Campaign Middle East 25th October and OOH Guide 2020-21

www.campaignme.com

October 25, 2020

A M OT I VAT E P U B L I C AT I O N

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KAMAL DIMACHKIE TO LEAVE PUBLICIS

LEO BURNETT TELLS GIRLS THEY ARE #BORNBRAVE

MINDSHARE CEO OUSTED FOR ‘PRANK’

Veteran COO will be replaced

by Samer Shoueiry. P3

Always campaign says “Dream.

Dare. Do Always.” P5

Nick Emery fired for ‘juvenile’ act on video call. P4

THE E-COMMERCE ISSUE ONLINE SHOPPING THROUGH COVID-19 AND INTO THE FUTURE

“In the current period of isolation, consumers are looking for a relationship digitally.”

A Galaxy not so far away

Going with the flow of retail

Adil Khan and Zubair Siddiqui are launching the regional office of Brand New Galaxy, a digital and e-commerce agency.

The team at Dubai-based Liquid say that although Covid-19 has transformed the surface of shopping, the essentials remain the same.

RAMEZ SHEHADI, managing director of Facebook MENA, on how brands can connect.

P5

P22

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Special supplement: OOH Guide 2020-2021

October 25, 2020

03

Kamal Dimachkie leaves Publicis Communications, to be succeeded in COO role by Samer Shoueiry Publicis Groupe MEA has announced the departure of Kamal Dimachkie, chief operating officer of Publicis Communications UAE and Lower Gulf. The Groupe has appointed Samer Shoueiry to assume the COO role in conjunction with his current responsibilities as chief digital officer, Publicis Communications Middle East, from December 1, 2020.

Dimachkie’s departure comes after 33 years with the Groupe. He will leave his current position on December 31, 2020, and continue to act in a consultative capacity until June 2021.

Dimachkie is stepping down to explore other options outside the Groupe, said Publicis in a statement.

Raja Trad, executive chairman at Publicis Groupe MEA, said: “I respect Kamal’s decision. He has been a friend and a colleague for over three decades, and not just I but the entire Publicis Groupe family will miss him. His tenure at the Groupe has been characterised by a clear commitment to values that are central to our philosophy.

Kamal’s adept leadership propelled the agency to new heights – we won more than 250

accolades and added numerous international and local clients to our roster. I want to thank him for his immeasurable contribution to the Groupe and wish him all the best for his professional future.”

Dimachkie said: “Leo Burnett and Publicis Groupe have been my life for the past 33 years, and I am proud to have been a part of a glorious journey, during which I have had the opportunity to serve the company in different roles in six countries, to have contributed to numerous clients and raise the bar internally and within the industry. Part of this has been the joy of working with a wonderful team and leadership, whom I have partnered with, learnt from and shall forever call my friends and brothers in arms. I am grateful to have lived the glory days of advertising with one of the best agencies in the world, and to have worked with some of the most inspiring and creative people.

I look forward to working with Samer on the upcoming transition and wish him success in his new role.”

Samer Shoueiry has more than 21 years of experience across business, design and innovation. He founded Publicis’s Social Content Lab.

Kamal Dimachkie has been with Publicis Groupe for 33 years

Tarek Amin to head YouTube

OPPO FIND MORE Electriclimefilms worked with M&C Saatchi to create three main films for phone brand Oppo. Director Damiano Fieramosca and the creative team told three stories, highlighting different subjects all treated in parallel to have a similar look and feel. The campaign was made as a connection to a larger global campaign. The campaign’s main objective was to focus on the exceptional battery life and special qualities, such as the camera and screen, on the new Oppo Find X2 Pro 5G. The films centred on three well-known characters in the media world: film director Nayla Al Khaja; photographer Jumana Jolie; and tech reviewer Emkwan.

YouTube has named Tarek Amin as its new director for MENA. Amin joins from Sky News Arabia, where he spent the last year and a half as chief digital products officer, leading digital strategy across owned and operated assets.

Prior to that, he was CEO of digital at Adline Media Network, a large independent media marketing network with strong local operations in all major Arab markets, where he established the digital business for the group. He was also managing partner and executive producer at Alkarma Edutainment, launching pan-Arab drama series and coproducing the Arabic version of Sesame Street.

“We are really excited to have Tarek join our team to lead our MENA business,” said Alex Okosi, director of emerging markets, YouTube EMEA. “He brings great experience that will enable us to build on our success.”

04

October 25, 2020

Mindshare global CEO Nick Emery ousted from media agency after ‘lavatorial’ video call ‘prank’

By Omar Oakes and Gideon Spanier WPP has dismissed Nick Emery as global chief executive of Mindshare.

The move came after he carried out what sources described as a “prank” that backfired on an internal video call, Campaign understands.

The sudden timing of Emery’s exit with immediate effect on Wednesday, October 14 stunned colleagues at WPP and the wider ad industry.

Sources used words such as a “juvenile”, “idiotic”, “schoolboy” and “lavatorial” to describe the “prank”.

One industry observer, who was not involved but knows what happened, said: “It was a stupid remark and stupid action in front of the wrong people.”

It is thought at least one employee, and perhaps several, who were on the video call with Emery made complaints to the company through an internal process, which prompted Group M, Mindshare’s immediate parent company, and WPP to investigate.

Top executives at WPP and Group M felt they could not “sweep it under the carpet” and carried out a rapid investigation that concluded with Emery’s exit.

The industry observer said Emery, who had worked at Mindshare since its launch in 1997 and became CEO in 2012, had been “juvenile and

Emery had been with the agency since its launch in 1997

stupid”, rather than doing anything “really awful” that involved race, fraud, an inappropriate relationship or malice.

Mindshare and Emery declined to comment.

When Group M announced Emery’s exit, it said he was leaving

“following a clear breach of the company’s code of conduct”.

Christian Juhl, the global chief executive of Group M, said at the time: “At Group M and our agencies, we believe everyone should experience an inclusive and respectful workplace culture.

Inappropriate and offensive behaviour is not tolerated in our company, and when we see any employee breach of our code of conduct, we take swift action.”

Juhl is acting as Mindshare interim CEO until a permanent successor is appointed.

MAKE UP FOREVER ROUGE ARTIST

RITZ DO MORE WITH RITZ

The Rouge Artist campaign was recently launched for Make Up For Ever, featuring 13 portrait films of influential females from the region. The women talk about their style of make up and challenge the viewer to decide on their own style.

It’s just a biscuit, right? Well, no. Ritz is a whole lot more. Probably the most versatile cracker there is. Got a favourite dip? Ritz goes with it. A favourite topping? Top it up with a Ritz. Like it plain? Who doesn’t? Ritz is deliciously rich and crunchy. So how do we get our audience to believe this message? Give them a taste of what they can do with Ritz.That’s right, do more with Ritz.

Production company Lightblue Media Executive producer James Hulbert Head of partnerships Joseph Aquilina Directors Seth Wright, James Hulbert Producer Andreea Mititiuc Production manager Rindala Nahas Junior production manager Mely Urresti DOP Toby Plummer First AC Srinivas Kusuma Markondiah Kusuma Sound Jaxx Monteath Editors Seth Wright, Marvin Burayag Additional colour Marvin Burayag Gaffer Sharfuddin Mohammed Studio Garage

Agency Youexperience CIO Vijay Simon Agency producer Magali Beylouni Director Massimo Zambiasi Executive producer Rula Bevilacqua Managing partner Antonio Sabatella Production house Tomorrow Film Post-production Tomorrow Film

October 25, 2020

Adil Khan and Zubai Siddiqui launch regional office of Brand New Galaxy Brand New Galaxy (BNG) – an independent platform integrating smart business solutions in the areas of marketing and technology – has announced the opening of a new regional office in Dubai. Adil Khan (former CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi MEA) and Zubair S. Siddiqui (former MD of UM MENA in Dubai) will lead the new entity.

BNG says its decision to open a new location in Dubai will strengthen its position in the MEA region across its key capabilities of e-commerce, digital performance and automation, and creative content production.

Additionally, says BNG, this launch comes at a “perfect” time when digital transformation is a priority for all businesses looking to drive growth with new and existing customers.

“I am delighted to be joining BNG at such a fascinating time in the development of the entire holding company,” saidAdil Khan, CEO of Brand New Galaxy MEA. “The achievements and business courage of Galaxy impressed me both in terms of innovative solutions and global ambition. I am convinced that by bringing Zubair’s and my experience to BNG, we will bring new energy, focus and quality of service to clients, especially at a time of the growing importance of e-commerce.”

Michał Glapiński, chief growth

Zubair Siddiqui (left) and Adil Khan (right) will head up the new entity

officer of Warsaw-based BNG, said: “Our current global contracts and the opportunities we are experiencing in the region brought us to a clear conclusion regarding solid investment in BNG’s strong presence in the Middle East. With top industry leaders like Adil and Zubair, we’re not limited in our dreaming big. The Dubai office will not only be a local hub but will also host global contracts. This is all to bring our

clients clear added value – a synergistic combination of the MEA office’s capabilities: e-commerce, digital performance and automation, and creative content production.”

The Dubai office has already been active in acquiring global and regional clients across the MEA region. Initially, about 50 people will be employed in the new location to support the e-commerce, digital and creative requirements of clients.

05

Netizency wins TikTok business Digital agency Netizency has been handed digital marketing duties for TikTok for Business in the MENAT region.

Netizency will be responsible for the social and digital content, as well as event branding for the recently launched division of the video-sharing platform.

It has already run a virtual launch event using the TikTok Hive, an online conference centre.

Fadi Khater, founder and managing partner at Netizency, said: “Landing the TikTok for Business account is like seeing light at the end of the dark 2020 tunnel. The team at Netizency has already hit the ground running and all I can say is we’re ecstatic to be seeing eye-to-eye with the TikTok team. I can’t wait to see what other crazy projects we’ll work on together.”

Shant Oknayan, general manager of global business solutions for TikTok MENAT, said: “With the TikTok business seeing unprecedented growth in MENAT in the first half of 2020, and with more and more marketers and advertisers finding opportunities for their brands on the platform, it only made sense to start building a TikTok For Business community in MENAT. We knew that finding the right partner to take along on this wild ride was important.”

ALWAYS DREAM. DARE. DO ALWAYS.

RAKBANK RAKFOODIE

Always Arabia launched the Dream. Dare. Do Always. campaign after 72 per cent of women in a recent survey of Arabs and expats agreed being a girl stopped them from achieving their dreams. The creative rationale behind the campaign comes from girls being taught from an early age to play it safe. They forget, though, that women are #BornBrave and are able to achieve their dreams despite significant challenges every day and at every stage.

Tapping into the burgeoning food culture in the UAE, RAKbank launched its own foodie platform, RAKfoodie, which offered discounts at thousands of restaurants. Being a late entrant in a cluttered market, it needed to find a new way to stand out and outsmart the competition. The competition’s own game was mainly their assets – customers (foodies), restaurants (locations) and apps (mobile). Could RAKfoodie build holistic intelligence around FOodies, LOcations & MObile (FOLOMO) to beat the competition in their own backyard? It discovered that FOLOMO data was all siloed and scattered. It built the FOLOMO data hub to unify these disparate sources. InMobi developed a blueprint of customised polygons targeting users who were banking with the competition, and used a ‘geo-conquesting’ technique that precisely targeted users at specific restaurants.

Agency Leo Burnett Beirut Regional creative director Ralph Arida Associate creative director & Arabic copywriter Lama Bawadi Senior art director Despina Memarogli Art director Carl Kaed English copywriter Mariam Shour

06

October 25, 2020

THE FUTURE OF COMMERCE IS SOCIAL Ramez T Shehadi, Facebook MENA’s managing director, explains how Covid-19 has accelerated innovation in online purchases

A

t the end of 2019, I was planning for the year ahead with my teams, with one eye on major trends influencing businesses globally and across the MENA region. The continued rise of mobile, messaging, e-commerce, conversational commerce and an expanding ecosystem of tech service providers would inform our approach to connecting people and businessess.

But Covid-19 has taken the trends that might have seen wider adoption over the next five years and compressed them into a time span of months. Necessity has proven to be the mother not just of invention but of adoption as well.

As a result of this pandemic, digital transformation proved to be crucial for the survivability of businesses across the region, especially within the e-commerce industry that strongly drives the digital economy closer to home. According to the 2019 UAE E-commerce Landscape Report, the digital economy in the UAE contributed to 4.3 per cent of the nation’s GDP and the UAE’s e-commerce industry was set to reach $63.8bn by 2023.

The UAE’s e-commerce sector has been comparatively more successful than more than 30 other economies, according to a recent analysis conducted by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

According to a new report ‘Life After Covid-19: Retail’ by Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), Dubai-based mall operator Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) has seen a surge in online sales, with a 59 per cent year-on-year increase in online customers in March 2020. MAF’s Carrefour brand launched one main digital platform that integrates more than 100,000 products on its website, in-store kiosks and tablets and mobile app, re-inventing experiences for more than 750,000 daily customers.

Similarly, Saudi Arabian retailer BinDawood Holding has seen a 200 per cent increase in its online sales since the escalation of the Covid-19 crisis.

This shows that businesses of all sizes are being forced to change their model and focus primarily on selling online. It’s also why Facebook has made the move into shopping with our recent announcement of Facebook Shops – a way for businesses to set up a single online store across Facebook and Instagram for free.

While physical stores will always be important to the social and economic

subscription services – all this looks poised for explosive growth. Apparel Group, for example, is using WhatsApp as a customer service as well as a sales channel to utilise effective online channels during this time. Most recently, it was able to see 20 per cent more sales generated by WhatsApp for a given brand, versus sales coming from the same brand’s e-commerce website.

FOCUS ON THE REAL-TIME CONNECTION Businesses need to refresh their understanding of people’s preferences and consistently learn from their creativity.

When we originally built Facebook Live, we probably had not imagined this as a possible use case. Yet, businesses are now using live video to launch a range of things –from shoe stores announcing new sneakers to beauty influencers trying on different lipsticks. Finally, businesses need to pay attention to the fundamental need that buyers and sellers have to connect, chat and enjoy the social value that makes a transaction fun.

For hundreds of years, commerce was a relationship initiated by one person’s need and fulfilled by another’s supply.

And now, even in the current period of physical isolation, consumers are still looking for that relationship and connection, digitally. wellbeing of local communities, it’s clear e-commerce is here to grow. So, what does this mean for the future of commerce?

RETHINK ONLINE SHOPPING EXPERIENCES Even before people stopped feeling comfortable spending time in stores, they were turning to online platforms to browse and find inspiration.

Instead of consumers finding their preferred products, their products are finding them. This reversal is being driven by businesses that understand the importance of creating demand through discovery and, as a result, are investing in a more modern kind of marketing: discovery commerce.

Businesses continue to find creative ways to redesign experiences that are completely reliant on in-store footfall.

The variety of online shopping modes will continue to expand in the isolation economy: shopping directly from social channels, live video, messaging with businesses, click-and-collect or

By RAMEZ T SHEHADI, managing director, Facebook MENA

TAKE PART IN THE CONVERSATIONS Increasingly, consumers’ commercial choices also have a social bent – they want to give a shout out to their favourite local business and they want to help their neighbourhood restaurants stay open.

They are leading conversations and forming communities even as they shop – they are looking beyond the list of products to the mission and the values the business represents. Personally, I have been drawn to buying essentials like reusable masks from small businesses trying to make a positive impac. It leads me to believe that the future of commerce is even more social than we once thought.

For the short-term, brands – no matter how large or small – need to think of the best ways to connect their products and services to the physical isolation economy.

In the long term, the responsibility to create better digital experiences doesn’t just rest with the retailers, but with all of the platforms they use to engage customers.

October 25, 2020

07

“W

e need a commerce strategy.”

“Excellent, what objectives do you have, and what are going to be the KPIs?” “Sell 200 per cent more stock, build a D2C website and collect more data.”

“No worries, we’re on it.”

Well, OK, not all briefings are like this, but you can maybe resonate with it and agree that the ‘c’ word is included in at least 50 per cent of your daily conversations today. It’s no real surprise, as brands are keen to ensure that they are across any opportunities and have a plan in place. What was already a rapidly growing sector has only been accelerated due to the pandemic, as users are looking for the convenience factor in lockdown, feel conscious about going to public areas or quite simply have realised you can get lunch delivered to your door to avoid missing another important Teams call, or receive some more bread flour to make that perfectly baked sourdough we see so often through someone else’s Instagram.

With all this continued development and user engagement, brands are now keen to ensure they are on top of it. That’s great, but how should we approach it?

What becomes essential is making sure the brands are set up to deliver a seamless experience that results in quality products, that fit the description, that are delivered in an agreed time, preferably yesterday, and following this that they continue to support the user in their journey to buy again or buy more.

There are many key factors that need to be included in this. If they are hell bent on building a direct-toconsumer (D2C) website, which we know in this cookie-less future will become key to gathering consumer data, we need to understand that the logistics behind just putting the product images up are in place. Do they have the infrastructure to store, possibly refrigerate, monitor and deliver the goods?

One slip resulting in a bad customer experience usually means the consumer will look for their goods elsewhere the next time they shop. Brands have realised that there is far greater competition on the digital shelf and smaller brands can easily jump into a category through smarter marketing, more compelling creative or quite simply having the product in stock.

If everything above is in place and the brand is ready to launch its own D2C website, great. If not, should it make use of the many retailers and market places in the region where it can use the infrastructure that already exists, be able to engage with an already active

CRACKING COMMERCE Asking for a strategy is one thing, but there are a lot of moving parts involved, writes Mindshare’s Robin Phillips. So how should brands plan their strategy?

By ROBIN PHILLIPS, regional director, head of outcomes, Mindshare

user base and build a strategy around the paid and organic opportunities available? You would think this is a definite possibility. With a huge change in social commerce, and DSPs being built around existing marketplaces, there has never been an easier time for a brand, no matter how big or small, to sell its products in a relevant, compelling way. We have seen the continued development of local retailers focusing on the user experience of their platforms.

The development in this space really opens up the door for brands to explore and develop their commerce offerings. We have always known personalisation is a key driver in a seamless user experience. Now we see this across commerce sites, be they D2C or retailer market place. The relevance of the offers and products are so close to the buyers’ need, or their supposed need, that conversion to upsell is far greater. The emergence of m-commerce and ensuring that the consumer is given the same – if not better – experience across the mobile platform is vital, as we see the propensity of users buying across mobile platforms rise up to the 70 per cent mark.

The developments will only continue as we watch the increased usage of AR and the ability for consumers to visualise their potential purchases, more focus on easier ways for consumers to pay, the development of commerce through video and the growth of marketplaces and retailers in our region.

So where does this leave us, and where am I going with it? Yes, we definitely need to have a commerce strategy; that goes without saying. But we need to do it with a clear understanding of what is available to the brands and how best they can engage with the consumer. Has there been a well-prepared audit of the commerce landscape in their category to really understand where their competitors sit and how the consumers engage with the products? Ultimately, are they able to provide a personalised, efficient, seamless process where the consumer gets what they want, yesterday?

08

October 25, 2020

P

roduct feeds are the fuel of your e-commerce marketing. They are invisible to your visitors, sit behind your e-commerce presence but are key to your e-commerce success.

Although they are often underestimated by marketers, seen as a technical element under the remit of their technical teams, they can make or break campaigns.

So, what exactly is a product feed?

A product feed, also known as product data or shopping feed, is a structured data file (CSV, TXT or XML) that contains product information. In its simplest form, a product feed contains this information about your product: its unique ID; title; detailed description; URL; price; a link to your product’s image; category; stock availability.

The above is a simplified list of fields available on a product feed. Advanced product feeds contain dozens of fields.

Product feeds can be used in verticals beyond e-commerce, such as travel and entertainment, if you can structure data around the products that you are selling.

How are product feeds used?

Product feeds are used to distribute your product information to external shopping and advertising channels. Product feeds help you sell on more channels at scale, leveraging automation.

THE

BACKBONE

OF STRATEGY

Product feeds may not be the first thing you think of when planning e-commercce, but they are the fuel to its success, writes Group M’s Hisham Auajjar

Below are some of the key channels where you can leverage product feeds: E-COMMERCE MARKETING/ADVERTISING: ● Google shopping: Google uses information on your product feed (via the Google Merchant Center) to display your products on the search engine result page in the form of a shopping ad. ● Facebook Dynamic Product Ads: Facebook offers catalogue sales to promote your products either to new audiences via Broad Audiences or to existing audiences, serving ads of the products they have visited on your website across Facebook’s family of apps. ● Snapchat Dynamic Ads: Snapchat launched dynamic ads earlier this year.

The platform now lets you leverage your feed to personalise your ads for your customers. ● Tiktok is also launching Dynamic Ads in beta and will enable advertisers to promote their product catalogue dynamically. ● Paid search: You can use your product feed to dynamically create productcentric paid search campaigns aligned with your inventory. ● Dynamic remarketing: You can leverage your product feed to dynamically retarget users through programmatic advertising.

MARKETPLACES AND SHOPPING COMPARISON ENGINES: ● Marketplaces such as Amazon: You can leverage your product feed to list products on Amazon and similar marketplaces. ● Shopping comparison engines: Comparison engines (such as Pricena in the UAE) use product feeds to compare product prices across stores.

Why are product feeds important?

Product feeds power your omnichannel e-commerce strategy. The dat is used by platforms to showcase your products, and below are some reasons you should make optimised product feeds a priority: ● Media platforms rely on the information in your product feeds to display the right products to the right audience. If your product feed isn’t optimised, you are leaving sales on the table. ● Prospective buyers want to see accurate data about the products they’re buying.

