature. A six-segment profile in any market is a sign of maturity.

The advertising guru David Ogilvy once said, “People choose their brands for the same reasons they choose their friends.” This led TNS to look to a better understanding of personality types as an effective

means of segmenting the market. Quite simply, the TNS case is that personality largely determines the relationships or friendships people look for in their lives. And a brand, after all, offers a relationship.

Some of these expressions of personality may be more aspirational than others, but even if they are latent or suppressed, they do exist, they are real. That means they are worth considering when devising brand personality positionings or brand communication strategies. Advertising is often accused of selling dreams or ideals. The Saudi women understand that, and approve. Whatever their personality type, they all welcome a sense of optimism in their lives.

PAYOFFS: MAWADHA BRAND COMMUNICATIONS There’s a saying: Different strokes for different folks.

Brand owners today need to consciously target the most relevant consumer typology. Brands need to play to one of these personalities.

A consumer’s relationship with a brand is anchored in its personality, and that can be projected through the underlying values and tonality of the brand communication. By way of example, let’s take the characteristics of the Drive personality: Confident Direct Contemporary Unconventional Innovative The values and tonality a brand communication targeted at someone with a Drive personality will be: Energetic

Proactive Independent Unrestrained Seek variety Welcome new experiences In an advertising execution this would translate as: Direct: Be bold. There is no need for subtlety. This consumer appreciates a message delivered head-on.

Contemporary: Be in touch with the latest.

Unconventional: There is no room for mainstream.

Be at the forefront of a new trend.

Innovative: Show you’re not afraid of change.

Arab culture is strong on storytelling. We know “lice of life” storylines in TVCs generally have a strong pull. People like to “look in” on other people’s lives. With fewer personal contacts with family and neighbors today, they need substitutes for the social intimacy previously part of everyday life.

Look at the popularity of soaps on TV. Understanding the personality types and the relationships they are looking for enables creatives to develop characters and situations in TVCs – brand stories consumers engage with emotionally.

Instead of endorsements by celebrities, research such as this gives us a better chance to create characters who embody the essence of the brand personality.

They build consumer interest in developing a storyline across a campaign, revealing another episode in that character’s life. It’s been done before in other markets in different categories – Oxo (bouillon), Nestlé (beverages), Renault (automobiles).

ONE LAST THOUGHT: A Mawadha brand communication strategy needs this kind of insight into consumer psychology. But very little investment in that is currently being made in the region.

According to the 2009 ESOMAR Global Market Research Report, total market research spend in the GCC lags far behind norms in other mature markets.

In the UK, market research spend is equivalent to 14 percent of the total spend on advertising. In France this reaches 21 percent. In the GCC it is reckoned to be 3.4 percent, and only a small fraction of that is actually spent on the kind of strategic understanding of consumer psychology an emotionally bonding Mawadha brand communication is rooted in.

THE SIX TYPES The personalities that fit most closely with the traditional stereotype of Saudi woman: Reassurance: At the core of Reassurance Woman’s personality is her need for safety and security. She relies on the familiarity and comfort that tradition provides, and needs to be reassured that all will be well in the rapidly changing world.

Belonging: At the core of the Belonging Woman is her need to connect and to bond. She wants to blend in socially and be in harmony with the changes taking place around her. Opposite to these are the two most assertive typologies, traditionally most foreign to this society: Drive and Power.

Drive: At the core of the Drive Woman is her need for challenge. She is essentially proactive. She wants to fulfill her ambitions and aspirations.

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Power: At the core of the Power Woman is her need to self-assert. She likes to take command. Acting as bridges between the most traditional and the most assertive personalities are: Freedom: At the core of the Freedom Woman is her need for self-expression. She is high-spirited, likes to live a carefree life, and rejoices in personal freedom.

Control: At the core of the Control Woman is her need for structure and order. She wants to feel in control in all areas of her life. In summary, those who are most comfortable with social change are Power, Drive, and Freedom. They are assertive enough to take advantage of these changes. Belonging, Reassurance, and Control have to put more effort into how they adjust and adapt, as they are not naturally comfortable with change.