If they don’t, they’ll probably shop elsewhere where they are provided with the information they’re seeking. ● An updated product feed ensures minimum e-commerce marketing wastage. You don’t want to be promoting products that are out of stock. Your product feed hosts availability information, and keeping it updated ensures that you minimise wastage.

Which steps should I take to optimise my product feed?

Now that we’ve established the importance of product feeds, let’s look at

By HICHAM AUAJJAR, Head of services, M Platform, MENA, Group M

some practical steps to help you optimise your product feed. ● Cover your basics: Make sure that you have all the required information across the basic fields on your product feed. ● Customise your product feed per channel: Each distribution channel has different requirements, so make sure to create an optimised product feed to cater to the different channels’ requirements. ● Leverage advertising data to optimise your product feed text fields. Search terms, for example, are a great way to optimise your titles and descriptions. ● Enrich your feed with additional fields and data points. Why stick to the basics when you can provide the different platforms with enriched data? Leverage additional images, custom labels and any additional information that will help. ● Keep it updated. This is an obvious one, but keeping your feed updated is the key to succeed in e-commerce marketing. ● Use your product feed to uncover productlevel insights. Which products are selling?

Why? High-traffic products but low conversions? A product feed provides you with great insights at a product level that can help you take your e-commerce approach to the next level. ● Incorporate business data points into your feed. Not all products are created equal; you can add margin data to your feed to activate campaigns based on business inputs, for example. Stock-level data, business priority, exclusive products – your business information can be incorporated into your feed to align your e-commerce activation with business imperatives.

An optimised feed is not a “good to have”; it’s a necessity. Optimising your feed can seem daunting, but with the right tools and approach it is achievable and it’s well worth the effort and investment.

TAKING TV ADVERTISING TO THE NEXT LEVEL BY ACTIVATING CONNECTED TV IN MENA When was the last time you watched traditional linear TV versus video-on-demand? With modern life defined by busy lifestyles, we as consumers increasingly want more control over when we watch TV and how we access content. With this considerable shift of consumers toward OTT streaming platforms, and 2 out of 3 people today saying that they use a second screen while watching TV, advertisers have an unprecedented and exciting opportunity to efficiently and effectively reach their audiences though omnichannel video with Connected TV (CTV). Utilising the power of CTV, which has the benefit of being “smarter” than the traditional televisions that have come before, creates a powerful halo effect for viewers, as ad messaging is viewed on the big screen and then further amplified through desktop and mobile devices.

We asked Amer Attyeh, Managing Director, MENA at VDX.tv, to discuss the potential of this new medium, the benefits Connected TV offers advertisers, and trends hitting the MENA region.

WHAT IS CTV? WHAT IS OTT? CTV is a television set that is connected to the Internet via OTT devices, Blu-ray players, streaming box or stick, and gaming consoles, or has built-in internet capabilities (i.e., a Smart TV) and is able to access a variety of long-form and shortform web-based content. OTT, which stands for “over-the-top”, is the delivery of TV content via Web 2.0 across devices. Users are not required to subscribe to traditional cable or satellite providers to watch TV content. Typically, video is delivered in a streaming or video-on-demand (VOD) format. OTT services can be accessed via CTV, as well as through apps on other devices with an internet connection, such as smartphones and tablets.

WHY IS VIDEO ADVERTISING THROUGH CTV AND OTT SO POWERFUL? We live in a multiscreen world in which audiences move seamlessly between mobile, desktop and television. CTV and OTT allow marketers to keep up with user behaviour, engaging prospects and the people who influence those prospects’ decision-making, with video delivered across all screens. Advertising across CTV and OTT marries the unequivocal storytelling power of video with the sophisticated targeting and measurement capabilities of digital.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE TOP BENEFITS OF ADVERTISING ACROSS CTV AND OTT? •

Go where the people are: As the popularity of OTT video streaming platforms grows, we expect to see continuing decline in pay-TV. An increasing number of video content consumers in prefer TV services that enable them to watch anywhere, and that offer the same experience across mobile, laptop and tablets.

•

Align with a premium environment: Connected TV allows advertisers to associate their brands with premium channels and binge-worthy content.

•

Tap unprecedented targeting and personalised messaging: Connected TV is data-driven. Its defining characteristic for marketers is that it allows brands to serve different TV ads to different households—even though they are watching the same show. Using data, you can create and serve personalised messages that reflect household behaviours and dynamically target consumers across multiple screens. Because Connected TV allows for more granular audience targeting, campaigns are more effective and you reduce waste.

•

Make omnichannel marketing a reality: Nielsen found that 45% of people sometimes or always use devices while watching TV. For users, moving between screens is second nature, and as such, advertisers need tools for connecting users across channels and devices. Connected TV can help you amplify your message with omnichannel retargeting and creative re-messaging.

•

Improve measurement and attribution: The most compelling benefits are performance metrics. Advertisers can escort consumers down the purchasing funnel by targeting households with personalised, trackable offers.

AMER ATTYEH MANAGING DIRECTOR-MENA, VDX.TV

WHAT ARE THE KEY TRENDS IN CONNECTED TV AND VIDEO ADVERTISING ACROSS MENA, AND ARE THEY DIFFERENT FROM GLOBAL TRENDS? According to eMarketer, the number of subscription OTT video viewers in the Middle East & Africa will grow 31.2% in 2020, making MENA the region with one of the highest growth rates, among Asia-Pacific, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America, North America and Western Europe. As CTV and OTT advertising environments expand within MENA markets, advertisers have an opportunity to place their creative messaging amongst TV content, while also maximising reach and ROI with ads that are more relevant and targeted than ads on linear TV.

WHAT MAKES VDX.TV’S OMNICHANNEL VIDEO SOLUTION ACROSS DESKTOP, MOBILE AND OTT UNIQUE? The VDX experience is delivered across all screens, from the biggest screen in the home to the small one in your pocket, with each experience designed specifically for that screen. These ad experiences are served across in-stream/ pre-roll within both TV and short form content; in-read units; and rich in-page display. When working with VDV.tv’s on tailormade video-driven experiences for your ad campaigns, you can expect, proprietary technology, industry expertise, better data, creative support and audience-efficient real-time optimisation that all work together to drive better video advertising that performs.

For more information on CTV and omnichannel video-driven experiences with VDX.tv, download our eBook at www.vdx.tv or contact us at hello@vdx.tv.

WWW.VDX.TV

10

October 25, 2020

E-COMMERCE, EVOLVED Challenging times produce transformational brands, says Magna’s Santadip Roy. What will come out of this crisis?

By SANTADIP ROY, regional digital director, MENA, Magna

M

icrosoft, Uber, AirBnB. These are just a few of the many transformational brands that have emerged during previous recessions or outbreaks. This trend has been happening for the past 100 years.

The Covid-19 outbreak has led to the worst recession since the second world war. If this trend of brands emerging during recessions continues, we can expect some global trend-setters of the future to emerge this year. These will be brands that have adapted to the sharp shifts in consumer habits triggered by social distancing in an era that is also seeing a significant data explosion. Brands that adapt fast will thrive, while others will share the fate of the likes of Kodak.

E-commerce will be a key driver for businesses to succeed in this environment. However, e-commerce has also existed for almost 30 years and the next few years is likely to see an evolution focused around three areas: CONSUMER EXPERIENCE E-commerce is often associated with what we now refer to as performance channel: search-engine marketing (SEM) and paid social.

As these platforms continue to drive return on ad spend (ROAS), we expect to see more experiential-driven touchpoints, which are currently not typically associated with e-commerce. These will range from more videos driving e-commerce to influencer-led activations and augmented reality-led executions. Brands are already raising the bar here. The likes of PWC, Deloitte and Accenture keep unleashing thought leadership around it. There is surely more to come.

We have some early adopters already. IKEA can help a potential customer envisage how a sofa would look in their living room; Nike can create a digital experience to visualise how multiple variations of its latest trainers would look on a consumer. Charlotte Tilbury and NARS let women try on different shades of lipsticks through AR on their phones.

Such solutions in abundance will create elevated online experiences, which will drive shorter consumer journeys where the initial exposure will move a consumer from being aware to being interested, to eventually purchasing, within the same ad experience session. This will also shift the consumers’ expectations in the e-commerce space, which means brands that are late to embrace such trends will lose market share. To add to this, the roll-out of 5G will allow transfer speeds 100-200 times faster than 4G, to easily facilitate these ad experiences seamlessly.

‘‘EXPECT TO SEE MEDIA PLANS FULL OF RICH MEDIA, AUGMENTED REALITY EXECUTIONS AND NEW INNOVATIONS .”

These shifts are not going to be limited to retail.

Verticals with higher-ticket values that require a more considered purchase, such as automotive, are also increasingly embracing experience-driven e-commerce.

Therefore, expect to see media plans full of rich media, augmented reality executions and new innovations with an ROAS number attached to them.

DATA More than 90 per cent of the data that exists in the world was created in the past two years. At the same time, where marketers have embraced the power of data-driven marketing, the ad tech world has plenty of opinions around the cookie-less future of advertising.

For a brand to win in this day and age, relevance will still remain fundamental to success in the e-commerce space. Brands will need to leverage their own data (first-party data), whether this is in the form of cookies, personally identifiable information (PII), voice signals, private identity graphs, etc. Obviously, this will come as a challenge to a lot of businesses from a scalability perspective.

This is where strategic data partnerships become key, while solutions such as customer data platforms (CDPs) become the new buzz words. Brands will be successful in the e-commerce space if they can identify the lifetime value (LTV) of their audiences to effectively prospect and build their loyalty base.

EXPERTISE Delivering on e-commerce with the challenges highlighted above requires a different skill set compared with the current norm. The creative aspect of media planning will need to stay.

However, this needs to be fused with the ability to understand and co-ordinate with people who are guardians of the organisations’ data and operations.

Successful e-commerce deployment requires managing the cost of holding the stock/SKUs and mapping supply to demand across the various marketing channels. These skill sets are currently rare, but as brands fast-track to e-commerce to survive, the transition will happen organically.

We are operating at an exciting phase when it comes to e-commerce. Uncertain and challenging times fast-track transformation and make the best of us, and in turn we will create a new breed of brands and talent that is fit for the future. Expect to see the new AirBnBs and Ubers hit the headlines.

October 25, 2020

T

he UAE is no stranger to e-commerce, given it has the highest smartphone penetration rate globally at 83 per cent and website penetration sits at an impressive 95 per cent (according to Statista). This continues to present a huge amount of opportunity for brands that are not yet utilising e-commerce effectively, or for brands that already have an e-commerce presence, to really focus on improving their consumers’ overall experience.

With no visible end in sight to the Covid-19 pandemic and footfall across retail declining in general, there really is no excuse for brands not to be providing an optimal online experience for shoppers. After all, if the key reasons for online shopping reside around convenience, experience and pricing, and your brand is not able to offer these through online and mobile channels, then quite simply your customers will be shopping elsewhere. Remember, just because your e-commerce platform offers a responsive site doesn’t mean you are providing a great mobile experience. 53 per cent of consumers will abandon any site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

COMMERCE IN THE UAE A considerable amount of time and effort is necessary to meet the demands of digital shoppers, writes Reprise’s Stuart Mackay.

But the investment is worth it

GREAT EXPECTATIONS The maturity of the region and diversity of its population drive a level of expectation that most regional businesses in reality are failing to meet. The effort and investment that goes into selling in-store needs quickly to be adapted and reflected through online and mobile channels.

A significant amount of time and investment is required to continually meet the demands of your digital shoppers, and undertaking this alone is an extremely daunting prospect, considering everything that needs to be in place to attract, delight, convert and retain consumers. Brands must consider everything, including: finding the right products to sell; attracting the right customers; generating targeted traffic; capturing quality leads; nurturing prospective clients; and converting and retaining customers. It is no wonder most brands struggle to tie everything up into a connected e-commerce experience for their consumers.

IS IT MEANT TO BE THIS CHALLENGING? Success in e-commerce is challenging but we have to remain bold and aggressive in these current times and continue to evolve, diversify and create simple, meaningful and personalised shopping experiences for our consumers. The world as we knew it has changed, and I suspect our new normal will be very different.

With an estimated 73 per cent of e-commerce sales expected to take place on a mobile device by the end of 2021 and the continued technological advancements affecting e-commerce, such as AI and AR, voice search, on-site

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customer is actually experiencing when using your e-commerce channels, then you are driving in the dark with the lights off.

Understand and leverage your data to create personalised shopping experiences for your shoppers. Showing that you know, understand and appreciate your customers will help with retention and attraction.

Invest in enhancing or developing your mobile experience for consumers. With 73 per cent of e-commerce sales expected to be through mobile by the end of 2021, this should be an immediate priority.

Ensure your customers’ experience is the same when interacting with your brand through any commerce channel.

There is nothing worse for a customer when online and offline channels aren’t integrated. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to return in-store a product purchased online?

Keep the checkout process simple by providing easy-to-use payment tools such as Apple Pay, Paypal or other options that enable a frictionless checkout.

Embrace technology such as AI, AR and chatbots. Run proof-of-concepts regularly to see where these technologies can be used to improve your shoppers’ overall experience.

FINAL THOUGHTS We shouldn’t be afraid to embrace change and strive for e-commerce excellence, and brands certainly

‘‘IF YOU DON’T ALREADY HAVE DETAILED INSIGHT INTO YOUR ONLINE AND MOBILE CHANNELS THEN MAKE THIS A PRIORITY.” personalisation and chatbots, brands simply need to face into the extent of the challenge.

KEEP FOCUSED Absolutely sweat the small stuff, focus on the basics and do them well. Hygiene plays a huge factor in conversion, and ensuring that your brand is represented in the right away across all channels is crucial.

If you don’t already have detailed insight into your online and mobile channels then make this a priority. If you don’t know what is going on and what the

shouldn’t accept that good is good enough. The competition is ruthless, and simply accepting that you sell products online already, and that you are making fairly good revenues as a result, could be the undoing of your brand. With so much choice available to shoppers and the bar being continually raised across all industries, brands must find ways to evolve, simplify and personalise their consumers’ shopping experiences.

By STUART MACKAY, general manager, Reprise Digital, MENA

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October 25, 2020

A PACKED TREASURE CHEST AND AN EMPTY TOOLBOX Fusion 5’s Natele Panella looks at the current state and future prospects of e-commerce grocery shopping in MENA

W

hen was the last time your online grocery experience blew you away? Today, and in our current pandemic era, there is no doubt customers are more eager to purchase their groceries online repetitively. It’s faster, easier and more convenient. Online grocery shopping grew from a tiny slice of the e-commerce industry to a more critical and more extensive component with high contribution to the growth of the sector, and is expected to rise by double digits in the next five years.

While new and existing players have emerged, by creating new marketplaces and home delivery services, many traditional players have seen a fivefold organic boost in their revenues and traffic metrics during the pandemic. However, it is apparent that when there is an exponential surge in organic online demand, operations and logistics, customer service needs to be addressed head-on. While logistics, delivery time and inventory levels played (and still play) a fundamental role, factors such as online acquisition strategies and incremental revenues have been put on hold to prioritise other aspects of business. Bold companies, looking at long-term valuable strategies, have the

chance to leverage the learnings to plan and assess how to increase the customer lifetime value. Most importantly, the critical success factor in this business is how to boost the frequency of purchases.

Now let’s delve a little deeper and look at the different customers and their respective behaviours. And ask which ones we are looking to convert.

Segment by purchase behaviour, not browsing behaviour Looking at those customers, we can identify two main types: the loyal shopper, who tends to make repetitive purchases of the same goods week-onweek from their favourite brands; and the promotion-led shopper, who changes his shopping habits based on the most tempting current offers. Both are valuable and have immense potential to grow.

How? First off, by looking at their purchase habits we can draw common patterns and the expected frequency of purchases of certain products and categories, with specific attention to factors such as the expected lifetime of fresh products. This model can predict future dates of purchase, and a mechanism of reminder through tailored social and display dynamic shopping advertising can be activated one or two days in advance of the expected purchase date. Such a tool is efficient in messaging and channel placement, and, to be successful, the customer perceives it as a friendly reminder. In that way, the loyal shopper will be glad to see his favourite products available for delivery at the right

time, while the promotion-led shopper will be glad to see the weekly promotions that matter most to him.

Deductive shopping approach We have now identified what we call a ‘deductive shopping approach’, which is a data-led methodology to boost online grocery performances by leveraging the power of first-party data (loyalty cards) and customised consumer purchasing data. Traditional grocery players that recently grew their e-commerce infrastructure have a significant competitive advantage compared with the new players: their first-party data.

In a cookieless world, their database is the most potent instrument to retain and grow their existing customer base and, most importantly, increase purchase frequency, stretching the lifetime value to new heights. In the grocery business, where gross margins are lower than other e-commerce categories, increasing frequency of purchases might completely change the revenue-boosting game.

By applying our deductive shopping approach, it is hard to be beaten by any new entrant trying to acquire using the traditional inductive shopping approach, a comprehensive, mass-oriented, discount or promotion-led campaign management.

The implications for the industry As of now, operational efficiency has been prioritised over revenue scalability. To succeed in the long run, grocery retailers should look at both dimensions. This market is strongly supply-driven, and today players fancy the freedom of

“TRADITIONAL GROCERY PLAYERS THAT RECENTLY GREW THEIR E-COMMERCE INFRASTRUCTURE HAVE A SIGNIFICANT COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.” experimenting and re-inventing processes and techniques that will shape their industry in the future. It was first the spectrum of product choice, then the time-to-deliver, and now the recurrent predictive shopping. If the deductive shopping approach becomes an industry standard, first-movers will gain a substantial competitive advantage, establishing extraordinary customer loyalty.

By NATALE PANELLA, head of digital, Fusion 5

PARTNER CONTENT

October 25, 2020

Busting the myth of CPS efficiency

It is not necessarily rewarding to change the engagement model for e-commerce selling, says mFilterIt’s Dhiraj Gupta

By Dhiraj Gupta, CTO and co-founder, mFilterIt

E

-commerce is booming in the GCC, and the Covid-19 lockdown only boosted this machine. As brands look to increase their share of a more-than $20bn opportunity in 2020 (Bain & Company estimates), e-commerce is also inviting the prying eyes of the fraudsters.

To stay safe, advertisers have been gambling with cost-per-download, cost-per-install and cost-per-action in the past, and now they are making it look difficult for fraudsters with cost-per-sale (CPS) as the KPI. But, just like changing passwords, changing the performance campaign model does not guarantee freedom from fake engagement in terms of clicks, views, actions or sales. Many digital leaders believe that by refining KPIs and making them harder to achieve, fraudulent activities get filtered out automatically.

That is never the case. While the old saying of ‘when the going gets tough, the tough gets going’ often has positive connotations, unfortunately in this case fraudsters also get tough with changing metrics. mFilterIt has several examples where it was deterministically proven that changing the metrics model did not yield the results expected, and the advertiser could not achieve pure results. Instead, it made ad fraud more lucrative as the incentives also went up.

The fundamental question here is: If the pay-out is on actual sale in the CPS model, how can there be any fraud? Sale is tangible, and only after the advertiser is convinced would the publisher be rewarded with the commission. It’s a straightforward, success-based fee model, right?

Well, there is no denial that the publisher earns only after someone buys a product or service. But the issue is about paying twice, as well as attributing the credit wrongly. In most CPS ad-fraud tricks, fraudulent publishers use methods such as cookie stuffing and click injection to steal the transaction and take credit for the sale. Even when the user has organically discovered the e-commerce platform and initiated a transaction to buy a product or service.

To get more technical, a user engages with an advertisement put up by an affiliate and ends up with a cookie getting stored on the device, which hijacks the attribution at the time of the user actually visiting the shopping site. The net result is that in the eyes of an advertiser the sale

takes place due to the efforts of a particular affiliate. The affiliate gets paid for the trick rather than putting in genuine effort, and the advertiser bleeds doubly – first through their spend on organic advertising and then by paying the affiliate for the sale, which would have happened anyway. The cost per sale automatically swells and also gives an incorrect picture of organic digital marketing efforts, which are mostly driven by the in-house team of an advertiser.

“Many digital leaders believe that by refining KPIs and making them harder to achieve, fraudulent activities get filtered out. That is never the case.”

The proportion of money spent by an advertiser on organic digital marketing and the commission paid to an affiliate varies substantially from one brand to another. It is also determined by the product and the industry sector. However, mostly the commission paid is higher than the spend on organic advertising. mFilterIt’s analysis pegs the average additional spend that an advertiser must incur at 34 per cent. This simply means

that instead of paying $1 for a sale to happen, the advertiser spends $1.34.

Other ramifications of this issue include: a) Many associates of a brand bid on the brand keywords of their principals, so that their links rank high on the Google search results and increase the probability of users clicking their links to visit the principal’s e-commerce platform. This further increases the bid cost for the advertiser and also triggers organic stealing, which pushes the gross CPS upwards. b) Another tactic employed is click bait, which is sheer misrepresentation of creatives across walled-garden websites.

This is a blatant abuse of brand guidelines and poses issues around brand infringement and financial abuse.

Recent research from mFilterIt confirmed the levels of bot activity and fraud in retargeting, re-marketing and partner-led marketing campaigns. These campaigns are integral to e-commerce. While the average fraud levels are in the range of 40-50 per cent, there are cases registering 99 per cent fraud regularly. The bots used in such campaigns are fake devices that get a lot of impressions. CPMs for retargeted ads are relatively higher than vanilla display ads. Hence the bots fire a lot of clicks. For instance, we often see ads getting more than 100 clicks from one ‘user’. But humans would rarely click on an ad more than a handful of times.