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OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

X-pert Files

The right diagnosis

Healthcare organizations need to capitalize on the power of branding if they want to stay ahead of the pack, says Omnia Middle East’s Matthew Ranson

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MATTHEW RANSON. Brand director at Omnia Middle East

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he Earth’s population is already estimated to be more than 6.8 billion. By 2025, it is expected to touch 8 billion.

Healthcare spend in Gulf Cooperation Council countries is expected to grow to $60 billion in 2025, up from $12 billion in 2006, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Analysts say that a growing and aging population, and a rise in chronic “lifestyle” diseases such as obesity and diabetes, which are escalating to epidemic proportions in the region, will drive demand.

In light of these facts, it is essential that healthcare organizations understand the importance of becoming brand-led businesses.

Branding is not just important; it is vital to the future of their business.

Successful companies capitalize on the power of branding. Take Apple. Its revenues grew from $3.68 billion in 2005 to $42.91 billion in 2009, with a brand value of $15.38 billion, a rise of 12 percent on 2008 and up four places in Interbrand’s Global Rankings.

How did the company achieve such success?

Simple. It took branding seriously, completely reinventing itself around the concept of superb customer experience.

Or take the Cleveland Clinic. Their big idea was simple: In 1921, Cleveland Clinic’s four founders set out to develop an institution that would be greater than the sum of its individual parts, an institution in which diverse specialists would be “able to think and act as a unit.”

In March this year, the global market research firm Harris Interactive released its EquiTrend results, the annual brand equity study that measures more than 1,000 brands across 42 categories. New to the study is the Cleveland Clinic, which is now ranked fourth in the United States in terms of trust and brand equity.

So, is your healthcare organization a brandled business? Given the evidence, I would suggest the answer is no. Currently, healthcare branding takes two forms. Firstly, organizations simply slap the “brand” name on every building

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starts to build. Healthcare is no different. There are many avenues and tools available that can help you in this process.

However, the key to success is to become actively involved in making sure your message continues to be delivered even when you are not around. By providing information and services, an organization is constantly in a position to make an impression on the world that elicits a positive emotion.

BIG MARKET. Healthcare spend in the GCC is expected to grow to $60 billion by 2025 and service affiliated with the brand. (Ranson General Hospital, Ranson Pharmacy, Ranson Out-Patient Clinic, Ranson Pre-Natal…)

Secondly, they cut and paste ill-conceived logos and equally meaningless clichés over every surface of their collateral and outdoor advertisements, in an uneducated attempt to capture market share.

These approaches are insufficient. The branding process goes much deeper than just selecting corporate names, logos, and advertising taglines.

It must be planned, strategically focused, and integrated throughout the organization. It should create an emotional, rational, and community image of an organization within the mind of the consumer. This allows the consumer to rank the value of an organization and its services against those of its competitors.

For new branding efforts to succeed, organizations must disassociate themselves from their own experience with the brand, and evaluate both the brand and the ultimate goals and objectives of their branding strategies.

As in real life, it takes time and exposure to build a relationship with your customers and patients. There are no shortcuts. I’m sure we have all experienced the frustration of having just a few followers on Twitter or a handful of connections on LinkedIn. However, with time and perseverance, the number of followers and connections gradually

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DRAMATIC TRANSFORMATION. The next five years will see a dramatic transformation in the way brands are perceived in the region. Specialist institutions are moving from the drawing board to the construction site. Last year in Saudi Arabia, Al Mashrik Company began work on the Arar Hospital for Women & Delivery, a $50 million project. Investment companies are also contributing to the development of specialist institutions.

In the past few years, Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Development Company, the state-owned investment firm, has bolstered its portfolio in the healthcare sector – most recently in a joint venture with Aldar Properties for the $1.9 billion Cleveland Clinic Hospital. Other specialist facilities include the Imperial College London Diabetes Center in Abu Dhabi and, as part of the 2030 plan for the emirate, the Wooridul Spine Centre, the region’s first facility dedicated to minimally invasive spinal care.

With an ongoing loss of exclusivity and an increasing role of generic competition, a solutions-based approach is a commercial must.

Rigorous portfolio brand management, along with an evolving customer understanding, is essential to generating both bottom-line value and brand equity.

Healthcare brands need to demonstrate commitment to their customers and deepen relationships with them. While many are gearing up to take on broader stretch and relevance, they will also need to increasingly support their brands and reputations.