Now, even if the marketer tries to be smart by using CPS as a KPI, the bots go one step further and manipulate the attribution to get credit for the sale. This is done to sales that happen voluntarily, and hence organically. This organic stealing costs marketers millions of dollars.

E-commerce is not just an alternative to normal modes of purchasing. It is a behavioural change that is brought about over a period by e-commerce champions.

For them, it’s critical to get the right picture and understand how buying behaviour is changing. While organic and inorganic push must co-exist, marketers will always be interested in discovering about the users who are habitually buying online so they can engage with them and even nurture communities. The real measure for this engagement is the organic route, and with CPS ad fraud this is misrepresented from the beginning.

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October 25, 2020

THE RIGHT QUESTIONS Radix’s Julio Rodriguez suggests what brands should be asking their partners – and themselves – when it comes to e-commerce

By JULIO RODRIGUEZ, digital transformation officer, Radix

E

commerce isn’t an exact science. It takes knowledge, research, logical purpose and sustained gumption to succeed.

“If you can do it now, do it now, there is no tomorrow.” Those are golden words imparted and imprinted on me as my mom’s vision about business.

Growing up in a retail business household, most of our conversations revolved around sales. It meant less time with friends and more time being friendly with the customer.

Many e-commerce specialists out there claim that they can help you boost sales, drive qualified traffic, increase ROI, etc. But in theory a promise that’s based only on theory is, well… just that.

And that’s where you, the decision maker, get to play the most important role of all.

You get to ask all the relevant questions, some of which are listed below: How much experience is too much experience?

This is a great question for small businesses that are venturing into e-commerce. When looking for partners, the more experience an e-commerce specialist has, the more adept they will be in the myriad technicalities of how to launch a successful portal.

How effective is your current SEO and paid media?

The bottom line for any online e-commerce is qualified traffic, and the only way you can achieve great results is if you know how to intercept and interpret intent.

This strong reliance on qualified traffic for e-commerce makes it important to have a strategic partner that has the experience of doing both and doing them well.

What are the right steps when wanting to sell online?

This question is tricky, because it’s not so much about when to sell but more about how to sell it.

Some of the critical points that need to be covered are hosting, CMS, e-commerce solutions (proprietary or third party), payment gateways, CRM, inventory management, shipping and warehousing.

The above will take care of the logistics of launching an e-commerce venture, then the plan should also cover site architecture, user experience, content plan, CRO, and conversation-to-commerce solutions.

‘‘MANY E-COMMERCE SPECIALISTS OUT THERE CLAIM THEY BOOST SALES, DRIVE QUALIFIED TRAFFIC, INCREASE ROI, ETC. BUT IN THEORY A PROMISE THAT’S BASED ONLY ON THEORY IS, WELL… JUST THAT.” What drives the big players driving e-commerce, and what can we learn from them?

There are multiple nuances to each pure player, from A+ content to sales velocity, sellers rating, keywords, and others.

Some of the more consumer-focused points to act on are shipping costs, shipping times, checkout process and easy returns.

Usage of the data to map and personalise the user experience will go a long way. It will help you make recommendations to identify further interests, and provide a wish list to have customers keep coming back.

If there is one thing that e-commerce has taught me, it’s the fact that if you want your business to succeed, you need to be someone who likes to roll up your sleeves.

Because only when you know more will you learn more.

October 25, 2020

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HOW TO WIN

AT CYBER MONTH

Omnicom Media Group’s Stefanie Cunningham offers eight tips for how your brand can elevate its online sales strategy during the most opportunistic period of the year

M

iddle East e-commerce is on track to deliver $42bn in online sales in 2020, according to Emarketer, and this growth is set to continue this November with Cyber Month. This event can account for a substantial portion of your annual e-commerce sales, applies to all verticals and is a great opportunity to acquire new consumers.

So what exactly is Cyber Month?

Cyber Month is synonymous with offering the deepest deals for a limited time and is made up of three key events: ● Singles Day: Originating in China and celebrated on November 11, Singles Day is the highest grossing e-commerce event globally.

Alibaba in 2019 alone saw sales of $38bn during this one-day event, and the demand is picking up pace locally. ● Black Friday: Occurs on November 27, 2020.

Strategically aligned to just after payday, this retail event focuses on deep discounts both offline and online. Black Friday in MENA has been localised and rebranded by retailers to a rainbow of colours such as White, Yellow or Green Friday. ● Cyber Monday: Exclusively for your online channel, Monday, November 30 marks the end of Cyber Month, encouraging consumers to purchase these deals now or never.

‘‘THIS EVENT CAN ACCOUNT FOR A SUBSTANTIAL PORTION OF YOUR SALES, AND IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO ACQUIRE NEW CONSUMERS.”

So, how can you ensure your brand maximises the potential of this commercial event? We have mapped out our top eight recommendations: 1. It’s a 10-week event: The search intent and excitement begin in October as shoppers seek to research the best deals. Harness this interest and build hype by creating a specific landing page on your website, enabling you to develop audience pools and collect customer emails to inform first when your deals go live 2. Value proposition: Shoppers are seeking value so it’s essential to offer the best deals of the year or risk losing out to your competitors.

Develop a strategic series of offers, all inspired to convert consumers online, and increase basket spend and frequency across the month of November.

3. Awareness and retargeting: In this saturated and competitive event, you need to ensure your existing and potential shoppers know about your offers through campaigns that deliver increased traffic to your website or mobile app. Activate across the essential channels – paid search, social, display and eCRM – alongside reviewing strategic opportunities with influencers, radio and PR. Build dynamic retargeting frameworks to re-engage and convert users across your sales funnel. Ensure a performance-minded approach by monitoring media KPIs daily, reallocating and reinvesting budget into the top-performing channels and campaigns by reviewing CPO (cost per order) and ROAS (return on ad spend).

4. Activating on e-retail partners: If you are live on marketplaces and e-retailers, it’s essential to understand their Cyber Month strategy as early as possible. Invest in their on- and offsite media options, negotiating share of voice in the event vs. your category competitors and ensure this is partnered with attractive trade discounts across your portfolio.

5. Digital shelf excellence: Digital availability is an essential pillar of e-commerce success.

This includes best-practice e-commerce images, copy and stock availability to enable shoppers to find your products, engage and transact. Poor digital shelf experiences lead to lack of findability and lower conversion rate.

6. Performance management: Setting KPIs and targets in advance of Cyber Month is vital to

ensure you have built the right stock forecast and have media investments capable of driving the required levels of increased traffic.

Set up specific Cyber Month reporting, which tracks commercial, media and operational metrics such as fulfilment success and out-ofstocks. If you only sell via indirect e-retailers, ensure you have requested a forecast target based on your activation plans and have negotiated access to daily sales reports.

7. Cyber Month taskforce: E-commerce spans many teams: sales, marketing, finance, supply chain and customer services, all of whom should be on-hand, fully informed and prepared to support throughout the Cyber Month period. Common issues such as out-of-stocks, warehouse capacity, checkout issues and customer service agents who have not been fully trained lead to huge missed potential and wasted media spends.

8. Repurchase strategy: Cyber Month is a great period to attract and convert new consumers to your brand. To extract further value, ensure you have a re-purchase strategy in place. In December, ensure you launch new product lines such as gifting for the holiday season, and retarget Cyber Month shoppers with value propositions that drive conversion, such as free shipping.

With these eight key steps in place we know you will unlock a successful Cyber Month this year. Best of luck!

By STEFANIE CUNNINGHAM, general manager, e-commerce, Omnicom Media Group MENA

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October 25, 2020

THE YIN AND YANG

OF MARKETING

While efficiency has a place in business, BPG Max’s Tej Desai argues, placing it above effectiveness can fuel the self-fulfilling prophecy of marketing becoming an expense, not an investment

R

ecently, Reed Hastings shared a story about how his company, Netflix, had surpassed Blockbuster. A company that had refused to buy Netflix for $50m had declared bankruptcy in just a decade.

When he was asked for an explanation for this triumph despite Blockbuster’s larger than life brand, power, resources and vision, he responded: “We had one thing that Blockbuster did not: a culture that valued people over process, emphasised innovation over efficiency, and had very few controls. Our culture, which focused on achieving top performance with talent density and leading employees with context, not control, has allowed us to continually grow and change as the world and our members’ needs do.”

This quote got me thinking about our industry’s ludicrous obsession with ‘efficiency’ over ‘effectiveness’. There is a strong tendency to over-estimate the importance of efficiency whilst undermining the value of effectiveness.

And this may not change until marketing is no longer seen as an expense, rather a necessary investment to grow the business. And this difference in perspective, unfortunately, has only deepened further since the onset of the pandemic.

Undoubtedly, it would be naive and precarious to undermine the significance of achieving efficiency. For instance, in an FMCG company it would be of paramount importance to ensure the products are manufactured, assembled, shipped and distributed in the most efficient manner. Consequently, capacity is optimised, supply chain costs are controlled and wastage is minimised.

Similarly for our industry, efficiency is crucial in media buying with consolidation of ad buys and hard negotiations. However, it would be fatal for any business to use it as the only criteria while selecting a communications partner.

A company might end up on-boarding a partner who brazenly commits to deliver marketing communication services at the lowest possible cost, but possibly lacks sufficient credentials to deliver on the business goals. In effect,

this is mutating the budgets allocated for ‘marketing investments’ into ‘marketing cost’; a wasted expense delivering no desired output.

Thus, this approach of expecting parity in pricing for agency fees feels flawed and unreasonable when applied to agencies providing services such as media planning or creative development, since it will always be a function of the quality and experience of talent it brings to the table. It is almost like expecting Apple to revisit its pricing of an iPhone to match a Nokia.

We need to be cognisant that the role of marketing communications is to effect change in consumer perception and thereafter consumer behaviour, to drive business growth. This can be delivered only with clever strategic thinking supported by persuasive, creative inputs crafted to address the problem. So, in the communications industry, the ingredient and material cost are a direct correlation of the quality and experience of the talent and resources they bring to the table.

Needless to mention, most agencies will now also need to relook at their structures to be nimble, agile and leaner with hierarchies to be more cost effective.

So, if the objective is to change the perceptions of our audiences, drive trials, increase sales and grow market share, it is crucial to focus on identifying a partner that not only brings efficiency in marketing investments but also has the ability to drive ‘effectiveness’ for their marketing efforts.

To put this in a more relevant context, it is definitely fair to expect cost efficiencies on media buys, but equally important to gauge agencies on their skill-sets, experience and ability to help deliver the desired business goal. For this, the fees will be completely varied and cannot be expected to match those of others.

To sum up, efficiency pertains to the process and is the foundation for survival, whereas effectiveness is about the outcome and thus the foundation for success.

As a result, we need to ask ourselves: What are we aiming for by bringing an agency on board? To grow the business or merely minimise costs?

By TEJ DESAI, head of strategy, BPG Max

‘‘IT IS FAIR TO EXPECT COST EFFICIENCIES ON MEDIA BUYS, BUT EQUALLY IMPORTANT TO GAUGE AGENCIES ON THEIR SKILL-SETS, EXPERIENCE AND ABILITY TO HELP DELIVER THE DESIRED BUSINESS GOAL.”

October 25, 2020

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hen I started my career 14 years ago, digital was a small media channel where advertisers would invest the remainder of their budgets. The budgets grew year-onyear and digital media became the core.

There are a lot of flashbacks now we are living a similar experience with e-commerce. The only difference is that this will happen at a much faster pace.

This disruption is coming from a consumer need and is heavily accelerated

by Covid-19.

Worldwide, 3.47 billion people use e-commerce. The adoption of digital shopping is growing exponentially, affecting verticals across every single market.

Our MENA region is witnessing tremendous growth in e-commerce penetration. Analysis by the World Economic Forum identified Saudi Arabia as a worldwide leader in digital competitiveness, and, according to eMarketer, the Middle East & Africa is the second-fastest-growing region in commerce.

The change in customer needs and demands has reshaped the retail world and this change is here to stay and grow, which is the reason e-commerce is a top priority for CEOs across all industries (both products and services).

What does it mean to manufacturers and advertisers?

The product-centric approach is dead; it’s all about the consumer. On one side, consumer pantries and product size are getting bigger; on the other side, brand disloyalty is at its peak. The supply chain challenges during the early days of the pandemic led to a lot of out-of-stock incidents, resulting in customers becoming more comfortable with the concept of substitution.

Winning the digital shelf is essential to survive and grow. Being discoverable and visible with the proper listing fundamentals is key to your consumers.

Performance marketing is no longer merely an appealing term to use in meetings and seminars; it is now a mindset. The good thing is that plenty of solutions are already out there, and that is just the start. Social commerce is the new influencer marketing. With the new shoppable features that some tech platforms are offering, brands of all sizes can boost sales, capture conversion data and initiate direct-to-consumer (D2C).

Measurement and data are the new oil and gas. With Google and Apple, announcements on cookies and IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) opt-in, and with the rise of online-to-offline and pure-players attribution, e-commerce ad offerings will become more appealing.

Data will always be a challenge until it surpasses sales on your D2C priority list.

Direct-to-consumer will always be the preferred answer to the first-party data challenge.

Marketing and trade; partners in crime.

With the rise of e-commerce and with media becoming shoppable, the line between marketing and trade is becoming

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HERE TO STAY Publicis’s Wassim Jammal examines the rise of retailer media and social commerce

By WASSIM JAMMAL, commerce business director, Publicis Commerce

more and more blurred. Aligning the efforts and having a common agenda, with the support of commerce and media teams, is the secret ingredient.

What does it mean to retailers, marketplaces and omni-channels?

The stage is yours. The pandemic put the MENA online infrastructure under a major test. Indeed, it was not a failure and it is getting better by the day. During Covid-19, new players entered the market.

Dark stores and food delivery apps expanded their offerings, and more assortments of pure players and omnichannels became part of the scene. The change in consumer habits and needs drove the massive growth in online shopping. We witnessed a small dip post-lockdown, but it is still at almost 20 per cent growth vs. pre-pandemic. We are living a new normal. Prime Day sales are expected to hit $9.91bn globally, which is more than 40 per cent growth over 2019, while the economy is going downhill.

Enjoy the glory and ensure it lasts. While

‘‘THE ADDRESSABLE AUDIENCE TO CONVERT IS HIGHER BUT ALL CUSTOMERS ARE AT RISK AND YOU SHOULD DEFEND THEM.” we are seeing brand disloyalty, consumers are also not loyal to where they order from. The addressable audience to convert is higher but all customers are at risk and you should defend them.

Retention first, acquisition second. 88 per cent of shopping carts are abandoned globally; consumers seek a frictionless journey all the way from discoverability to advocacy (assortment, user experience, payment methods, fulfillment, loyalty programs, etc.). BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store) is a good solution for omni-channels to capture more audiences, reorganise retailer stores and create further advertising opportunities.

Go beyond sales. You are a valuable media player now; enhance your media offering.

Bringing in biddable tech is expensive, but becoming part of the social commerce solutions, optimising your ad placements, basic third-party measurement and strategic pricing are easy wins. While you are already offering a delicious meal to the advertisers by connecting media and sales, only very few pure players are tapping into attribution. Omni-channel players have a major opportunity to close the offline and online attribution loop.

Consumers will always value convenience. Tech players are bringing more SMEs online and will keep growing their lower-funnel solutions. Gaming will play a bigger role and the internet of things is beyond just a delivery drone.

The list goes on.

How long do you think it will take for retailer media and social commerce to have a double-digit share of your channel mix allocation in MENA?

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October 25, 2020

YOUR OWN SHOP WINDOW UM’s Ruqayiah Al Usman explains how brands can use owned digital real estate to drive e-commerce

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s a brand in the marketing world, especially one without its own direct-to-consumer (D2C) platform, it can be daunting to jump on the e-commerce bandwagon.

This is even more pronounced when the conversation becomes about measurable impact. Most media offerings currently cater predominantly to D2C platforms, pure-play or omnichannel. This means brands without owned merchant centres must look for alternative methods to drive their e-commerce agenda. What brands can sometimes fail to account for is their owned platforms, which can serve as the perfect blend of first-party data (1PD) collection and purchase conversion via search-based media efforts. We will be looking at two such platforms in this piece: websites and brand stores.

POWER TO WEBSITES A recent Think With Google piece discussed the “messy middle” of a consumer shopping journey. Consumers have moved from an “I’m planning to shop” mindset to an “always shopping” one. This means every communication a brand makes with a consumer is an opportunity to push for purchase. The “messy middle” is made up of two mental modes of exploration and evaluation.

Both behaviours are exhibited across a variety of media, but more predominantly via research. A lot of this research, if you think about it, takes place on websites.

Historically for a brand, a website has been the go-to ‘landing page’ for campaigns.

More recently, though, marketers have started seeing websites as antiquated. While websites do support 1PD collection, they miss out on lowerfunnel consumer intent capture. But this brandowned real estate can now be converted into a shoppable entity for brands without D2C capabilities, with the integration of tech such as ‘Where to Buy’ (WTB).

With WTB, consumers will be given the

option to click on a preferred e-retailer and continue their shopping journey.

A common question here tends to be: “Didn’t we just drive them off platform, resulting in loss of data once again?”. Not with the right external linking in place.

When done the right way, you’ll be able to track your consumer and see whether they converted with a purchase. You’ve just unlocked a) intent to purchase, b) preferred e-retailer, c) sell-out data and d) a retargeting mechanism for repeat purchases. There’s more. Once WTB is embedded on to your product pages, you can essentially use them as landing pages for your media across display, video and social to collect purchase data without the hassle of haggling with an e-retailer to share sell-out data.

DIGITAL BRAND STORES ELEVATION Brand stores that sit within e-retailers can be valuable for brands without D2C platforms. They give brands of all kinds the chance to flex their muscles and be visible in a visually appealing fashion to high-intent consumers. Pre-Covid, brands didn’t have as many options as they do now. Amazon, Noon and Namshi are examples of pureplay partners that have made the solution available. But not all of them allow search-based targeting tactics.

With the launch of Amazon Sponsored Ads, from Q1 this year brands have had the opportunity to use search with e-retailers and bid for eyeballs, based on brand objectives. With brand, generic and competitor keyword targeting mechanisms, a brand without (or even with) a D2C platform can build its digital storefront to convert high-intent consumers. It doesn’t hurt that there’s additional opportunity for data collection and insights. For example, with e-retailerbased sell-out data, we can understand further which stock-keeping units (SKUs) sell best, if bundle offers work and whether consumers are more interested in ‘best’ or ‘cheap’ products.

Mobile commerce partners like Instashop also play in the space of search with category (generic) and search (brand) banner placements based on agreed-upon keywords. Data shared by a partner like this involves geographic analysis and modern-versus-generalversus-pharma trade analysis. Insights here can also contribute to hyperpersonalisation of brand strategies.

TO SUMMARISE Solutions like WTB implementation work best when activated for e-retailers that allow you to own a brand store on their platforms. When activated as a cohesive strategy, brands are likely to see high conversion with measurable return on spend. The beauty of e-commerce today is the constant evolution of product solutions being made available for brands of all kinds. Continue to test and learn, and sooner or later you’ll find the right strategy that works for your brand.

By RUQAYIAH AL USMAN, associate media director, J3 (UM’s J&J account)

PARTNER CONTENT

October 25, 2020

Gearing up for Black Friday Criteo shows online retailers how to navigate the social distancing economy

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he Golden Quarter – the most lucrative time of the year for retailers – is now here. While consumer sentiment may have returned to pre-pandemic levels in some sectors, what are the challenges posed by the social distancing economy? Criteo, the global technology company powering the world’s marketers with trusted and impactful advertising, has released consumer shopping insights for retailers to plan better for the festive season ahead.

Advertisers need to navigate reduced budgets and store closures, yet reach new audiences during the red-hot online sales opportunities presented by Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Abdelrahman Alfarra (pictured, top), senior sales manager, Criteo Middle East, is helping digital marketers in their efforts. “My conversations with advertisers these days are focused on two topics,” he says. “The first is how Covid-19 has impacted their business. The second is Black Friday – and if they are ready to promote their products and go online. Even during a time of uncertainty, budgets are being shifted from offline marketing to online marketing.”

Samer Saad (pictured, bottom), head of agency partnerships at Criteo Middle East, says: “The last six months have seen a tremendous shift in execution and strategy. As Covid-19 forced more retailers to go online, consumers discovered new shopping outlets, accelerating e-commerce.”

Criteo research shows that by October, a majority of consumers felt comfortable being outside the home. More than 70 per cent were comfortable with hanging out with friends (83 per cent), going to a mall (77 per cent) or going to a restaurant (73 per cent). Nor will consumers stop the activities they enjoy at home, discovered during lockdown: 52 per cent of consumers said they will continue spending time at home, 46 per cent will continue cooking at home and 39 per cent will continue watching digital entertainment platforms such as Netflix.

For some product categories, the pandemic has driven organic traffic and has sometimes been an unexpected source of revenue to businesses. Alfarra says: “People are spending more on upgrades to make homes more comfortable. Online verticals such as home improvement, cosmetics and electronics have seen increased spends.”

Saad advises retailers to take the e-commerce route to make it a golden quarter, and to do it fast. “Keep the consumer at the heart of it, as it is about fulfilling their needs. The uncertain times may even see consumers shopping more online on Black Friday this year. After all, there are more people at home this year, spending more online. And who doesn’t like saving money while shopping?”

Criteo research found that consumers will continue with online shopping habits formed during the pandemic, when half of consumers discovered a new form of online shopping.

Delivery, price and shopping experience will drive consumer

loyalty globally. The top three factors influencing loyalty are fast delivery (46 per cent), attractive prices (46 per cent), overall experience (44 per cent), and free or low-cost delivery (44 per cent).

Alfarra says the quality of the online shopping experience is also influencing consumers. Criteo data reveals that globally one of four younger consumers discovered in-app shopping during the lockdown – Gen Z (24 per cent) and millennials (27 per cent). “In Saudi Arabia, many consumers prefer shopping on apps as it’s easy to access from their phones. Advertisers are focusing their efforts not only on websites but also on building apps to promote their services and products.”

Another key trend revealed by Criteo is that consumers are looking beyond Amazon to online supermarkets, online versions of their favourite physical stores, mass merchants and smaller merchants.

Older adults adopted online grocery and direct-to-consumer (DTC) shopping at almost the same rates as Gen-Z and millennials.

Saad says: “In 2018, we recorded a 571 per cent increase in sales during Black Friday. I believe this Black Friday will be amplified with many new entrants in the digital realm competing for a chunk of the purchase pie. The competition, the opportunity to cut costs and save money while shopping from the comfort and safety of home will drive consumers to online sales.”

Saad has plenty of advice for marketers preparing for Black Friday: “Perform full technical checks to ensure tags are firing properly, payment gateways are working and feeds are being updated. Ensure shoppers’ data is being captured. Once the tech is verified, look at the creative aspects – how the user journey will be shaped. This year, the big change is contactless delivery. The creative will drive fundamental awareness of any Black Friday campaign.”

Saad and Alfarra agree campaigns should start four to six weeks before Black Friday. Saad says: “That time is required to build awareness and deliver a consistent message. After all, we are browsers before we become shoppers. Many people end up browsing while looking for products, checking prices and sales, and comparing before Black Friday, when they finally hit purchase. Some shoppers are early birds, others make impulse purchases. Your approach needs to be tailored to both kinds of shoppers.”

“This Black Friday will be amplified with many new entrants in the digital realm competing for a chunk of the purchase pie.”

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October 25, 2020

SHOP AND SEARCH Wavemaker’s Sushil Tripathi asks if Amazon will significantly affect Google’s dominance of display advertising SUSHIL TRIPATHI Head of performance, Huawei Devices, Wavemaker

In the US, 69 per cent of Amazon DSP spends happens across Amazon sites, leaving just 31 per cent for the open exchange.

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dvertising is a $600bn market globally.

Digital advertising contributes more than 50 per cent of the total ad spend. Digital advertising is comprised of search, social, display, video, native and email marketing. Digital advertising has seen double-digit growth year-onyear due to its precise targeting and measurability.

Google dominates the search-ad markets and also has a huge share of display ads. This makes Google the largest shareholder of digital ads, with 32 per cent. The priority for any advertiser is search advertising because it is highly relevant and results-oriented. Every advertiser wishes to grab the maximum share of searches relevant to their business.

Second to search ads come display ads. They are visually appealing; they help in increasing brand awareness and intention. Display ads give us the possibility to target users based on their demographics, interests, in-market behaviour, the content they are consuming, and past browsing history.

In the recent past, there have been drastic changes in the market to the laws and policies of digital advertising.

There is GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). In layman’s terms, this meant that organisations or marketers couldn’t use users’ data to market to them without the users’ consent. This reduced the revenue of many publishers and increased the traction towards Google and Facebook.

There have also been changes in cookie policy.

Every website uses cookies to store information in the user’s web browser, but now they need to take consent for the same. Users now can view cookie settings and take appropriate actions if websites are cross-sharing the cookie data with third-party sites (users can opt in or out). Using extensions, one can set auto-delete of cookies at an interval or upon quitting the browser.

And then came Covid-19, which affected our lives for the worst. The world saw drastic wealth destruction. To contain the infection, governments implemented lockdowns. This affected economic activities, and traditional business got affected. During these times of distress, e-commerce appeared as a boon. Even local shops and businesses went online.

Amazon is the largest e-commerce organisation in the world. It holds 38 per cent of the US retail market and more than 14 per cent of global e-commerce market share. It is growing its footprint in physical stores, OTT, subscription services, web services and advertising. Amazon DSP (demand-side platform) offers access to the real-time shopping behaviour of its users, which the advertisers can leverage on and off Amazon into campaigns aimed at relevant customers. One

can target users based on their buying behaviour, in-market behaviour, demographics, etc. with the objective of increasing brand awareness, consideration and conversions.

In the US, 69 per cent of Amazon DSP spends happens across Amazon sites, leaving just 31 per cent for the open exchange. That’s the dominance Amazon enjoys in the US market and the competition given to Google. Amazon’s DSP business grew by 44 per cent in Q4 2019, as compared with Q3 2019. And we expect to see a similar trend in Middle East as well. This is an attractive market because of its digitally savvy consumers and high level of disposable income.

Amazon strengthened itself in the Middle East by acquiring Souq in 2017, and it has been growing 25 per cent year-on-year.

In the past few years, programmatic has become a standard planning and advertising strategy. And the market keeps on growing, due the increase in the inventory and data inputs. In advanced markets, programmatic is being used for outdoor screens, connected TV and radio campaigns.

Selection of a partner depends on their ability to integrate in innovative ways, along with reporting granularity, transparency, user friendliness, etc.

Each partner has something new and unique to offer and that’s what helps them position themselves in the market against their competitors. A few of the features that Amazon lacks currently include geo-fencing, bid modifiers and A/B testing. In the past, Google has been questioned about targeting the cookies of users rather than real people on programmatic. Amazon is going strong because of the real-time audience data it has on offer. Marketers have huge expectations from Amazon in terms of upgrading the whole offering. A healthy competition is very necessary for continuous evolution and product upgrades.

So, will Amazon significantly affect Google on display advertising? This depends on advertisers investing on Amazon DSP. With first-party data on the table and the world moving towards zero cookies, it could be a lucrative option. In addition to the endemic brands (that are selling on Amazon), the major chunk of Amazon DSP is used by non-endemic brands. For example, a car brand, which doesn’t sell cars directly on Amazon, can target new parents because they bought a baby car seat – and a lot more similar signals. The most important factor for consideration would be transparency, profitability and scalability.

We are ready to accept the changes and explore new marketing avenues. We expect that programmatic will become an integral part of digital advertising and we will get to experience transparent and top-notch product experience.

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October 25, 2020

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commerce is a well-established practice for most of us these days.

The retail industry has experienced fundamental changes in how commerce is done, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is following the trend. According to Bain & Company’s February 2019 E-commerce in MENA report, e-commerce is reinventing the market, forming new paths to purchase and new customer experiences, while also disrupting business models and creating new opportunities. To better understand these changes the team at Liquid Retail, a Dubai-based marketing agency, gives insights into e-commerce and its trends.

The biggest e-commerce retailers Noon and Amazon established in the region at the end of 2017. Sachinn J Laala (pictured, centre), CEO at Liquid, says at this time 80 per cent of e-commerce was consumer

QUALITY. CONVENIENCE. VALUE. SAFETY. E-commerce is transforming the way retail is done, but the basics remain the same, say the team at Liquid.

By Sofia Serrano

electronics and most marketers saw e-commerce as a specialised function.

“We as Liquid saw e-commerce as an extension to retail and had the vision to cater to the needs for those who shop in brick-and-mortar or e-commerce, so we focus on selling the brands irrespective of the channel,” says Laala. He lists some of the selling channels in the region. These include traditional brick-and-mortar stores, pure players such as Amazon and Noon, retailers such as Carrefour and Choithrams and e-grocers like InstaShop.

Liquid works with all of these, communicating to the customer what their regimen – the way to use a product – should be and translating this narrative through all channels, while always contemplating the customer’s perspective; customers want to solve a need, regardless of the channels, says Laala.

The coronavirus pandemic has transformed commerce, says Richard Nicoll (pictured, right), managing director and chief commerce officer at Liquid. He says: “With Covid-19 we have seen the definition of the verb ‘to shop’ being challenged. In January, if I told you that you were going to do your grocery shopping, you would have perceived this as going to the store, filling up your trolley and bringing it home. Now if I tell you the same, chances are you’re picking up a smartphone.” Indeed, because of Covid-19, it became a necessity to shop online.

According to Nicoll, what the coronavirus has done to retail is an acceleration of the narrative that had already opened a range of choices for points-of-purchase. The question is whether consumers are going back to their old habits or maybe using a mixture of channels for purchasing different products.

Marketing changed during the pandemic as brands moved their messaging to be as close as possible to the points of sale. Nicoll says: “As people have changed their channels of purchase, brands should follow suit and build messages around these channels.” As a result, many brands have pivoted from offline retail investment into online retail investment, or from other brand initiatives into e-commerce initiatives. As a clear consequence of the Covid crisis, there has been an explosion of purchase channels. Covid also accelerated the digital transformation of retail. What is likely to happen next is that e-commerce will transform into a more experiential and more holistically content-rich platform, as other points of purchase will continue to expand.

The basic needs of customers have not changed, says Nicoll. These are: quality, convenience, value and safety. However, what has changed is the prioritisation of these needs. For instance, safety has entirely changed and gained force as people look for safety and hygiene across offline and online shopping. Value has changed as the economic situation has developed, so now people are more likely to buy private-label (stores’ own-brand) products. Still, there might be exceptions in some categories as people indulge in

‘‘THERE MIGHT BE EXCEPTIONS IN SOME CATEGORIES AS PEOPLE INDULGE IN ‘REVENGE SPENDING’ AFTER MONTHS IN LOCKDOWN.” “revenge spending” on treats or luxuries after months in lockdown. Convenience has drastically changed, as now with a push of a button you can get something delivered within an hour, simplifying the shopping experience. Quality has not changed as much; for example, you expect your vegetables fresh regardless of the channels of purchase or other variables.

Nicoll says the fundamentals of retail have not changed but the constructions within them have.

Colman Sheil (pictured, left), chief creative officer at Liquid, says the GCC has a unique retail culture. It is a common practice to spend the day at the mall, where you will buy groceries and also spend on dining or other types of entertainment.

Still, Sheil says, under Covid people see e-commerce as an option for safety, and with the advantage of not having to carry heavy objects.

Sheil adds that experience is becoming an incentive for customers to choose one brand over another. Businesses have to develop the best online services for changing scenarios, since a lack of adaptation can mean their customers’ loyalties are lost.

Nicoll worked for six years in east Asia with Publicis Groupe before returning to Dubai to join Liquid. He says: “The world tends to be split in half. There is the Western world that’s led by the US, and the Eastern world that’s led by China. You have Amazon in the West and you have Alibaba in the East, which has recently opened 300 stores in the East. I feel a bit biased since I was working for six years in China, but I think the next big thing will come from the East.”

As an example, Nicoll says that a year ago conversations with local brands about using QR codes to bridge physical and digital seemed like science fiction. Now, with coronavirus hygiene precautions in place, it is common to use QR codes in restaurants to read the menu. In China they have been common for some time.

With or without Covid-19, retail is constantly changing, and brands’ focus should be on consumer needs and shopping behaviour. Laala says: “Going online just for the sake of it is not a wise move, but if your shopper is going online please be there.” Retail is liquid, say the team, thus “Liquid is retail”. It is important to keep on adapting because those brands that manage to do so will flourish.

PARTNER CONTENT

October 25, 2020

Brand survival after Covid-19 Leveraging AI to cut costs and maximise creative efficiencies

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hile the first wave of pandemic panic may be behind us, most brands are struggling to return to the advertising budgets they had before Covid-19 hit. Naturally, brands have taken a more cautious look at where media and creative dollars are being spent and if they are really necessary.

So how can a brand bounce back to an always-on approach, effectively targeting consumers while maintaining a healthy spend? The answer is artificial intelligence (AI). With the help of AI tech platforms, such as Ad-Lib, brands are able to maximise creative efficiencies and scale cross-market/cross-channel while cutting costs across the board.

Ad-Lib is an end-to-end creative management platform that streamlines workflow, automates production and provides insights into the best performing creatives. It also focuses on dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) strategies and is the only Google & Facebook certified partner in the region that has worked with a robust portfolio of global and local brands across various industries. Seamlessly integrating into an advertiser’s already existing ecosystem, Ad-lib works collaboratively with your agencies and brand team.

There are four main components to the technology proudly represented as PROS: Production, Relevance, Optimisation and Support.

Production: The technology is built to support brands’ end-to-end process and deliver more effective creative, and has been shown to reduce costs up to 60 per cent compared with traditional creative production.

Relevance: Enables brands to personalise their creative at scale.

Directly integrated with Facebook, YouTube, Google Campaign Manager,

DV360 and Studio, offering the only zero-data-leakage dynamic creative solution.

Utilising brands’ first- and third-party audience data, as well as data triggers available in your demand-side platform (DSP), Ad-Lib enables creative relevance through dynamic templates, all without fingerprinting or placing cookies.

Optimisation: Through the reporting dashboard, advertisers have access to creative testing and insights generated through machine learning algorithms that also tag and score images and video. On average brands have seen a 77 per cent uplift in performance.

Support: A global team of experts are ready to support your campaign strategies, whether you choose a self-service option or a white-gloved, managed service.

Brands deploying tons of data management platform (DMP) segments and buying strategies while still using the same creative messaging are more likely to achieve less desirable campaign results. AI-assisted technology such as Ad-Lib’s ensures data and creative are used in tandem in order to maximise a brand’s creative efficiencies and tailor messaging to specific audience segments. When creative is aligned and dynamic is deployed across video, social and display, there tends to be an increase in engagement, performance and ad recall.

“Education is the requirement for industry skillsets to broaden. To unlock creative opportunity, advertisers need a partner or employees who have an understanding of creative, media, data

and ad serving”, says Ad-Lib’s founder and president Oli Marlow-Thomas.

In a time when working from home has become the new norm, we have all witnessed how digital consumption has peaked and created an opportunity for brands to significantly increase exposure. According to Kearney Middle East, consumers in Saudi Arabia have been spending 95 per cent more time online, while those in the UAE have been spending 79 per cent more time due to the pandemic. Brands need to stay relevant and active in order to remain top of mind. So why would you shy away from targeting these consumers with personalised messaging when there are in-market solutions available to help you achieve your goals?

As businesses continue to prepare for 2021, pressure and constraints to justify marketing and agency costs will play a key role in decision-making and budgets.

Working with DCO partners who leverage AI tools will allow advertisers not only to minimise spend, but also to maximise ROI and continuously enhance realtime performance. To find out more about Ad-Lib reach out to janira@ad-lib.io or visit the website at ad-lib.io for more details.

“AI-assisted technology such as Ad-Lib’s ensures data and creative are used in tandem to maximise creative efficiencies and tailor messaging to specific audience segments.”

By Janira Hernandez, Head of Client Services, MEA - Ad-Lib Digital

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Bringing content to life 360ยบ MEDIA PRODUCTION VIDEO | PHOTOGRAPHY | ANIMATION | STREAMING | STUDIO & EQUIPMENT RENTAL

For enquiries, please contact +971 4 427 3040 or create@motivate.ae

October 25, 2020

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IN THE AGE OF CHANGE

There is a clear misalignment between the experience marketers think they are delivering and what customers really feel, writes Merkle’s Victor Madueno

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s Covid-19 relentlessly affects organisations and consumers into the second half of 2020, marketers are continuing to evolve how they deliver consumer experiences. As consumers become increasingly digital and demand timelier and more relevant brand interactions, the need for modern marketing technology powered by first-party data has grown.

From the impending death of the third-party cookie to the uptick in privacy regulations, to the changes in consumer behaviour caused by the global pandemic, marketers today are being forced to adapt to an increasingly challenging environment.

‘‘IN THE EVERCHANGING QUEST TO PROVIDE CUSTOMERS WITH EXCEPTIONAL EXPERIENCES, MARKETERS NEED TO FIND THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY TO DELIVER ON THESE EXPECTATIONS.”

By VICTOR MADUENO, senior commercial director, Merkle MENA

In today’s economy, brands need to embrace change and create opportunity by adopting a new paradigm, best represented by the equation: data transformation + digital transformation = customer experience transformation, where: The privacy-safe acquisition, management, analysis, and activation of valuable data informs customer experiences in real time; The design and delivery of contextually relevant and personally informed customer experiences has an impact across marketing, sales, service, and commerce; The orchestrated combination of all these elements results in a ‘total customer experience’ that drives competitive differentiation and measurable business results.

In our latest Q3 2020 – Merkle’s Customer Engagement Report, we have seen an even bigger gap than in Q2 between what marketeers think they are delivering in terms of customer experience, and what consumers feel those brands are truly delivering. There is a clear misalignment on the delivery of those experiences, but ultimately, it is what your customer feels what really matters.

The report found that 34 per cent of marketeers think they are delivering a

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good total customer experience to their customers, but only 18 per cent of customers believe that brands are delivering a good customer experience.

In the ever-changing quest to provide customers with exceptional experiences, marketers need to find the right technology to deliver on these expectations. Our findings show an overwhelming correlation between enabling a good experience and delivering ROI. When asked to rate their platform on a scale of one to five, 89 per cent of respondents chose a four or a five, saying their current martech enables an omni-channel experience for their customers. This positivity is most evident among respondents in the travel, media, and entertainment (TM&E) and retail & FMCG sectors, who selected these options 93 per cent and 89 per cent of the time, respectively.

Our research found that only 26 per cent of marketers say they have a distributed streaming platform to leverage real-time data throughout the enterprise, yet 90 per cent acknowledge its importance in delivering the customer experience.

Understanding customer identity is the driving force behind journey orchestration. By necessity, this framework transcends pure marketing comms. Every touchpoint – from web visits to transactional app push notifications, and call centre conversations – must be considered within each customer’s journey as part of the value exchange from the data that individual has shared. These interactions require centralised orchestration to deliver the consistent, hyper-personalised engagements that drive a connected customer experience.

Meet your customer once and follow him/her throughout an orchestrated framework. Don’t let awkward moments happen across their journey; they shouldn’t feel that they are meeting your brand for the first time, every time.

As marketers continue buying and integrating platforms within their customised marketing technology stack, we are advising customers to follow a “platform-first,” not “platform-only” approach.

Based on this platform-first approach, integrated media must adopt customer relationship management principles to drive the total customer experience – the one that management envisions, as well as the real experience your customers are demanding.

We always advise our clients to move away from channel-led, or stand-alone campaigns, and gear towards customerjourney-orchestration frameworks to gain a total customer view. This is the only way you can understand the pitfalls of your strategy and the overall customer experience gap, and ultimately deliver a unified journey that delivers on your e-commerce ambitions.

Businesses require strategies to have a clear path to success. But in order to have a holistic and cohesive strategy across all your business touchpoints, you will need to build an orchestration strategy framework that stiches it all together.

PARTNER CONTENT

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October 25, 2020

Assumptions vs actions: adapting to

changing times

Coronavirus has seen consumers adopt different priorities and habits.

FLC’s Adriana Usvat asks how marketers should react

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he recent unprecedented crisis spurred us all out of our comfort zones, much faster than anticipated.

Overnight, the world and the economy as we know it did a complete shift. Shopper behaviour changed, consumers slashed their spending, e-commerce platforms grew faster, there was more focus on health and (inherently) wealth, brands were being more mindful of budgets and marketers were challenged to fight becoming obsolete.

But there was an even more important learning for us marcomms professionals. In a highly evolving market like the Middle East, we have been presented with an opportunity to evaluate the environment, leverage insights and assist brands more than ever to curate smarter interactions for the evolving consumer.

In order to succeed and grow, we have a chance to pivot back to our principles of ‘consumer first’ and understand how the shopper has evolved to offer new, innovative and out-of-the-box marketing ideas that remain in the consumer memory.

An Edelman Trust Barometer special edition (2020) reported that 65 per cent of consumers will be influenced in all future purchases by how brands respond to Covid-19.

Hence, paying heed to consumer sentiment today is likely to yield higher rewards tomorrow.

Where shoppers demand contactless solutions, and brands are seeking higher engagement, would a virtual promoter that addresses both brand and consumer challenges not be the ideal solution?

While it may seem like an obvious choice, it isn’t as easy as it sounds.

“Resilience and agility are the tools of survival in the current scenario, and marketers will need to re-appraise traditional practices.”

More often than not, marketing spend is tied to traditional strategy, past performance and safe solutions, with a reluctance to try alternative, possibly more viable tactics.

The danger then lies in assuming that what worked yesterday will work today, or even tomorrow.

With lighter budgets, the emphasis is on how effectively and efficiently we communicate via channels most relevant to the rapidly changing shopper. It may mean redirecting investment to digital media and point-of-sale materials due to the growth of e-commerce platforms, or offering

communication and action that promises to help the shopper save more in a budget-conscious environment. Or participating in empathetic brand-building exercises such as HP’s donation of 3D printers to hospitals to produce masks, or Shiseido’s partnership with Emirates Red Crescent to thank the frontline workers.

Resilience and agility are the tools of survival in the current scenario, and marketers will need to re-appraise traditional practices.

Developing a well-thought-out communications strategy to drive brand awareness and consideration will enable marcomms professionals to tell a story, one that consumers relate to and one that is not easily forgotten.

Parking all assumptions, let’s consider going back to the drawing board and asking ourselves these vital questions: Which shoppers am I targeting?

Where can I influence them?

What story is relevant to them?

Which activities might influence them?

How can I use my investment to support those activities?

In the end, accurately identifying consumers’ key insights and preferences puts marketers on the road to success. These powerful marketing tools can ultimately help our industry to avoid assumptions, channel investments towards the changed shopper and, most importantly, be in a position to act now.