Branding is no longer about any one product or a single campaign, but rather about a relationship based on social inspiration and solution-driven conversations. It is about the energy around a brand and its relationship with consumers and society. It is about providing an inspirational work environment for employees.

Transparency and authenticity involve creating compelling stories that engage.

The opportunities for healthcare organizations are immense. The way we live, work, and play is changing. Brands have changed, countries and communities have changed, and consumers have changed. So ask yourself one last time: Is your organization a brand-led business?

– Matthew Ranson is brand director of Omnia Middle East, the Dubai wing of Omnia, a branding, design and interactive agency with offices in the UK and the Middle East.

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OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

Review

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

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top us if you’ve heard this before: Ramadan ads tend to be clichéd. You’ll be lucky to find a promotion during the Holy Month that isn’t wrapped around a crescent, lantern, or table laden with dates.

Dubai Islamic Bank’s (DIB) head of corporate communications, Salah Al Hashimi, agrees. “With Ramadan, you are right in terms of it being too clichéd,” he says. “Advertisers use the crescent for every single product I’ve seen.”

“And also, recently, there are social messages,” he adds. “A lot of companies have started doing social messages.”

Al Hashimi is speaking at a round table held

by DIB to discuss advertising, and also to plug its new television commercial, “The man who gave.”

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“We wanted to differentiate ourselves,” he says.

“The man who gave” ran during Ramadan in a lengthy 90-second format, although at the round table we are treated to the three-minute director’s cut. The director is there, as is the producer, as well as representatives of the bank.

The ad shows a man in a dishdash driving an expensive pick-up truck around Dubai and leaving packed-lunch-sized boxes on doorsteps in poor areas of the emirate. When he returns to his villa he finds one last box in his car and sets off again. We don’t clearly see the man, and we never see what’s in the box. Ramadan isn’t mentioned.

“From a cinematic point of view we were trying to put out the message that Dubai Islamic

OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

COLLABORATORS. (From left) Barakat, Al Hashimi, Moosa, Abas Amir Fidri (DIB’s corporate development manager), and Vaswani Bank cares for others,” says Moneer Barakat, the film’s director. “We wanted to put it across in a cinematic way that was very engaging, very different. How can giving to others – which in a way is a Ramadan cliché – be done differently from a cinematic point of view? From an Islamic point of view, the best way to give is anonymously.”

Al Hashimi agrees that “giving” ads can be as tired as those with crescent moons and lanterns. “The social message is a cliché, but the question is: How do you differentiate yourself?” he says. “The differentiation happened through the way we produced the ad, the way we projected the concept.”

Giving isn’t just for Ramadan, it’s for life.

Kashif Moosa, DIB’s senior vice-president and head of corporate communications, says the ad shows that. “It’s not about harping on about a bank’s achievements,” he says. “It’s actually about something that is part of the bank’s DNA, that is ingrained in the bank: the concept of charity, the concept of people giving anonymously.

We will probably do that for years to come, but it’s not just our domain; we want other people to realize that as well, and hopefully spread the word.”

The move away from flogging a company’s core products and services is not unique to DIB, says Barakat. “Big brands are saying, ‘Why don’t we do DNA films? I will do a film about what I stand for,’” he says. “The DNA film is about a big brand or a big client who will define himself and say he stands for this or that. During the year he will communicate in unexpected ways – maybe a short film, maybe even product placement.”

The film was shot in Dubai by Michael Brierly, the cinematographer behind the 2010 film City of Life. It was produced by Milkshake Media.

Barakat says it had to be shot in Dubai for the locations the emirate offers. “The storyline

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clearly needed a place that has glamor, that has wealth, that has everything,” he says. “The film needs to dramatize a character that has all this but still decides to go and help the needy.”

Dubai is starting to find its role in regional cinema, he adds. “Dubai right now is trying to find its position when it comes to cinematography, when it comes to filmmaking. Because it is not Europe, but is more expensive than Beirut and Cairo, Dubai really has to find a Brand Cinematic Dubai, to find a niche.”