By Adriana Usvat, managing partner at FLC GROUP & member of The Marketing Society Middle East

E-COMMERCE – IT TAKES A VILLAGE

October 25, 2020

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media strategy, SEM, SEO, on- and off-page content, let alone the storage and distribution backbone to properly support e-tail. Setting KPIs that make sense for each stage of the journey, whether they are ROAS (return on ad spend) overall or by product line, or returning or new customers, post click or post view. But it’s not only marketing elements that count.

Product variety, product feed, pricing, last-mile delivery, online visual merchandising, UX (user experience), payment gateways, ease and convenience of return policies and the overall customer experience must all be carefully designed to deliver results.

Yet the most important contributor to online business success is a process and team that work in unison towards the same objectives. This starts from the web development team, takes in the performance marketing team and goes all the way to the fulfilment team – all of whom must implement, learn and feed-back to systematically optimise the process. It takes a village.

Saving on physical costs does not mean underspending on online essentials. And, just as you would invest to maintain your brick-and-mortar sales, online sales require a similar, if not firmer, commitment.

As nations ease into the ‘new normal’, the immediate focus will be economic recovery. However, secondary effects following the shutdown will leave some harsh realities in economies that will take a long while to stabilise and recover.

Brands will need to focus on investing in their marketing plans to attract new customers, as opposed to the instinctive

Who does it best? The one where the client doesn’t, writes Havas’s Houda Tohme

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ovid-19 has accelerated digital transformation, bringing forth revolutionary changes in online shopping behaviour, skyrocketing sales and demand for everything from food and groceries to fashion and automotive. This means one thing: online shopping is not only here to stay, but it will continue to evolve at the speed of light. Most digital platforms introduced their “for business” extensions – from customisable Facebook Shop options to the latest Tiktok For Business formats and Snapchat Dynamic Product Ads – all in an effort to meet growing demands.

Throughout the lockdown period, there was a significant shift in advertising budgets towards performance media as brands rushed to accelerate – or, in many cases, kickstart – their e-commerce plays with the aim of salvaging halted revenues due to physical store closures. However, not all online businesses can stand the test of time in the wake of a pandemic. Rushing to

start an online business to capitalise on current trends does not always translate to a brand being ‘successful’ because it’s now online. E-commerce is not only a growing trend, it is a necessity. It is a convenience, and if the process is rushed brands risk having unstable foundations. Many brands have learned this the hard way.

The general playbook is as follows: hire a performance marketing executive (a ‘unicorn’), opt for the most costefficient e-commerce platforms, appoint a performance marketing agency that is willing to work for minimal fees (or on a penalty-weighted performance contact) and before you know it your website is online, everything looks great and soon enough the orders should come rolling in.

But do they?

Transitioning from a (typically longestablished) brick-and-mortar store to an e-commerce play requires serious effort, resources, and for several (often siloed) elements to coalesce. The mere fact that the business is now online is not enough to drive sales. Many businesses are under the false impression that digital marketing is the main driver of e-commerce sales, and tend to overlook factors that can cement strong foundations.

Every element is an important building block that can make a difference: social

‘‘RUSHING TO START AN ONLINE BUSINESS TO CAPITALISE ON CURRENT TRENDS DOES NOT ALWAYS TRANSLATE TO A BRAND BEING ‘SUCCESSFUL’.” reduction. Initiating partnerships with agencies that have a global network will strongarm brands to expand across borders and maintain the quality of output they have invested in the product.

Sometimes it’s easier to rebuild from scratch than fix, and there are some risks that businesses can’t afford to take.

If you truly believe in your brand, then you ought to invest in nurturing its digital success.

By HOUDA TOHME, managing director, Havas Media Middle East

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October 25, 2020

STEERING SOCIAL SUCCESS KARL MAPSTONE Business director, Vamp

There’s never been a better time to optimise your influencer strategy for maximum ROI. Karl Mapstone, business director at Vamp, shares his advice.

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he opportunity in e-commerce has never been bigger – or more important to retailers – than it is right now.

2020 has been a year like no other, changing behaviours and accelerating trends across the globe, including online shopping. While adoption had steadily been increasing, retailers have seen a big jump this year. Up to 40 per cent of consumers are shopping online more than before the outbreak, according to a study of 10 markets in Africa and the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

As we approach the end of the year, with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, UAE National Day and the festive season all on the horizon, retailers are heading into a pivotal sales period. Connecting with the right customers through your marketing activity – and driving them to your e-commerce sites – will ensure you can maximise this opportunity, helping to offset the impact of store closures and supply issues suffered throughout the year.

Brands need to focus on a marketing strategy that converts. Globally, mobile usage has increased by an average of one hour per day during Covid-19. With so many consumers spending more time on their phones and social media, it makes sense to meet your customers where they are. Social advertising also allows marketers to streamline a customer’s path to purchase, driving them to action at the moment inspiration strikes and converting them with just a couple of taps.

Here’s how to optimise your social strategy to maximise e-commerce sales.

‘‘With so many consumers spending more time on their phones and social media, it makes sense to meet your customers where they are.’’

Engage influencers to help consumers shop with confidence While influencers have already proven themselves to be an effective way to drive sales and engagement, this festive season they’ll really come into their own and become a key part of a brand’s social strategy.

Creators are a cost-effective content resource and can be relied upon to create highly relevant, reactive content that doesn’t require big-budget shoots or lots of socially distanced crew members.

That means you can keep your marketing channels filled with fresh content throughout this busy sales period.

They’ll also help your customers shop online with confidence. In a recent Vamp survey, 87 per cent of shoppers said they’d be using online reviews to inform their festive season shopping.

This indicates that, while consumers are willing try new products, they are careful about how they’re spending money. Without the physical in-store experience, social influencers can offer

the guidance consumers seek and help them shop with confidence.

Marketers should look to influencers to review their products and services in this key consideration period. Focus on relevant partnerships with influencers that align with your brand values and ensure that their social following includes a high proportion of your target customers. Choose high-quality content creators who can bring your brand to life in an engaging way. If they’re creating Instagram Stories, provide a link so their followers can ‘swipe up to shop’ and streamline that purchasing journey.

Boost creator content to maximise reach and return Influencer product reviews can be incredibly powerful. Not only in stopping a scroller in their tracks, but also converting them to buy. 90 per cent of the consumers we surveyed said ‘yes’ or ‘possibly’ when asked if they’d buy a product following an influencer’s recommendation. But there is a way to make this content even more powerful and achieve a higher ROI – by turning that influencer post into an ad.

There are a number of ways marketers can do this. On Instagram, brands can transform posts that have used the Paid Partnership tag into Branded Content Ads. If they haven’t used that tag, posts can still be boosted. This takes that engaging influencer content and amplifies its reach and impact, showing it to users beyond those who already follow the influencer.

While the content still appears native, boosting actually turns that influencer post into an ad that can be targeted, measured and used to drive users directly to your e-commerce sites. It combines the engaging look and feel of organic content with the power of Facebook’s ad tools.

We’ve also helped brands achieve amazing returns, like 43-times return on ad spend, by taking a piece of creator content and transforming it into an animated social ad. By optimising that piece of once-static content, with animation and sound proven to engage, brands get a scalable ad solution that is designed to perform on mobile.

The best thing about all of these ad units is they come optimised with a clear call to action, so you can direct your customers to your e-commerce site with ease and you get access to data on how each ad has performed.

When it comes to optimising your social strategy, influencer content is a great way for brands to have consistent, relevant conversations with your customers and help them feel more comfortable about shopping online. But if you really want to drive maximum traffic to your e-commerce site, then take advantage of the ad options that will amplify your influencer content and returns.

October 25, 2020

MATTER OF FACT

News, views & trends from across the spectrum

29

NOW IS THE FUTURE

A PANDEMONIUM OF CHANGE The pandemic did not change anything; change is inevitable. What it did do was compel us to progress at a faster pace than we were planning on doing. Remote work and meetings? Eventually, no doubt; maybe in the coming few years or decade.

We are now propelled to the future at such a rate, pausing to consider the path forward is no longer viable. Things started happening in real-time, like free-falling as part of a skydive: it no longer matters how you fall, but how you land.

Everything we took time to perfect and fine tune paid off in droves, and the more prepared and equipped a business was, the faster it was able to find its grounding throughout the pandemic and into the stilluncharted coming months, building towards 2021.

If you were to peruse the projected consumer trends from 2019 for this year, you would be excused if they seemed like relics of the past. The future is here, and all that we have learned over the past year will influence everything that will be for next year and beyond.

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Ahmad Itani is a passionate educator and entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of public relations consultancy Cicero & Bernay.

Are more likely to support a brand that cares about the same social issues they do

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Now take note of a product’s health factor

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53

Are happy to make their personal data available if it helps to monitor and track an infection cluster

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The UAE’s global rank on the adoption of mobile e-commerce

Identify price as an increasing priority going into the new year

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Source: https://www.ey.com | https://www.themedialab.me

GAME CHANGER Stick ‘em up

In an effort to further clamp down on the spread of ovid-19, the Abu Dhabi government is now placing a sticker next to the doors of the homes whose family members were tested positive. What brought upon this measure was a drive to maintain the safety and wellbeing of communities and the society at large.

B R E A K I N G T HE NE T Curb your online support

Celebrities from around the world did not post on Instagram for 24 hours to hit back at Facebook, the owner of Instagram, for the excess of misinformation on the platform. While fans certainly did take note, granting the story its viral status, the initiative accomplished little and did less to complement the efforts of those who had been vocal online and in real life over the past months and years.

#N OT What you see is not what you get

What’s one way to earn yourself a spot in this section? Deceive your customers by trying to pull a fast one on them. a UAE burger chain was promoting a plant-based whopper whose patty is egg-based. Making matters worse, the community managers have been deleting the comments of those pointing out the error. Hey, marketers: ‘Be Your Way’ means empowering your customers.

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October 25, 2020

A VIEW FROM

Ramsey Naja LISTEN UP

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eing “a good listener” is the one virtue that’s so universal, so cherished around the world over centuries that it should come with a UNESCO World Heritage certificate attached to it. It manages to score brownie points with HR, matrimonial agencies, a hot date and government intelligence, without even worrying the coolfactor police. Listening, you see, is not just the result of proper ear hygiene but more a sign of empathy, of kindness, of patience and the ability to deconstruct problems prior to presenting appropriate solutions.

We are seeing leading, monumental brands become pathetic listeners to amateur opinion.

It is also happens to be a recipe for mediocrity, laziness and decrepitude.

Google “listening” in a marketing context and what you get is the equivalent of an otolaryngology convention. Listening tools, listening guides, social listening, you name it. Everyone’s at it, everyone pontificates about its merits and everyone else is so desperate to get on that bandwagon that they seem to be hoarding cotton buds. Listening is marketing’s new black, and its tyrannical imperative has meant that eavesdropping is now something to boast about.

There is nothing empathetic, kind or patient about this. Indeed, it is nothing

TECH TIPS

Ramsey Naja is the former CCO of JWT MEA; @geminisnake

more than another marketing attempt to diminish unpredictability by handing control over to the consumer, in the same way that “consumer-generated content” has become the CMO’s means to shy away from creative and innovative leadership while protecting his or her job. Today we are seeing leading, historic, monumental brands become pathetic listeners to amateur opinion and going so far as turning flagship stores into “customisation centres” where any Tom, Dick or Harry can play at being Karl Lagerfeld for a day and then flaunt the disastrous consequences around town.

This should rank up there in the list of marketing sins, alongside criminal negligence and community management.

In the course of their desperate pursuit of “what the consumer wants”, armed with data, geolocalisation and the whole digital shebang, brands are once again turning to the consumer for inspiration without even stopping to think that they themselves will ultimately become uninspiring as a result.

Leaders don’t ask their followers to point them in the direction of relevance. They establish what’s relevant. Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive were famous for putting the consumer last, at the end of the chain, and it is now common knowledge that, had Henry Ford listened to his customers more carefully, we would have ended up with faster horses. Brand leadership doesn’t come from listening to your consumers. It is the result of being able to make them sit up and listen to you.

Motivate Publishing Group Head Office: 34th Floor, Media One Tower, Dubai Media City, Dubai, UAE. Tel: +971 4 427 3000, Email: motivate@motivate.ae Dubai Media City: Motivate Publishing FZ LLC, Office 508, 5th Floor, Building 8, Dubai, UAE. Tel: +971 4 390 3550, Fax: +971 4 390 4845 Abu Dhabi: Motivate Advertising, Marketing & Publishing, PO Box 43072, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Tel: +971 2 677 2005, Fax: +971 2 677 0124, Email: motivate-adh@motivate.ae London: Motivate Publishing Ltd, Acre House, 11/15 William Road, London NW1 3ER. motivateuk@motivate.ae www.motivatemedia.com EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Obaid Humaid Al Tayer Managing Partner and Group Editor Ian Fairservice Editor Austyn Allison Editorial Intern Sofia Serrano DESIGN Senior Art Director Olga Petroff Art Director Sheila Deocareza Junior Designer Thokchom Remy ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES Tel: +971 4 427 3000 Chief Commercial Officer Anthony Milne Group Sales Manager Nadeem Ahmed Quraishi (+971 50 6453365) Group Marketing Manager Anusha Azees PRODUCTION General Manager S. Sunil Kumar Assistant Production Manager Binu Purandaran HAYMARKET MEDIA GROUP Chairman Kevin Costello Managing Director Jane Macken

The publishers regret that they cannot accept liability for error or omissions contained in this publication, however caused. The opinions and views contained in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. Readers are advised to seek specialist advice before acting on information contained in this publication which is provided for general use and may not be appropriate for the readers’ particular circumstances. The ownership of trademarks is acknowledged. No part of this publication or any part of the contents thereof may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the permission of the publishers in writing. An exemption is hereby granted for extracts used for the purpose of fair review. Campaign Middle East includes material reproduced from the UK Edition (and other editions) of Campaign, which is the copyright of Haymarket. Campaign is a trademark of Haymarket and is used under licence. The views and opinions expressed within this magazine are not necessarily those of Haymarket Magazines Limited or those of its contributors.

ArabyAds acquires AdFalcon ArabyAds, an advertising intelligence platform in MENA, has announced its acquisition of AdFalcon, an advertising and data platform and the former technology hub of Noqoush Media Group.

ArabyAds says the acquisition is part of its vision to revolutionise the ad tech space in the region, and is the “natural next step to take its technology roadmap to the next level”.

The technology suite acquired includes AdFalcon’s demand-side platform (DSP), bridge technology and ad network. These solutions enable clients to reach their targeted audience via programmatic buying, as well as supporting various ad formats, in addition to flexible targeting options and multiple pricing models. ArabyAds plans to adapt these to performance-driven models beyond mobile.

“Our vision to become the region’s first ad tech platform can only be realised by such strategic strides,” said Mahmoud Fathy (pictured), ArabyAds’ CEO. “We see this opportunity as the first of many to aid us in our endeavour. More than anything we are excited to have the brilliant team behind AdFalcon’s technology join our family.

We are thrilled to see what we will achieve together.”

October 25, 2020

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Digital acts of shelf preservation

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e had planned at the start of the year to dedicate this issue to e-commerce. There was a bit of a buzz growing around it, what with Amazon expanding its ad offerings, improved inapp purchasing features from the social platforms and some movement among local SMEs to get in on the act. Agencies we spoke to were telling us they now had e-commerce specialists, though often just the one (who presumably sat in the same repurposed broom cupboard that had housed the token digital guy back in the mid-2000s). In January, e-commerce was promising but nascent.

And then Covid-19 happened. Suddenly every retailer was an e-commerce player. They had to be. My regular coffee shop had to close over lockdown – as did every other restaurant – so they started delievering beans. I ground these in a machine I bought from a local electronics retailer’s website, and brewed them in an AeroPress I ordered from Amazon.

All over the world people were doing the same (not exactly the same, or the nice people at Night Jar would have got very rich and gone very mad).

The world had to buy its groceries online, which meant every bodega had to find a way to go digital, as did every other segment all the way to big-ticket dealers in cars and real estate.

It must have been boom time for off-the-shelf e-commerce solutions, as well as a trial by fire for in-house systems. It’s fair to say that some retail experiences worked better than others. But necessity is the mother of invention, and her other kids also came out to play during and after lockdown.

As a consumer I had mixed experiences with e-commerce. Grocery deliveries would only be available a week or more after I ordered them, for example. As a man who doesn’t know what he’s having for dinner tonight, planning that far in advance was tricky, and led to some truly ghastly backof-cupboard meals.

But as my menu planning improved with experience, so did e-commerce players learn from their mistakes and triumphs. They overcame hurdles and built on what worked. Payment, stockkeeping, delivery, dynamic offers and more were all on the lesson plan in 2020’s school of circumstance.

Recently I interviewed Visa’s Christine Harb (for Lynx Live – find the video; she’s very interesting) about how payment companies like hers Editor worked with merchants to get card facilities and contactless payment austyn.allison@motivate.ae in place. @maustyn Our new On the Record with Campaign Middle East podcast launches this month, and in the first episode I’m joined by Sajad Bhojani from Azadea Group, and Snap’s Farimah Moeini to discuss how larger organisations are adapting their e-commerce strategies and how social platforms fit in. (Follow our social channels and Anghami to listen when it is released.)

All in all, we couldn’t have planned a more pertinent or timely topic than e-commerce as the focus for this issue. Since that poorly bat sneezed on a pangolin at the end of 2019, the field has leapt forward by years, if not decades. The learning curve has been steep for everyone, but it has also been necessary and universal. E-commerce has truly arrived. And I can tell you I’ll be cooking chicken stew next Tuesday.

AUSTYN ALLISON

How education ruins creativity W

A VIEW FROM

DAVE TROTT

Dave Trott is the author of Creative Mischief, Predatory Thinking and One Plus One Equals Three

hen my daughter was young, her teacher asked to see me.

He said she had a problem with maths, and would fail unless she changed her approach.

I asked him if she was getting the wrong answers.

He said, no, she nearly always got the right answers.

I said, so what’s the problem?

He said, she never shows her “working out” in the margin.

In maths exams, most of the marks are given for working out.

It’s not so important to get the right answer as to show how you got there.

Otherwise you might have just guessed it – but if you show the working out, even if you got the wrong answer, they can see your thinking was right.

So the answer isn’t nearly as important as the thinking.

Many years later, I’m reminded of this in advertising.

We know that the right answer is advertising that is impactful and memorable.

But we also know that isn’t where the marks are.

The real marks are in showing your working out.

That’s why, in any pitch or presentation, the actual advertising is the least important part and left to the end.

Most of the time is spent on the research, the strategy, the tactics, the media, the brand analysis, the planning, the brief, the logic, the argument.

After they’ve had 90 per cent of the time, the serious work is considered done and the creative work is shown as dessert.

In fact, you often win a pitch by getting everything right except the creative work.

But it hardly ever works the other way round.

Because the assumption is, if the working out is correct, the answer is less important.

The only flaw in this process is the audience.

In maths exams, the audience is the examiners – they are intimately familiar with the subject, they know the correct answer and are more interested in the process.

But advertising isn’t like maths exams.

The audience is not examiners, it’s ordinary people, from bus drivers to office workers, who aren’t intimately familiar with the subject and aren’t interested in the process.

Ordinary people don’t care how you got the answer.

The answer (the advertising) is either impactful and memorable or it’s wallpaper.

But we can’t see that because most

of us were trained at university.

Where the process is more important than the answer.

Making something impactful and memorable is a subjective judgment, and subjective judgments cannot be a way to run examinations.

So there must be an objective measure, a definite right and wrong.

The only objective measure is showing the working out in the margin.

If you have used the correct method, you will be awarded the majority of the marks for following the correct procedure.

But in our world, what happens if everyone else also learned the correct method and everyone else also does it the right way?

Then all the answers look exactly the same.

This is a good result if you’re teaching a classful of maths students, preparing them for a university education.

But in our world it creates wallpaper, a guarantee of failure.

In our world, the real world of real people, you don’t get any marks for the working out.

Because this is not university, this is not the academic world.

Or, as Bill Bernbach put it: “If no-one notices your advertising, everything else is academic.”

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October 25, 2020

Mini… ‘The copywriter did a good job on the simple lines.’ (NC)

Spotify… ‘A good targeting lesson for all content-led brands.’ (NC)

Bugles… ‘A pacey, frivolous, fun feast for the eyes that takes you on an imaginative journey through trippy Crunch Time.’ (TG)

Pampers… ‘No tagline necessary.’ (TG)

Emarat… ‘The link back to the brand is really weak.’ (NC)

October 25, 2020

33

Private View NATALIE COOKE

TOM GATTOS

Managing director, M&C Saatchi Dubai

Senior creative consultant, Milkshake Media

(1) MINI: IT’S THE MINI THINGS THAT MATTER If the aim here is to get me to want a Mini because Mini drivers are considerate and their spirit is cool, calm and collected... then it definitely unpacks the premise (although it’s a little clichéd). I am sure Mini drivers were on their fun filled, action packed Mini adventures last time I checked.

The copywriter did a good job on the simple lines to connect the scenarios. But it’s a 2 minute piece and it would have been great to see shorter edits, which I am sure would still land the message.

I’m a copywriter, so it’s rare for me to look at someone else’s work and not want to amend the copy. I know it’s easy to sit in judgement and poke holes in other people’s efforts, but sometimes the holes are already there and, unless you’re selling Swiss cheese, being polite about it won’t help anyone. So I tamper with taglines.

(2) SPOTIFY: LISTENING IS EVERYTHING The platform idea is strong – listening to music makes you feel better – and the films depict a range of everyday scenarios where music is the antidote to a stressful situation. However, the impact that music has as an antidote could have been stronger. Lady rips her dress then listens to music and is calm. It would have been great to have shown more of an impact of the power of music. The geotargeting of song titles that depict real-life situations makes it clever, which is a good targeting lesson for all content-led brands.

(3) BUGLES: CRUNCH TIME Love the content; it is TikTok-esque, playful, catchy and mobile-first. Perfect fit for the audience and, what’s more, it’s participative. A clear call to action for people to share the weirdest moments in life where they felt they needed Bugles’ crunch. It’s just ironic that the comments are turned off on YouTube.

(4) PAMPERS: HOPE IS BORN I guessed I would be reaching for the tissues. The work that Proctor and Gamble have done as part of their “For Good” philosophy and their donation of diapers to the babies of Beirut is to be highly commended, but the execution of this piece of film feels like an advert, as opposed a piece of authentic content. The potential for powerful storytelling is lost in between the stills footage and lack of emotive music, coupled with the plug for Pampers. It’s a shame, when Pampers champions a cause with real social purpose.

(5) EMARAT: EXPECT THE EXPECTED Beautifully shot and captures great human emotions. I can imagine the stills to support the OOH are really strong too.

But the link back to the brand and “expect the expected” is really weak. Are we dramatising the levels of service that you only get from Emarat? If so, it’s a vanilla piece – that is, if filling up my car and being able to serve me coffee are honestly the benchmarks.

Let’s start with (2) SPOTIFY. The PR about this campaign says it “connects users to the world around them”. But the advertising suggests the opposite, that it actually disconnects users. “Listening is everything” implies that when the going gets tough, the tough just listen to Spotify. I’m not convinced the younger generation need encouragement to zone out. Maybe promote it as a first-aid remedy for life’s trials? “Listening fixes how you feel”.

(1) MINI should be applauded for developing “The Mini Things That Matter”, which basically tackles irritating drivers who offend. You know, the ones who beep constantly, speed past and park carelessly. It suggests better drivers do things the right way, ‘The Mini Way’, and so are rewarded. But does the ‘softly-softly’ approach really work on driver bullies? Maybe something harder-hitting like, “Being more human isn’t just a Mini matter.”

Speaking of humanity, (4) PAMPERS has taken a real-life tragedy and turned it into a triumph with this true story of a woman who gave birth during the August 4 Beirut explosion. It gives an emotional account of baby George’s arrival, shedding a ray of light on a nation’s darkest moment and resulting in a gift of one million Pampers donated to all Beirut’s other little ‘beacons of light’. No tagline necessary.

Filling a nation with pride might also be what (5) EMARAT was striving for with its 40th anniversary film, but the Memorability Gauge certainly doesn’t hit ‘Full’. “Expect the expected” says it all: another violin-tracked 60 seconds of happy, shiny people. Ok, so customers want consistency from a service station, but why not at least say something memorable? “Predictable? Yes. Impeccable? Also yes.”

The (3) BUGLES ad made me smile. A pacey, frivolous, fun feast for the eyes that takes you on an imaginative journey through trippy ‘Crunch Time’. One could be forgiven for confusing Bugles with Beatles, as both suggest similar, colourful, mind-altering experiences. But ultimately, I have to say, it’s jolly and I want some. So a good result. How about a Beatles inspired, “All you need is crunch”?

Mini Middle East

Title: The Mini Things Agency: ServicePlan Middle East ECD: Akilesh Bagri Director: Edoardo Lugari Executive producer: Rula Bevilacqua Production house: Tomorrow Films

Spotify

Title: Listening is everything Agency: FP7 McCann

Bugles

Title: Crunch Time Agency: Socialize

Pampers

Title: Hope is Born Agency: Leo Burnett ECD: Malek Ghorayeb Regional CD: Betty Francis Copywriter: Alisa Daher Art director: Rami Rikka Production house: Studio 1505 Director: Jad Rahme DOP: Ziad Chahoud

Emarat

Title: Expect the Expected Lead creative agency: House of Comms Production agency: Boomtown Director: Ali Mostafa Photographer: Waleed Shah

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October 25, 2020

The Spin The Twittersphere was up in arms recently about Darren the Nazi Builder.

The UK’s Sky History TV channel tweeted a trailer for its new show, The Chop, which was described by most as “The Great British Bake Off for carpenters”. In the clip the show’s host commented on contestant Darren’s tattoos, which cover most of his face. What he didn’t comment on was that a significant number of them relate to neo-Nazism and the White Power movement. The channel then doubled down on its oversight, insisting their contestants are thoroughly vetted and the “88” referred to the year Darren’s father passed away. Shortly after a newspaper contacted Darren’s very-much-alive father for comment, Sky History did remove the post.

One commentator suggested to The Spin that Darren might belong to a far-right splinter group.

We’re not sure how we feel about this ad for his-and-hers t-shirts promoting tired sexist stereotypes about, you know, how men go and do all the work and women just spend the money, and… Actually, we know exactly how we feel about it. But we’re not allowed to print words like that.

Whoever wrote this headline about an injured worker returning to work really put their foot in it.

We were slightly confused by message from a Lebanese politician carried in a local paper. Is the alternative to be happy and remain divided?

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October 25, 2020

INTRODUCTION

3

CONTENTS 4 OOH SUPPLIERS DIRECTORY Outdoor and destination advertisers listed

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here can be no denying that 2020 has been a tough year for out-ofhome media. It has been exactly where it says it is – outside our homes – while we have been confined inside, thanks to coronavirus. It has been the hardest hit of all media bar cinema, but billboards and lampposts and mupis and screens aren’t going away. They remain an essential part of our built environment and are there to welcome us whenever we dare to venture out.

For some OOH companies, the lockdown and dip in traffic has been a chance to do some housekeeping, to renovate and upgrade their properties. Among advertisers, we have seen a change in the brands and messaging that has appeared on properties around town. There have been more companies offering deliveries, more brands offering messages of moral support.

OOH still has the presence it always had, from billboards with big messages to small screens with targeted ones. And it still has massive potential to grow and do even more impressive things.

Digital OOH, particularly when linked to mobile technology, is evolving.

Perhaps not as fast as in some markets (and some of our contributors examine the reasons for that), but it is making strides. Covid-19 has proved itself a great accelerator in some ways. For example, consumers are now more comfortable with scanning QR codes to bring up menus in restaurants. That sort of interaction between offline and online media is where some of OOH’s most exciting opportunities lie.

The paradox that is OOH will see evolution and revolution take place just as it remains reassuringly familiar and stable. It will see the highest of technology emerge while the most low-tech properties stand strong. In OOH, innovation and tradition walk hand-in-hand.

OOH is not going anywhere. And anywhere we go, it will be there with us.

8 INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT Daniel Wright, sales director, Elevision Media

10 INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT Habib Wehbe, chairman and CEO, Hypermedia

14 BLINK, AND YOU MIGHT MISS IT Chandni Varma, director of biddable media, PHD

15 NOW, NEAR, NEXT Diala Hamad, business director, Vizeum

18 OUTDOOR MEDIA, A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN Amit Raj, general manager, BPG Max

19 WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS Naveen Chacko Mathews, head of business unit, Havas Media

21 THE WAY TO RECOVERY Hatem Fakih, director of integrated planning, UM

AUSTYN ALLISON

Cover design by Sheila Deocareza and Thokchom Remy

EDITOR, CAMPAIGN MIDDLE EAST

22 BILLBOARDS WITH BRAINS Manoj Khimji, managing director, The MediaVantage

Motivate Publishing Group Head Office: 34th Floor, Media One Tower, Dubai Media City, Dubai, UAE. Tel: +971 4 427 3000, Email: motivate@motivate.ae Dubai Media City: Motivate Publishing FZ LLC, Office 508, 5th Floor, Building 8, Dubai, UAE. Tel: +971 4 390 3550, Fax: +971 4 390 4845 Abu Dhabi: Motivate Advertising, Marketing & Publishing, PO Box 43072, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Tel: +971 2 677 2005, Fax: +971 2 677 0124, Email: motivate-adh@motivate.ae London: Motivate Publishing Ltd, Acre House, 11/15 William Road, London NW1 3ER. motivateuk@motivate.ae www.motivatemedia.com EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Obaid Humaid Al Tayer Managing Partner and Group Editor Ian Fairservice Editor Austyn Allison Editorial Intern Sofia Serrano DESIGN Art Directors Sheila Deocareza, Angel Monroy Junior Designer Thokchom Remy ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES Tel: +971 4 427 3000 Chief Commercial Officer Anthony Milne Group Sales Manager Nadeem Ahmed Quraishi (+971 50 6453365) Group Marketing Manager Anusha Azees PRODUCTION General Manager S. Sunil Kumar Assistant Production Manager Binu Purandaran HAYMARKET MEDIA GROUP Chairman Kevin Costello Managing Director Jane Macken The publishers regret that they cannot accept liability for error or omissions contained in this publication, however caused. The opinions and views contained in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. Readers are advised to seek specialist advice before acting on information contained in this publication which is provided for general use and may not be appropriate for the readers’ particular circumstances. The ownership of trademarks is acknowledged. No part of this publication or any part of the contents thereof may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the permission of the publishers in writing. An exemption is hereby granted for extracts used for the purpose of fair review. Campaign Middle East includes material reproduced from the UK Edition (and other editions) of Campaign, which is the copyright of Haymarket. Campaign is a trademark of Haymarket and is used under licence. The views and opinions expressed within this magazine are not necessarily those of Haymarket Magazines Limited or those of its contributors.

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ISSUE 284. OOH GUIDE 2020-2021

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October 25, 2020

Al Shuala Media Founded: 2011 www.alshualamedia.com info@alshualamedia.com PROPERTIES Dubai: Bridges at Dubai Flower Centre, Deira City Centre, Garhoud Bridge, Festival City, Umm Al Ramool, Mirdiff City Centre, Ras al Khor, Nad Al Hammar, Al Khawaneej, Beirut Street underpass, Wafi Mall; Rooftop at Al Futtaim on Sheikh Zayed Road; Wall banners at Al Rostamani 21st Century Tower and Al Attar on Sheikh Zayed Road; vinyl wraps on Dubai Taxi, Dubai Airport Taxi, standard bus, articulated bus, doubledecker bus.

Sharjah: Bridges at Sonapur, King Faisal, Crystal Plaza, Rolla Tunnel, Sharjah Golf and Shooting Club, Ajman border, Airport, BMW, Al Qusais; hoardings at Al Nahda, Bukhatair, Al Khan, Damas; wall banners at Rolla Mall; lampposts on Al Ittihad Street, Al Wahda Street; unipoles at Al Khan, National Paint; vinyl wraps on Sharjah Taxis, Sharjah Bus. Other: Lampposts in Ajman, Fujairah and Ras al Khaimah; megacoms in Umm al Quwain.

Backlite Founded: 1996 Headquartered: Dubai www.backlitemedia.com info@backlitemedia.com +971 4 446 7540 PROPERTIES Dubai Outdoor: 26 unipoles on Sheikh Zayed Road between the World Trade Centre Roundabout and Mall of the Emirates; 2 unipoles on Sheikh Zayed Road at the main entrance to JAFZA; 47 lampposts on Sheikh Zayed Road between the World Trade Centre and the Dubai Canal Bridge; 30 lampposts on Umm Suqeim Road between Mall of the Emirates and Madinat Jumeirah.

Destinations: City Walk on Safa Road; La Mer on Jumeirah Beach Road; Al Seef on Al Seef Road; The Beach by Jumeirah Beach Residences.

Shopping Malls: Festival City at Festival City.

Cinemas: Roxy Cinemas with screens at The Beach, Box Park, City Walk and La Mer. Abu Dhabi Shopping malls: The Galleria Maryah Island.

ENG Founded: 1969 (changed name in 1976) Headquartered: Dubai www.engworldwide.com info@engworldwide.com 800 808 (toll free) PROPERTIES Dubai: 53 rooftops; 20 bridge banners; 2,503 lampposts; 8 scaffolds; 34 unipoles; 5 LED screens; 24 truck media; 1,000 taxi media.

Sharjah: 3 rooftops; 6 bridge banners; 347 lampposts; 17 scaffolds; 17 LED screens; 167 mall media (Sahara Centre).

Abu Dhabi: 3 wall media; 17 truck media.

Northern Emirates: 11 rooftops; 1,112 lampposts; 116 super megacoms; 14 unipoles.

Eye Media Founded: 2003 Headquartered: Dubai www.eyemedia.ae info@eyemedia.ae 800 393 (toll-free) PROPERTIES Sheikh Zayed Road (hoardings, LED screens, bridge banners); Dubai International Financial Centre (backlit hoarding); Palm Jumeriah (lampposts, metro glass wrap, bridge banners, metro pillars, roundabout and monorail branding); JLT (lampposts, wall banners, window banners); Discovery Gardens (hoardings, lampposts, megacoms, minipoles, mupis); Ibn Battuta Mall (in-mall lampposts, entrance wraps, LCD screens, promotion spaces, elevator branding, etc.); Dragon Mart (in-mall lampposts, entrance wraps, LCD screens, promotion spaces, elevator branding, etc.).

Flow Media Marketing Management Founded: 2018 Owner: Nadine Sleiman Headquartered: Dubai Number of staff: 5 info@flowmedia.ae PROPERTIES Sharjah: Lampposts, hoardings, megacoms, bridge banners.

Abu Dhabi: Hoardings, building wraps, 3D elements, special operation.

Al Ain: Lampposts.

Northern Emirates: Lampposts, unipoles, hoardings, megacoms bridge banners.

BSA Founded: 2014 Founder: Wissam Traboulsi Headquartered: Abu Dhabi www.blueshieldadvertising.com info@blueshieldadvert.com +971 50 555 8949; +971 50 396 8339 PROPERTIES Dubai: 6 hoardings at Al Khail; 1 unipole at Hessa Street.

Abu Dhabi: 12 hoardings; 1 building wrap.

Footprint Outdoor Advertising Founded: 2016 Holding group: Golden Anchor Investments Headquartered: Dubai Number of staff: 5 sales@footprintooh.com +971 50 549 0950 PROPERTIES: 12 locations in Dubai.

Hills Advertising Founded: 2003 Headquartered: Dubai Number of staff: 35 info@hillsadvertising.com

October 25, 2020

JCDecaux UAE

Lifeonscreen

Founded: 1964 (operating since 2008 in UAE) Holding group: JCDecaux Middle East, the regional subsidiary of JCDecaux Offices: Dubai Chairmen of executive board: Jean-Franรงois Decaux and Jean-Charles Decaux CEO Middle East: Martin Sabbagh www.jcdecauxme.com www.jcdecaux.com dubai@jcdecaux.com abudhabi@jcdecaux.com +971 4 43 98 400

Founded: 2016 Headquartered: Dubai www.lifeonscreen.com info@lifeonscreen.com 800-LIVEADS

05

PROPERTIES Dubai: 547 digital screens in ENOC stations, Tasjeel and other locations.

Sharjah: 8 screens in Tasjeel.

Fujairah: 25 sceens in ENOC. Ras al Kaimah: 33 screens in ENOC.

PROPERTIES Dubai: Exclusive airport advertising contracts (Dubai International Airport, Dubai World Central Airport); Dubai Media City, Dubai Internet City and Dubai Knowledge Park (unique street furniture formats including six digital screens, 23 mupis and five bus shelters in Tecom Business Parks communities); 385 advertising lampposts on Jumeirah Street.

Multi Platform Network (MPN)

Abu Dhabi: Exclusive advertising contracts in Al Bateen Executive Airport; Abu Dhabi International Airport and the new Midfield Terminal; Al Ain International Airport.

Founded: 2018 Holding group: ARN/Dubai Holdings Headquartered: Dubai Number of staff: 200+ hello@mpn.ae

24-7 Media

PROPERTIES

Founded: 2005 Headquartered: Dubai Number of staff: 16 smittaozha@media247.ae

Dubai: Sheikh Zayed Road (hoardings); Umm Suqeim Road (hoardings); Al Khail Road (Business Bay hoarding); Mohammed Bin Zayed/Al Ain Road (Liwan hoarding); Mohammed Bin Zayed (Majan unipole; Global Village unipole); Jumeriah Beach Residence (40 double-faced lampposts; 6 digital LED large-format screens).

PROPERTIES Dubai: hoardings and unipoles.

Group Plus Holding group: Plusholding Headquartered: Dubai Number of Staff: 25 Founded: 1992 info@groupplus.ae www.groupplus.ae +971 4 275 4700

Knowledge is power, and market knowledge is what we possess at Group Plus, by exploring true potential and vitality in the outdoor media landscape, without sparing any efforts to follow latest technologies. With these core values, Group Plus has been pivotal in the growth and development of outdoor media in the UAE. Today Group Plus has diverse media types spread over a wide range of networks, offering the best coverage to its loyal clients.

Group Plus holds one of the most revered digital screens network in Dubai, which showcases prime locations such as Dubai Financial Centre, Dubai Mall and Hessa Street. Its ever-expanding lampposts network is strategically positioned spanning most of Dubai and Sharjah. In this fast-paced market, Group Plus adds colour to the city by having one of the biggest 3D scaffoldings on Sheikh Zayed Road, which is a non-traditional media that combines creativity with competitiveness. Group Plus also boasts one of the largest and distinct unipoles on Al Khail road.

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October 25, 2020

Multiply Marketing Consultancy

Pikasso

Founded: 2003 Holding group: International Holding Company Headquartered: Abu Dhabi Number of staff: 30+ media@multiply.ae

Founded: 1986 Headquartered: Beirut Offices: Dubai, Amman, Baghdad, Algiers, Casablanca, Tunis, Dakar, Abidjan, Yerevan CEO: Antonio Vincenti Number of staff: 350 info@pikasso.com +971 50 115 7280

PROPERTIES Abu Dhabi: Exclusive media means within Reem Island (130 lampposts, 4 Hoardings, 2 building wraps, free-standing flags and fences); acquired L-shaped hoarding on Khalidiya.

PROPERTIES Lebanon: 45 digital billboards (19 large-format screens); 6 mall concessions (including ABC Ashrafieh and ABC Verdun); large-format rooftops; unipoles; walls; 4x3 billboards.

PHI Advertising Founded: 2019 (in UAE) Holding group: Naid Al Rajhi Investments Headquartered: Riyadh Number of staff: 6 info@phiadvertising.com walid@phiadvertising.com morsi@phiadvertising.com PROPERTIES Dubai: Sheikh Zayed Road hoarding (80-metre, by Dusit); Mohammed Bin Zayed Road hoarding (100-meter); JBR Mena Seyahi digital screen; Zabeel bridge banners (two).

Sharjah: Hoardings.

Jordan: 34 digital billboards (4 large-format screens); 6 iconic landmarks; unipoles; 4x3 billboards; 6 mall concessions (including CityMall, Abali Mall, The Boulevard and Swefiyeh Village).

Iraq: Large formats (31x4 supersize rooftops, rooftops, walls, unipoles); 4x3 and 8x3 panels; Al Najaf International Airport concession; Magma Square Mall concession in Sulaimaniya.

Algeria: Large formats (unipoles, walls, rooftops); 8 sq m billboards; exclusive concessions of 12 malls (including: Bab Ezzouar, Medina Centre, City Centre, Setif Park and Es-Senia).

Morocco: Exclusive concessions of 8 main malls and Label’Vie Carrefour points of sale.

Tunisia: Rooftops; unipoles; walls; 4x3 billboards.

Senegal: Large formats (bridges, rooftops, unipoles, walls); 4x3 billboards.

Ivory Coast: 6 exclusive mall concessions (Cap Sup, Cap Nord, Sococe, La Djibi, Square Center and Cosmos); large formats (walls, facades, rooftops, panels).

Mali: Rooftops; 4x3 and 6x3 billboards.

Armenia: Large formats in Yerevan (including iconic Yerevan Gate on the Airport Road); Rossia Mall concession.

Arabian Outdoor Founded: 1995 Parent company: Choueiri Group CEO: Pierre Choueiri As part of Choueiri Group, which channelises advertising budgets across the full spectrum of communication platforms (TV, radio, print, digital and outdoor), Arabian Outdoor UAE has served as a market-leading force in the UAE’s OOH market since 1995. Today the fully integrated media house extends a comprehensive range of outdoor vehicles – lamposts, megacoms, unipoles and the largest and most strategically significant mupi network in the UAE. The company’s track record of innovation reflects upon its vast capabilities and dedication to providing advertisers with greater flexibility, creativity and effectiveness.

PROPERTIES: Dubai: 600 mupis, 472 lampposts, 65 megacoms, 4 bridges in Marina, 7 unipoles on Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road, 4 Dubai Canal boards.

Abu Dhabi: 375 mupis, 159 megacoms, 34 unipoles.

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October 25, 2020

LEADERSHIP PANEL

Founded: 2011 Headquartered: Dubai Number of staff: 20 info@elevision.ae Elevision is one of the region’s leaders in digital-out-of-home media, delivering cuttingedge, dynamic advertising campaigns to the UAE’s most affluent and influential consumers in upscale residential and commercial communities. With more than 260,000 daily viewers, Elevision’s platform allows clients to tailor their advertising campaigns, maximising relevance, impact and results.