Dubai still has to find that niche. “When you go to Cairo, it’s because you need actors – this is the hub of acting. You go to Beirut because Beirut has glamour, it has the best models,” says Barakat. “Dubai has to find a clear reason for you to be in Dubai. Is it location? Is it crew? Once you find that, you become a hub and people will pay a premium. People pay a premium to go and shoot in London and New York because they are well defined as cinematic hubs.”

“The man who gave” is stylish but saccharine.

But it doesn’t mention the Holy Month and is designed to run all year. Because it’s not timedependent, the film should help the bank stretch the half-million dirhams it spent on the ad.

Dev Vaswani, executive producer of Milkshake Media, says that was “kind of a restrictive budget,” but that it was used well, “given the scope of all that we did with two cameras and the location moves and the post-production – there was quite a lot involved in post-production.”

The production timeframe was also limited.

The ad was shot over two days, using a professional model, and local people as extras. It took just three weeks to wrap, in order to get it on air after the first week of Ramadan.

With a bit of shelf life, the ad is set to run for a while and is part of an ongoing series of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, says Moosa.

“CSR is something that is very much a part of DIB’s culture, and we have been doing it; it’s just that we’ve not been very actively announcing it,” he says. “We want to do it in the manner that we have done [with “The man who gave”], which is not to publicize the bank and the bigness of it, but rather to try and influence others.”

Longevity may have been a motivator in losing the crescents and lanterns this time, but Barakat says the main reason for Ramadan advertising being clichéd is a lack of imagination. “Ramadan is such a rich territory for ideas, for emotions, for content. The fact that year after year the scene is full of clichés is because people are lazy,” he says. “It’s a huge mistake to blame it on Ramadan.

Ramadan as a month, as a pool of thoughts, of ideas, is so rich. Every year you can come up with a film for Ramadan that no one has thought about before, but is still very Ramadan.”

This film promotes the spirit of the Holy Month, but is also evergreen. It may not be entirely fresh, but it’s a welcome relief from all those crescents.

It looks good, and it should be around for a while.

Maybe it’ll even keep till next Ramadan.

– “The man who gave” can be viewed at dib.ae.

BLOX COMMUNICATIONS L L C

OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

Regional Work

Le Mall. Take her to the game.

Advertising Agency: JWT, Beirut.

Red-Logistics: Move it as is.

Advertising Agency: Promoseven, Riyadh. Executive Creative Director: Ahmad Beck.

Art Directors: Ahmad Beck, Ramero Firmeza. Photographer: Steve Kozman. Copywriter: Ahmad Beck.

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

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OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

International Work

WWF Earth Hour. Stickies.

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Manila, Philippines. Executive Creative Directors: Richard Irvine, Raoul Panes.

Creative Director: Alvin Tecson. Art Director: Mela Advincula. Copywriters: Candice Madamba, Cey Enriquez.

Save a life. Put out your cigarette.

Advertising Agency: Shoot The Shit, Brazil

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

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OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

International Work

Volkswagen: Imagination. Volkswagen Dialog Response: know in advance what will be done to your car.

Advertising Agency: DDB, Milan, Italy. Creative Directors: Luca Albanese, Francesco Taddeucci.

Art Director: Salvatore Zanfrisco. Copywriter: Daniela De Seta. Illustrator: Mcbess.

Burger King.

Advertising Agency: Interone GmbH, Munich, Germany. Executive Creative Directors: Marco Mehrwald, Thomas Pakull.

Creative Director: Shin Oh. Art Director: Christopher Grouls. Copywriters: Christopher Grouls, Bernd Nagenrauft, These ads (and Larsmore) Haensell. can be Illustrator: found atSerial adsoftheworld.com Cut, Spain.

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OCTOBER 2010 | DEPARTMENTS

International Work

Anything for a creative spark.

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

Tide. Don’t let your colours mix.

Advertising Agency: Vitruvio Leo Burnett, Madrid, Spain. Executive Creative Director: Rafa Anton.

Creative Director/Copywriter: Francisco Cassis. Art Director: Sergio Lobo.

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

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The Dish Literally watch Residents of certain areas of Khorfakan have to live out of water bottles – literally – because of the extreme salinity of water in the area.

– Emirates 24-7 website suggests conditions on the east coast might be getting a little cramped.