PROPERTIES Dubai Residential Elevator Network: JBR (129 screens/28 towers); Dubai Marina (136 screens/43 towers); JLT (46 screens/13 towers); Palm Jumeirah (96 screens/40 towers); Greens & Views (114 screens/55 towers); Business Bay (72 screens/18 towers); Downtown/DIFC (29 screens/7 towers); Silicon Oasis (24 screens/7 towers); Dubai Creek (22 screens/8 towers) Dubai Commercial Elevator Network: DIFC (123 screens/21 towers); JLT (89 screens/13 towers); Media City 44 screens/9 towers; Business Bay (84 screens/19 towers)

Niall Sallam

Eamon Sallam

CEO

COO

Daniel Wright

Rami Aboul Hosn

Director

Director of Business Development & Partnerships

Abu Dhabi Elevator Network: Reem Island (118 screens/26 towers) Dubai Large Format DOOH Network: DIFC (34 screens/42 faces)

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

Additionally, clients are keen to understand more about audience movements, and behaviours, and how geotargeting and re-targeting can be incorporated in to their OOH campaigns. To accommodate this we’ve recently launched Elevision +, a bespoke audience measurement and insights platform built by and in partnership with IQ Data.

DANIEL WRIGHT Sales director, Elevision Media

WHAT COMING ADVANCES IN OOH ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT?

WHAT HAVE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES BEEN FROM THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, AND WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO BRANDS REVISITING THEIR OOH STRATEGY?

Lockdowns, business closures and job losses have hit the market hard, drying up revenues for most businesses, our clients included, so this has had a significant impact on us as well. That said, we’ve been quite lucky; our client base is extremely loyal and as they’ve begun to see business pick back up again, they’ve in turn returned to doing business with us.

My advice would be to spend wisely with a supplier you can trust, but do spend. There’s a lot of evidence from past recessions showing that brands that continue to spend on advertising reap the benefits with increased market share and strengthened consumer loyalty when the market turns for the better.

HOW IS OOH TECHNOLOGY EVOLVING?

In the last 12-18 months, OOH technology has come along by leaps and bounds. Programmatic DOOH is here to stay, but there is still a lot of market education required before it becomes widely

adopted. I have no doubt that in due course it will become the new norm. Agencies and direct clients now have the capabilities to deploy their campaigns in a more cost-effective and dynamic way. This might mean buying certain audiences, specific times of day or applying external triggers to launch their creatives, based on things such as weather conditions, news updates or online search volume trends. It’s early days but the sky is the limit.

HOW ARE CLIENTS’ DEMANDS AND STRATEGIES EVOLVING?

Historically most of our clients wanted to know what the ROI was going to be, and how it can be validated. There’s a definite shift now towards enhanced and more granular reporting duties.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but it has to be the advances in programmatic DOOH. Our region is slightly behind North America and the UK but we’re catching up quickly and I’m proud to say that Elevision is leading these efforts. All of Elevision’s networks are now fully online programmatically, and our inventory can be seen and purchased using some of the industry’s largest demand-side platforms (DSPs) including Adform, The Trade Desk and many others.

Another thing we’re very excited about here at Elevision is a new technology in the O2O (offline to online) space that we’ve been working on with an innovative new adtech company. This first-of-itskind technology bridges the gap from OOH to mobile phone, compressing the advertising funnel from awareness to action, creating an immediate path to conversion for viewers directly from an advertiser’s OOH campaign.

In general, our industry has never been more exciting. There are not many silver linings to the pandemic, but the rapid advancement of technology in OOH is certainly one. Like a number of industries, I believe ours has leapt five years ahead due to the effects of Covid-19.

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October 25, 2020

LEADERSHIP PANEL

Founded: 1999 Holding Group: W Ventures Holding Headquartered: Dubai Chairman and CEO: Habib Wehbi; COO: Philip Matta; CCO: Gerard CREATORS IMPACT Rustom; sales directorOF (OOH): Nassim Habib; sales director (in-store): Daniel Khalil www.hypermedia.ae +971 4 390 2293

Philip Matta

Gerard Rustom

COO

CCO

Founded in 1999, Hypermedia is one of the leading digital out-of-home media companies in the region that specialises in ‘destination’ media campaigns.

Hypermedia manages and operates the largest digital signage network in the Middle East across more than 250 leading hypermarkets, 38 malls nationwide, over 100 key outdoor locations, and recently the Dubai Metro including Expo Route 2020.

PROPERTIES Dubai Metro: 53 Metro stations, 125 trains, 27 bridges, 6 giant stations wraps, 7 large portrait-format and 2 backlit hoardings.

In-mall: 38 malls across the Emirates; 900+ screens, 100 static key locations, and promotional stands.

Outdoor coverage: Sheikh Rashid Road mega LED screen:(42m x 15m), The Pointe digital screens, Nakheel Mall mega digital screens, WTC Abu Dhabi World Trade Centre LED bridge, Nakheel Community centres lampposts, large backlit hoarding structures in Sheikh Zayed Road, Al Wasl Road and Al Ain Road In-store: More than 250 hyper- and supermarkets across the region.

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

HABIB WEHBI Chairman and CEO, Hypermedia

Nassim Habib

Daniel Khalil

Sales Director OOH

Sales Director instore

WHAT HAVE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES BEEN FROM THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC?

The pandemic has enormously affected the economy across many industries. Some companies were forced to shut down, some were barely able to stay afloat, while a few thrived and grew exponentially. OOH media was among the businesses that suffered the most.

With the easing of restrictions, we witnessed an increased demand on OOH, proving the positive impact of outdoor media and its necessity in increasing the brands’ exposure and reach. Today, we continue to see a slow but steady increase in demand for OOH, with high occupancy levels across all our media, but with higher than average discounts.

HOW IS OOH TECHNOLOGY EVOLVING?

The shift to smart digital technology is the current trend in the OOH media industry globally. Digital signage combined with smart data solutions is the next OOH revolution.

Hypermedia has been working on adapting those trends and implementing this complete transformation across all our projects in malls, the Metro and outdoor. Through digital OOH’s (DOOH’s) flexibility and creativity, clients will now be able to post faster, more relevant, targeted messages – and in specific locations – effectively without any extra cost of production.

The use of smart, measurable data solutions will provide advertisers with an opportunity to communicate to their target group during different times of the day as well. These are just few examples of how technology will enhance the effectiveness in OOH. As leaders in DOOH, we are in the process of introducing those state-of-the-art digital solutions to deliver higher ROI for our Clients.

HOW ARE CLIENT DEMANDS AND STRATEGIES EVOLVING?

While online is occupying a big chunk of the marketing budgets, considering the current economic challenges, we believe that the demand on OHH media will increase significantly with the evolving ofDOOH. There is no substitute for OOH media, as it will remain the most effective and impactful tool to reach the mass audiences of the local community.

WHAT COMING ADVANCEMES IN OOH ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT?

We are mostly excited about reliable data measurement tools for the first time in OOH, combined with the latest digital signage technology, that will certainty reposition OOH effectiveness and launch a new era.

As we are the ‘creators of impact’, we are excited to see the results of our investment that will reposition the effectiveness of OOH (or should I say DOOH?).

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October 25, 2020

Prime Zone

Trinet Outdoor Advertising

Founded: 2007 Owner: Basel Joudeh Headquartered: Dubai info@primezone.ae

Founded: 2000 Owner: Mahmoud Ismail Abu Al Haj +971 4 453 9466 www.trinet.ae info@trinet.ae

PROPERTIES DUBAI: 16 unipoles, 500 lampposts, two rooftops.

Royal Outdoor Advertising Founded: 2012 Managing director and owner: Souriana A. Khalek Headquartered: Dubai info@royaloutdooradv.com PROPERTIES: Lampposts in Ras Al Khaimah, Um Al Quwain, Fujairah and Sharjah; hoardings in Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah; bridge banner in Sharjah; hoarding on Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road.

Sabha Advertising Founded: 1992 General manager: Majed Ewaida +971 50 310 6540 www.sabhaadv.com ahmadowida@sabhaadv.com

Viola Outdoor Holding group: Viola Communications Headquartered: Abu Dhabi Founded: 2004 marketing@viola.ae PROPERTIES Abu Dhabi: Lampposts, bridge banners and buses. All locations and routes are carefully and strategically selected in Abu Dhabi. They are in Abu Dhabi Downtown, the heart and the business hub of the emirate; the suburbs of Abu Dhabi; Al Ain; and the Al Dhafra Region.

Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure Founded: 1971 (previously known as Ministry of Public Works and Ministry of Infrastructure Development) Minister: Suhail Al-Mazrouie Director of Outdoor Media Office: Abdullah A. AlShiwaikh moid.gov.ae OutdoorMO@moid.gov.ae +971 600 500 500 The Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure is in charge of the following: 1. The study and preparation of urban development schemes and infrastructure projects; 2. Policies and strategies in the housing sector; 3. Technical and engineering legislation for infrastructure projects; 4. Planning and overseeing budgets for capital projects and infrastructure projects; 5. Running the Federal Infrastructure Projects Administration, which looks after installations and public utilities; 6. Maintaining and upgrading facilities and public utilities; 7. Establishing, managing and operating the federal road network and property; 8. Housing allocation and management for eligible citizens.

PROPERTIES: The Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure manages all federal roads in the UAE and, like the RTA and Department of Transport, it issues tenders and grants licences to suppliers for the properties on those roads.

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October 25, 2020

CHANDNI VARMA Director of biddable media at PHD

BLINK, AND YOU MIGHT MISS IT PHD’s Chandni Varma, explains how the world of programmatic OOH is rapidly going to revolutionise the way brands engage with their consumers

J

‘‘When we get to a point in this region where we have a significant number of digital screens, then we can evolve to an automated buying model.’’

ust as consumer behaviour is constantly evolving, the way we plan and buy media, especially offline media such as OOH, is also changing. All traditional media – be it TV, radio or the mighty OOH – is moving towards digital. But if we closely examine the reality of programmatic digital OOH in this region, it is still only in its infancy. Even in the most progressive markets such as the US, DOOH only makes up 5 per cent of the total OOH inventory. However, it is also worth noting that it constitutes 33 per cent of the total out-of-home ad spend. This speaks volumes about the untapped potential of this medium both for suppliers and for advertisers.

Digital OOH does not only refer to billboards. It also includes digital screens in malls, elevators, gyms, airports, fuel stations, taxis, bus stations, etc.

When we get to a point in this region where we have a significant number of digital screens, then we can evolve to an automated buying model.

Despite the UAE being so technologically advanced, there are several reasons why the shift to digital OOH has been slower than in other markets.

One of the main reasons is a resistance to change.

Media planners love traditional billboards so much that they are the go-to medium whenever there is a big brand launch or we need 100 per cent visibility.

For many outdoor suppliers there isn’t incentive to digitise screens because the costs of digitising a billboard currently outweigh the benefits.

Other reasons include slow creative approval by suppliers ahead of launch. There are multiple DOOH ecosystems here in the region, with a select number of suppliers offering the experience, system and technology needed to make headway.

But it’s all about the mindset, and the mindset for programmatic OOH remains undeveloped. As an agency, we believe programmatic OOH can grow the OOH market as it brings more accountability and measurability, which is key to growth.

Consider the YouTube masthead. It is one of the most essential digital formats that exists to create “visibility” online. Since it hit key MENA markets in 2011-12, it behaved like the longest billboard on Sheikh Zayed Road. It could only be purchased directly through Google on a cost-per-day basis and at a very high premium. This is how it operated for the last eight years. Look at the same format today.

As the landscape has evolved, Google has made the masthead available on both a CPM and a CPD basis, where CPD is so premium, CPM seems like the obvious choice. The biggest shift is that the CPM masthead allows for the option to use advanced audience targeting solutions that the CPD cannot.

Both have a role to play, but if this format can be customised, and more targeted, it only makes it that much more functional.

Programmatic DOOH will provide unique marketing capabilities because of its use of real-world triggers. Remember the award-winning British Airways #lookup campaign that used digital screens to track planes flying above it, displaying their flight number and departure point? Closer to home, we have seen the Louvre Abu Dhabi Highway gallery, which cleverly combines an outdoor display ad with a connected indoor audio sensory experience. Programmatic DOOH can use a combination of location intelligence and audience targeting to be relevant while still not being intrusive. If the screen is close enough to the point of sale, for example, it can drive people into stores.

This ‘sale’ can be activated in seconds inside a mall, encouraging people to grab last stocks or pointing them in the direction of their favourite coffee shop.

A weather update could drive up sales of ice cream, water or cough syrup instantaneously.

The mobile phone in every consumer’s palm constantly gives off data that indicates what kind of person is in which location. This revolutionises DOOH planning as it means buyers can now pick locations they know are most relevant to their target audience. They can now begin to place their DOOH ads in the locations where their audience is present.

They can even go so far as to determine how many people have been exposed to their OOH ads and then gone on to visit the desired locations, finally bringing measurability and accountability to OOH media.

In a complex digital world, advertisers have been hungry for immediate, transparent, controlled solutions. With publishers digitally adapting their screens to start using programmatic technology, they have taught the hungry how to fish. At the most basic level, it will enable quicker switching on/off of campaigns, while at its most advanced we may see the ability to contextually target in real-time. It is a win-win for advertisers, who benefit from the transparency and efficiencies of this buying method while driving more revenue for screen owners who are able to run more ads.

The future is perhaps a different question. When OOH ads are bought from the same interface as display, YouTube, audio and TV, it will put a new kind of power in the hands of the buyer, creating fresh possibilities. It took most of the 20th century for prestige OOH locations like Times Square and Piccadilly Circus to transition to digital screens.

But, as is always the case in digital media, expect the next transition to come at lightspeed.

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October 25, 2020

OW, EAR, EXT

Vizeum’s Diala Hamad looks at how OOH opportunities and practices are likely to evolve in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis

T

he one thing everyone can agree on with Covid-19 is that human behaviour will have changed forever. How we travel, work, shop and play is going to change as a result of this pandemic. And, following the pandemic, it is unlikely that our behaviour will revert back to the way it was. In some ways we simply won’t be able to, and in other ways we simply won’t want to.

Much like the rest of the world, MENA has seen a staggered re-opening of shops, restaurants, leisure and entertainment venues over the last couple of months.

With changing behaviour, changing infrastructure and changing attitudes, how can brands continue to leverage the previously unrivalled impact of OOH media? How can OOH be used to communicate and engage with customers most effectively now, in the near future and in the more distant future?

Despite all the changes happening around the world, unlike other media types such as digital, radio and TV, OOH remains the only un-skippable advertising medium. People don’t change a channel, people cannot block the ads and it is a 100 per cent safe environment compared with automated ad technology.

No matter where your audiences are, OOH – especially when used across multiple environments – is still an incredibly effective and efficient channel to deliver broadcast reach across cities and can just as easily target localised areas.

OOH: THE NOW As bars and restaurants continue to reopen, getting customers back will be critical to a quick recovery. Using OOH, particularly DOOH, to signpost premises and special offers is a great way to nudge consumers and drive footfall.

Another tactic to get people into venues is simply through offers. Vouchering has traditionally been done via mobile, but more recently we have seen brands starting to use vouchering mechanics on dynamic DOOH. These messages can be triggered only to go live when capacity is at an acceptable level.

The region is evolving its OOH intelligence solutions; they can now provide data that includes viewership of each location by time of day and night.

Using data collected from location signals (with consent of smartphone owners) can add an additional layer of audience data, including key shopping behaviour and detailed demographic information.

OOH: THE NEAR Beyond restaurants and bars, digital OOH can also be used to amplify outdoor performances and gigs as they begin to take place. Full-motion digital OOH has the capability to live-stream events.

If large events are limited in numbers, DOOH provides a way to reach a wider audience and share these experiences within communities. This capability also brings other opportunities to create deeper engagement with mobiles connected to OOH screens. Gamification, AR and vouchering mechanics are all set to rise as brands look to re-establish connections with consumers. QR codes too have seen a renaissance as a safe and seamless way for consumers to order food and drinks in restaurants and bars. Now this technology is more understood by consumers, it could be a good time to explore codes once again on the right OOH sites.

OOH: THE NEXT Technology in the region is also evolving to minimise campaign wastage. OOH solutions such as Locomizer tech can help customers to identify precise locations, so that they deliver their message to the right people at the right time.

The technology can identify highaffinity locations with an identified segment under different tier taxonomy (e.g. Autos > German cars > BMW), giving affinity strength signals. The platform tells you when and where an audience spends their time so that outdoor physical or digital advertising can be placed in the most effective locations at the most appropriate times of day, anywhere in the world.

The region’s OOH landscape is evolving in terms of locations and formats, as well as in the way we buy OOH. Programmatic is shifting the planning from a location-first to audience-first approach. By buying audiences rather than locations, brands minimise waste and focus on reaching out to a crowded location with high affinity with their audience. This then provides more data that can be used to re-target and gain deeper insights into customers.

Overall, no matter your audience, a multi-environment

15

OOH approach can reach audiences as lockdown restrictions continue to relax but also as people adjust their lifestyles to keep safe and social distance far beyond government-enforced restrictions.

As our opportunities continue to open up, it’s time for advertisers to get back to playing in the out-of-home medium.

Using a combination of data-led planning to identify audience hotspots and movement patterns, optimising the best mix of environments and formats (digital, static and ambient) and relevant and engaging creative, OOH can deliver high reach quickly, produce shifts to established metrics, move brands top of mind and create excess share of voice to gain market share.

By Diala Hamad, business director, Vizeum

‘‘IF LARGE EVENTS ARE LIMITED IN NUMBERS, DOOH PROVIDES A WAY TO REACH A WIDER AUDIENCE AND SHARE THESE EXPERIENCES.”

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October 25, 2020

I

t is time marketers take this vow: “To have and to hold from this day forward, to better and for best, to make OOH part of our consumer engagement…” Rightly so. This is one media that walks with you from the moment you step out of the house, all through the day, in formats that impress and engage you. Let’s take a quick walk out of your apartment. There is a screen right in the elevator. You cruise down the community and a lampost or a mupi is wishing you a great day. Speeding along at 120km/hr, you have impressive signage giving you a glance. Go to a toilet, mall or supermarket, and they are everywhere by your side. While mobile is part of you, OOH is by your side, and that makes a lot of difference in the ability of the media.

Outdoor is ‘amobile’. While mobile is about overload of content, outdoor is about no content. It is entertaining, it is non-intrusive and changes shape to fit into your environment. The challenge for most media advertisements is to be contextual, in line with content and non-intrusive. The struggle is eternal as a brand message at some point will be taking your mind off the content flow to create dissonance. OOH is pure ad; you don’t expect anything else, and that makes the message impactful.

Acceptance of a cluttered ad space like Times Square is a testimony to that.

OOH can help conversion online.

One crucial area where OOH is driving change in the path-to-purchase journey is ‘commuter commerce’ – people postCovid have started to use commerce on the move more than ever. In the UK, commuters spend £22.8bn per year while travelling to and from work. OOH can be a big trigger for all these actions.

For example, when you see an advert for toothpaste on the side of the bus, it will act as an effective reminder to refill.

OUTDOOR MEDIA, A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN BPG Max’s Amit Raj looks at how OOH will move further into our lives as it becomes integrated with other technologies and media

By Amit Raj, general manager, BPG Max

‘‘WHILE MOBILE IS PART OF YOU, OOH IS BY YOUR SIDE, AND THAT MAKES A LOT OF DIFFERENCE IN THE ABILITY OF THE MEDIA.”

To back this up, a Nielsen study from the US looked at the ability of OOH to drive online actions such as search or a social media post, and it was clearly OOH that stood out. It outperformed online advertising.

A recent Kinetic report found that 14 per cent of annual online spending in the UK is done using a smartphone during a commute, and that, of those surveyed, 70 per cent of commuters had made an online purchase thanks to viewing OOH on their way.

Neouroscience backs OOH as the most influential media. Research suggests consumers are more positively influenced by advertising when they are in motion.

The effect occurs because the heightened state of arousal from physical activity reflects on brand acceptance. Research published in the Journal of Advertising Research in 2019 showed an active group

in motion where consumers are in transit (streets, metros, airports and malls) or when exercising (gyms and parks) were significantly more aroused than the group inactive when served with the same ad.

Technology-driven programatic ad placement in DOOH is already being explored in the Middle East. There is also a surge in digital radio and music consumption. The next explosion in OOH media will be in this space where radio ads will be served in synergy with OOH ads based on location and targeting. It will be complementary messaging a consumer will find it difficult to refuse.

For example, the German energy firm E.ON carried out a national 48-sheet OOH campaign, and used location data to geo-target audio ads to reach more people throughout the day. When a listener entered a geofenced zone, the technology served an audio ad corresponding to the poster site. As a result, E.ON saw four times more smart-meter sign-ups than average site traffic and a 26 per cent increase in consideration.

While DOOH can be activated when a customer enters the location bubble, we will soon be witnessing digital screens within wifi-enabled taxis on a large scale.

This means advertisers have a captive audience during the commute time, with the knowledge of their profile and destination. A real-time customised offer or value-add, which is time-bound while they are in a taxi, can take customer influencing to another level.

Connected OOH is going to make this medium completely irrestistable, if it is not already. Not only is it a marriage truly made in heaven, but it was a companion by your side at every point of your time out of home. Now it can customise the message based on your needs at any point, to be a truly rewarding experience for all stakeholders. It will minimising wastage and provide apt messaging, totally measured. Michio Kaku once predicted screens will be everywhere, as a chip will cost a penny. OOH has taken the first step in that direction.

October 25, 2020

19

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

Digital outdoor has grown by almost a third, recently, and technology continues to transform the industry, writes Havas’s Naveen Chacko Mathews.

T

he demand for outdoor advertising as part of the media mix has seen a level of stagnation, possibly even a regression, over the past few years in the region. Primarily due to shrinking budgets and the rise of digital as a seemingly cost-effective avenue for most brands to get a message across.

But that does not mean outdoor advertising is dying. Far from it.

To start with, OOH still commands a lion’s share of attention and provides a canvas unlike any other media for marketers to play with.