Take two The comment pages of Abu Dhabi daily The National often provide food for thought. In August, they provided food for déjà vu.

On Thursday, August 26, a sixcolumn piece by Chris Patten, the former governor of Hong Kong, ran across page 18. Its headline was “A view on the price of progress from the South of France,” and the kicker said “Comment.” It discussed how progress was affecting old ways of life, and began, “Europe’s holiday month of August is not time for serious politics. The world and its worries are meant to close down while Europeans repose…”

“In our village, there used to be two of every shop,” writes Patten.

“Butcher’s shop, bakery, hardware store.” Supermarkets have shut half of them down, he says.

The following Sunday, August 29, something similar may have shut The National’s subs’ desk down. A familiar story appeared on page 14 under the kicker, “Development,” and the headline, “Ready or not, the costs of globalisation have to be counted.”

The author? Chris Patten, writing from his holiday house. The intro?

“Europe’s holiday month of August is not time for serious politics. The world and its worries are meant to close down while Europeans repose…”

Patten may have to struggle by on a single boulangerie this August, but at least there are still two of some things.

The missing link Pullman Hotels and Resorts recently sent us an e-mail about the hotel it’s opening at Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates. It sounds lovely. Central, and with 481 rooms, all “equipped with modern amenities,” we are told.

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To find out more, we are encouraged to visit Pullman.com. Needless to say, we can’t wait to see what’s in store when we click on the link.

Sadly, all we learn is that there’s a small town also called Pullman in Washington, in the USA, and we’re now on its homepage.

It shows the weather in Pullman, but there are no community events listed in the next two weeks. However, there is a fine range of Pullman photo galleries, whether you’re interested in Palousafest (it seems to involve an overweight man blowing a French horn), the Genesee baseball team (for some reason the whole team is posed, facing away from the camera and toward a shabby barn), or the Gritman Teddy Bear Clinic (a giant bear scaring a toddler). Even the school tour of Gritman Family Birth Center looks like a cult ritual taking place. Mall of the Emirates has nothing on that.

Eid for the undead This Eid we got the usual 1,543,754 e-mails wishing us Eid Mubarak, so we thought we’d share a couple of our favorite greetings.

Poet’s corner Wired: Conveying a message Being the pioneer of noise breaking Out of Home advertising solutions, Elaan Marketing & Advertising has brought the ADBAND concept live for the first time to the GCC region.

ADBAND (patented adverting solution on checkout counter conveyor belts) has been introduced lately in Dubai for the recent DU campaign at the Geant Hypermarket - Ibn Battuta Mall as well as the five main branches of Al Maya supermarkets (Al Satwa, Al Reef Mall, Lamcy Plaza, JBR Sadaf and Bahar).

Being a premier supporter of innovative marketing solutions, DU has been convinced with the effectiveness of ADBAND being the most attractive in-store advertising tool and therefore decided to be the first advertiser using this innovative medium in the entire GCC region. Accordingly, this medium has now become the first choice to reach DU clients at the Point Of Sale area.…

Co founder of Elaan Marketing & Advertising, Eng. Ahmad Al Mahri states “We are aiming to bring fresh breeze to the regional market with innovative advertising mediums. ADBAND is a living proof of our promise in delivering our client’s message by breaking the noise. I believe this first campaign launched jointly with a leading brand like DU will be an excellent opportunity for both retailers and international companies in demonstrating the unique advantage of the medium.”

ADBAND has stirring offerings to the advertisers such as: • Being at the bull’s eye and dominating the ambiance of Supermarket’s hottest zone • High frequency @ very low cost per impression • Single Advertiser Program (exclusive) • Creating top-of-mind brand awareness • Hassle free turnkey solution – From a press release announcing Elaan’s new campaign for UAE telco du, which involves printing ads on supermarket checkout conveyor belts.

Our favorite Eid card came from The Brand Union Middle East. We’d like to say it’s because there were refreshingly few crescent moons and dates in it. But it’s more because we now know what an Arabized South Park zombie movie might look like.

Meanwhile, jewelry brand Damas tells us that, “Every day with you is Eid.” Apparently that’s not a universally held belief, though. Our HR department wants to have a word with Damas about the “Eid holidays” we’ve put in for – until February.

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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