OOH campaigns can’t be ignored, if activated properly, compared with TV, radio, or mobile, which can be turned off, or digital, where the consumer can change channel.

But it is absolutely not a question of one channel against the other.

Depending on the campaign, objective and budget, each has its own role to play within the media mix.

Online advertising, for example,

By Naveen Chacko Mathews, head of business unit, Havas Media has its limitations. The rise of adblockers has meant that digital higher costs of production, longer lead times ad viewability isn’t always perfect, and then and a commitment pre-requisite of months. there is the question of transparency and ad There is still immense untapped potential in fraud. Combine this with the sheer amount what digital technology enablement can bring of information that consumers are faced with to outdoor advertising, particularly tackling the online, and it’s easy to understand why online problem of real-time delivery, measurement and advertising is not always the best solution. optimisation akin to the online advertising space.

With OOH advertising, this isn’t a problem.

Agencies have made advances in the way OOH ads are ubiquitous, and they can have a they plan and evaluate outdoor inventory, but significant impact on consumers due to their size activation still largely follows a traditional and contrast with the real-world environment. method, reliant on the media vendors and site But when these channels work in tandem to owners. Yes, several brands have leveraged data activate an idea, they generate amazing results. A triggers such as the weather or time of day, and Nielsen study in the UK found that consumers are enabled mobile interaction via beacons and QR 48 per cent more likely to interact with a digital ad codes to do some clever activations, but that’s just after being exposed to an OOH ad. the tip of the iceberg.

OOH is a great place for creativity and In the region we still need to see digital outdoor experiences to thrive in the world of advertising, leverage and reach its true potential. Real-time though brands haven’t fully focused on this advertising is critical, but in reality it is part of a aspect in the region. Couple this with the need growing trend in which the industry is becoming to provide a clear and lasting message, and it’s more reactive. The large amount of data that perfect for testing a brand’s most creative ideas marketers now have is fuelling this. or just showcasing a product with some stunning Beyond just showing an OOH ad on a screen visuals. Traditionally this came with a high cost of and digitally delivering creative, DOOH is entry, but that’s changing. evolving to understand, in real-time, the While we have seen the digital outdoor demographics of people that are in the vicinity of formats grow by more than 30 per cent over the an OOH ad so advertisers can deliver dynamic ads last few years, that has in turn helped cut the

that best suit consumers at any given moment. In the same way that digital marketing has evolved to provide detailed insights and analytics into ad engagement and conversion, OOH advertising is now catching up.

Campaign impressions will soon be measured, and attribution can further define its role in the marketing mix.

The region still has to get to the stage where it is mainstream and where every DOOH is connected.

A considerable advancement in the DOOH space is the programmatic buying of OOH media. pDOOH is a more refined approach to digital outof-home – you get all of the normal benefits of DOOH plus a little extra. It aims to automate the sale and delivery of OOH ad content in real time.

Dentsu Aegis in their 2020 spend report predicted that this year was when we would see programmatic OOH go mainstream; that was before the world was hit with a curve ball.

Nevertheless, we are getting there.

Like the evolution of online programmatic buying, it will need to address the initial barriers of remnant inventory, ensuring media-owner buy-in and lower margins. It has the potential to pool inventory across suppliers and markets. Unlike online programmatic, though, pDOOH will be un-skippable and ad-block-proof and true to the initial roots of creating impact in an unmissable space. This also means that the measurement framework will change entirely for DOOH. Another advance gaining traction in this space is the growth of AI and data that fuels further interaction, especially in spaces such as in-mall and high-pedestrian areas. The technology uses a combination of visual sensors and mobile beacons that can detect things like audiences, dwell times, engagement and more, overlaid by online user data that enables algorithms to then serve uniquely individualised messages. There are a few barriers, though, to this becoming mainstream, such as privacy concerns and GDPR rules. However, it opens avenues for marketers to truly express their creativity in a manner that is contextually relevant to an individual consumer.

OOH advertising is here to stay and will possibly see its biggest evolution yet, connecting to the wider advertising ecosystem and creating excitement like never before.

PARTNER CONTENT

20

October 25, 2020

Your OOH strategy may not be as effective as you think it is Interview with the co-founders of Seventh Decimal:

Maud Moawad and Lewaa Hamadeh

This title is quite a bold statement, what do you mean?

We are pretty sure stakeholders were missing an opportunity to make more out of their OOH investments. The emergence of big data, specifically location data linked to the digital ecosystem today, presents an unprecedented opportunity to spearhead the growth of the OOH industry in a similar fashion to the growth of digital seen in 2005.

The growth of web was slow and linear in the 90s. It was only after Google introduced Google Analytics in 2005, and the high acceptance and adoption by publishers of a standard analytics body, that the industry progressed exponentially. The introduction of Doubleclick’s DART was even more valuable for business growth to both publishers and advertisers. It initiated trust, transparency, and accountability among stakeholders. Today, the transformation of OOH is no different from digital. It will unquestionably be technology driven, but through analytics and measurement first. Spatial data science is key to this path.

How do you see this transformation happening in the GCC?

The catalyst for the transformation of OOH media in the GCC will be the democratisation of technology. We have seen this happening in other markets; the adoption of a common technology by all stakeholders happened through organisations like Geopath in the US, Route in the UK, and Move in Australia.

However, building tech solutions to spur this transformation needs to happen in phases: 1. The first step is introducing and standardising analytics and understanding basic metrics such as unique reach, impressions and share of voice, in addition to audiences and user behaviours.

2. Then comes tracking through proof-of-posting or proof-of-play How and when the creative was installed/ displayed). This will help induce transparency and build trust amongst industry players.

3. Next is introducing viewability. What is the probability that the user actually viewed the advertisement?

This transformation will bring OOH closer to digital in the way it is strategised, planned, measured, and bought.

Advertisers will be able, for example, to: 1. Decide on the best mix of ad formats, suppliers, and locations to efficiently maximise reach towards their target audience.

2. Retarget exposed audiences on OOH to digital channels and establish a two-way communication channel with their audience.

3. Buy OOH based on different pricing models such as impressions, opening up opportunities for smaller businesses to be present on OOH.

What is spatial data science? How can it help?

Spatial data science is a branch of data science that deals with the dimension of space. Instead of having, for example, retail sales or product sales figures as your data points, you have coordinates, mobility variation, foot traffic and POIs, amongst many others, as your data points.

Outdoor media is spatial by nature.

OOH billboards are distributed to cover specific geographies; they have GPS coordinates and capture the attention of a mobile set of audiences – driving by, walking by, residing nearby, visiting nearby, etc. A deep understanding of mobility and user movement is needed to measure OOH and, at a later stage, plan using regression or predictive modelling.

Tell us a little bit about Seventh Decimal and Streach?

Seventh Decimal is a company that we started in the UAE in 2019. We specialise in building customised technology solutions for different media industry stakeholders. We introduced Streach this year as our first ad-tech solution built around spatial data analysis.

Streach is a planning, tracking, and measurement tool built for the OOH industry along with the efforts of the most forward-thinking leaders in the markets from agencies, brands, and suppliers. Streach provides today full OTS (opportunity to see) measurement such as impressions, reach and SOV, and will be introducing LTS (likelihood to see) metrics by the end of this year.

We launched Streach in Saudi Arabia, underwritten by Al Arabia OOH network.

The UAE is next, and we are relying on media stakeholders to demonstrate their willingness to standardise measurement in the market.

October 25, 2020

THE WAY TO

RECOVERY

UM’s Hatem Fakih lays out a roadmap for OOH media to return to prominence in the media mix

T

here is no doubt the pandemic has cleared the way for some advertising mediums to fade out while fast-tracking the adoption of others. However, some media, such as OOH, will be able to make a recovery and heal over time.

The concept of rush hours has virtually disappeared in major cities across the region, leading to advertisers pulling back their spends on OOH, as the public will find it difficult to discover new brands while being locked away with extremely restricted movement.

Advertisers had to change their brand campaigns directly due to the pandemic, giving encouragement and supporting frightened customers, knowing that these consumers will make a big comeback once they are again allowed freely to join the outdoors.

OOH is a medium that is linked directly to human activity and movement. During the lockdown, the movement of people went down by almost 70 per cent for three months. Till now, it has still not properly recovered. OOH has been proven to help advertisers deliver impact on their business by at least 20 per cent over other media in terms of reach and effectiveness.

Being the oldest form of advertising and constantly changing, we can see the evolution post-lockdown, as several major vendors have taken this time to finalise new locations, develop their inventory and introduce new technologies that will help advertisers measure traffic, be more specific in targeting and even (for the first time) be able to segment cities and locations based on population size and interactions with messages.

There is no denial that the pandemic has changed us, but this change also brings new opportunities and technological innovation, leading to a transformation that has been planned for a long time and accelerated by the pandemic.

Four major things are being adopted by advertisers, helping them spread their message and address people’s minds and thoughts: 1. Considering OOH as a way to communicate with consumers: Not only scaffolds and mega screens are considered as OOH, but brands are also tapping into community boards, supermarkets, paths, gyms and everything that can deliver a message to a crowd out of their homes.

2. Geotargeting is a way to customise messages and offers to advertise a relevant offer knowing that people can convert close to the point of purchase.

3. Creative innovation: Advertisers have realised that they need to act more creatively and deliver various messages with different frequency and even seasonality, also understanding the mood of their consumers.

By Hatem Fakih, director of integrated planning, UM

21

4. Adoption of new technologies: OOH is a multidimensional medium, and advertisers have developed an understanding that innovation and the new technologies will only help them move it.

All the forecasts for the region show a recovery in the spends on the OOH vertical. Digital OOH will lead the charge to get brands back on the streets, quickly and effectively leading the way to recovery, but still some aspects of OOH will struggle to come back, such as public transport, events and even sports activities. Roadside locations and retail environments may prove effective.

Historically OOH has been used by global brands, local brands and neighbourhood businesses. It can enhance a brand on other media or stand alone. It is immune to adblocking, isn’t subject to brand safety issues and, because people are spending time away from home, it becomes more effective while it continues to grow organically.

Using live content on DOOH may improve branding and provide more authentic interaction. A study by YouGov found that 49 per cent of 18-24-year-olds are interested in seeing more live content on DOOH advertising screens.

Recent innovations in markets such as Saudi Arabia have introduced sophisticated digital billboards using automated systems to update ads in real time based on a stream of data from nearby cell phones, which is then combined with personal information about those passers-by obtained from data brokers. This new enhancement will add more value to the market and allow a proper segmentation of OOH areas and the ability to send specific marketing messages, but without alarming the public. The last thing needed now is for advertisers to creep-out or offend their consumers.

Lastly, we as media agencies and planners should work closely with media vendors and our clients to build up and map the markets for seamless planning and enhanced message delivery that will add value to clients and allow us to start building up a map of audience at last for OOH media.

‘‘THERE IS NO DENIAL THE PANDEMIC HAS CHANGED US, BUT THIS CHANGE BRINGS NEW OPPORTUNITIES.”

22

October 25, 2020

P

rior to 2020, the OOH industry proved itself to be the most resilient part in the changing face of global media investment, as it claimed market share from both print and linear TV. The Covid-19 pandemic shattered much of that heavy momentum, with desolate towns, cities and business districts now the defining image of 2020.

In the background, though, there has certainly been a lot of hustle with the world’s leading OOH companies scrambling to accelerate their next-level technologies to launch in time for the inevitable upturn and the spate of revenge consumerism we hear so much about.

Clear Channel have been leading this charge for many years, and last month saw them roll out their highly coveted RADAR technology across Europe, four years after they initially launched it in the US market. Where footfall and estimated vehicular traffic were the traditional yardsticks for OOH, these have now been replaced with the layering of mobile data and digital insights.

With traditional OOH growing consistently, regardless of technological advancement, what have been the key factors driving this change and investment?

BILLBOARDS WITH BRAINS The MediaVantage’s Manoj Khimji looks to the international market to see where OOH is heading

By MANOJ KHIMJI, managing director, The MediaVantage

‘‘THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF HUSTLE WITH THE WORLD’S LEADING OOH COMPANIES SCRAMBLING TO ACCELERATE THEIR TECHNOLOGIES.” DIGITAL SCREENS The first element is the growth of digital screens globally, enabling DOOH to surpass traditional OOH revenue this year for the first time. The ability to produce LED screens at lower and lower costs has opened up the sector to provide a new approach, particularly in the high-frequency, targeted-reach nook.

REAL-TIME DOOH TRADING The multiscreen ecosystem allows advertisers to create multiple, coordinated touchpoints with their customers, enabling brands to win, retain and consistently engage with ever-evolving audiences. Increasing numbers of site owners and vendors are integrating their inventory into demand-side platforms, which makes real-time DOOH trading a fascinating underdog in the fight for those advertising dollars.

SOCIAL AND DIGITAL INTEGRATION OOH has started working hand-in-hand with clients’ social and digital campaigns, with leading brands such as Coca-Cola incorporating digital billboards, social platforms, and search data all together in their “Share a Coke” campaign.

Piggy-backing on the growth of these mediums has worked a treat for DOOH, as opposed to falling into the ill-fated trap of competing against them in what is largely an already-won race.

CONTACTLESS PAYMENT Not many would dispute the contactless payment industry is one of the very few winners in 2020’s shake-up. As digital OOH continues to firmly wedge itself in the consumer journey, versus its previous guise as a brand awareness medium, it can now become a part of the more in-demand direct response and performance marketing set.

The current generation of new technology, including Clear Channel’s RADAR, takes all of these advancements and rolls them up into a wonderfully neat package, which effectively becomes a full-service planning tool assisting brands to (1) understand where best to invest in their DOOH; (2) track which sites are working best for them; and (3) follow the consumer through to purchase and later calls-to-action (borrowing a leaf from digital’s attribution-model book).

Looking forward, this is only going in one direction. The unrivalled access to technology and integration opportunities today mean any OOH company that is not leveraging and hedging its bets on a highly connected future is missing a trick.

In fact, it may be missing the entire magic show by letting this pass them by.

In some ways the timing couldn’t have worked out much better. Audiences are returning. Take, for example the UK, which has seen a 74 per cent return of roadside traffic compared with February 2020 and is and growing at 5 per cent a week. Brands are ready to resume ‘normal’ conversations beyond the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” rhetoric that dominated so much of this year.

OOH played a key role in helping to carry government messages throughout the lockdown, as well as numerous occurrences around the world where billboards lent assistance to small businesses and supported those who were putting themselves at risk to keep our cities and countries moving. It’s indicative of what many consider to be the world’s most powerful communication platform, that it can be used throughout good times and bad, but always to the same effect: big, bold and, now, highly targeted.

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UAE OOH LOCATION MAP 2020-2021

HEADLINE SPONSOR

GOLD SPONSOR

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32

48

ENOC -

50 Media City 06

44

Barsha Heights

71 31

38

08

70 11 44 01 21

51 72

64 72

38

44

01

47

21

01

69

30

20

Carrefour Mall of the Emirates

01

19

20

19

51

31

06

69

01

01

Mall of the Emirates

22

20

01

56

06

50

12

02

31

22

21

08

31 31

09

09

08

08

09

09 09

20 21

34

09

50

33

33

12

12

01

01

61 06 64

Dubai Canal

55 22

28 06

Burj Khalifa Dubai Mall

44 44 12 44 07 62 20 14 2 9 2 6 37 01 31 10 20 31 06 31 28 31 37 74 06 31 64 63 06 52

DIFC

44

31

44

30

09

69

09 53 08

02

03

03

Dubai World Central Airport

02

15. In-mall media (LED Screens)

- The Outlet Village, Mall of the

Emirates, Box Park, Wafi Mall,

Burjuman, City Centre Shindagha,

City Centre Deira, Al Ghurair

Centre, Reef Mall, City Centre

Mirdiff, Arabian Centre, Nakheel

Mall, The Pointe 16. Hoarding - Wafi Mall - LED Screens 17. Nakheel outdoor media wall

(LED Screens) 18. Wasl unipoles - LED Screens 19. Lampposts - The Outlet Village,

Nakheel Pavilions Al Furjan,

Discovery Gardens, Jumeirah

Park, Jumeirah Islands,

International City 20. Metro Red and Green lines

(Station, backlit

wall, frontlit wall) 21. Metro pillars 22. Metro bridges

13

57

20

57

44

Carrefour -Festival City

57

57

01

EYE MEDIA DUBAI 36. Unipoles - IBN Battuta Mall 37. Hoarding - SZR Road, DIFC,

IBN Battuta Mall 38. Lampposts - Palm Jumeirah,

IBN Battuta Mall, Dragon Mart 39. Roof Top Screens - SZR 40. In-mall media - IBN Battuta

Mall, Dragon Mart 41. Bridges 42. Glass wraps

43. Unipoles 44. Hoarding

JC DECAUX 45. Dubai International,

Dubai World Central

- Airport Advertising 46. TECOM Business Parks:

DMC, DIC & Dubai

Knowledge Park 6 Digital Screens 47. TECOM Business Parks:

DMC, DIC & Dubai

Knowledge Park 23 MUPIs/46 Faces 48. TECOM Business Parks:

DMC, DIC & Dubai

Knowledge Park 5 Double Sided

Bus Shelter 49. Jumeirah Road 385 Lamposts

14

09

20 21

01

Ras Al Khor

Meydan Racecourse

01

31 55

55

ENOC Oud Al 50 Muteena 2

31

31 55 01

20 45

31

20 01

60

60 60

31

15

07

43

60

01

31

60 15 08

43

01

31

Mirdiff

31

01

31

64

69 01

66

GROUP PLUS

69 69

66

51. Lampposts 52. Unipoles and LED Screen

40 38

Carrefour Dragon Mart 2

50

50

Tasjeel Warsan

ENOC Warsan Third

Dragon Mart 1 & 2

PRIME ZONE

AL SHUAL A MEDIA

53. Unipoles 54. Hoardings 55. Lampposts

M U LT I P L AT F O R M NETWORK

58. Unipoles 59. Lampposts 60. Bridges 61. Hoardings 62. Wallbanners

65. Digital screens 66. Unipoles 67. Lampposts 68. Bridges 69. Hoardings

56. Unipoles - Hessa 57. Hoardings Khail to Festival City,

Khail to Dubai Mall,

Oud Metha to Health Care City

50

E

G

ENOC Academic City

PHI

70. Glass Wrap 71. Topgolf bridge 72. Unipoles 73. Wall Banner

63. LED screens 64. Elevator screens

ENOC -City 50 of Arabia

19

FOOTPRINT

ELEVISION MEDIA

BLUE SHIELD ADVERTISING

L

74. Hoardings 75. Bridges 76. Digital screens 50

E

N

ENOC Dubai Al Ain Road (After Outlet Mall

D

BACKLITE 23. Destinations - La Mer 24. Destinations - Al Seef 25. Destinations - The Beach 26. Destinations - City walk 27. Lampposts 28. Unipoles 29. In-mall - Festival City

50

Unipoles/ megacoms

Lampposts

Bus Shelter

Wall backlit banner/LED

50

ENOC Al Warq’a 2

35

31

31

01

43

35

Airports

Bridges

Hoardings/ Scaffold

In-mall media /Destinations

Building/ wall wraps

Mupis

Flags

Roof top screens

Digital screens

Metro stations

Metro pillars

60

01 55

Dubai International Airport

60

55

31

50. ENOC - Discovery Gardens ENOC - Media City Tasjeel - Al Barsha ENOC - Al Barsha First ENOC - Jumeriah Village Circle ENOC - Academic City ENOC -City of Arabia ENOC - Nad El Sheba Third ENOC - Warsan Third Tasjeel - Warsan ENOC - Al Warq’a 2 ENOC - Oud Metha ENOC - Oud Al Muteena 2 ENOC - Muhaisnah 5th Tasjeel - Al Qusais ENOC - Dubai Al Ain Road (After Outlet Mall) ENOC - Umm Nahad, Ud Al Bayda

ENOC 50 Muhaisnah 5th

31

50

LIFEONSCREEN DUBAI

31

20

60

ENOC - Nad El Sheba Third

Tasjeel Al Qusais 50

20

60

30

55

13 13

51

31

31

55

02 31

12 20

31

20

07 02

31

60 01

09

ENOC - Jumeriah Village Circle

14

31

31

20 64

08

30. Lamposts - Sheikh Zayed Road,

Dubai Parks & Resorts, Dubai Marina,

Al Khail Road, Garhoud, Hessa, Marakesh 31. Mupi Boards covering all Dubai 32. Megacom boards covering all Dubai 33. 4 Dubai Canal Towers 34. Mupi digital - JGE 35. Unipoles - Sheikh Mohammed Bin

Zayed Road

60

02

02

31

31 02 13 13 21 55 20 60 60 02 21 31 11 11 11

30 60

31

MEDIA 24/7

60 14

Carrefour Century Mall

13 20

6001

30

31

AR ABIAN OUTDOOR UAE

21 55

30

08

31

51

20

51

31

51

20

09

08

E M I R AT E S N E O N G R O U P 07. Bridges 08. Lampposts 09. Unipoles 10. LED 11. Scaffold 12. Rooftop 13. Wall wraps 14. Glass murals

12

07

HILL S ADVERTISING 01. Bridges 02. Unipoles 03. Lampposts 04. Digital screens 05. Wall backlit banner 06. Hoardings and Mupis

53 04

01

12 43

60 Wafi Mall 60

30

07

HYPERMEDIA

Dubai South

24

21

11

11

11

31

Deira

15 55 12 51 07 ENOC - Oud 72 Metha 31 31 Carrefour - 31 54 43 City Centre 50 75 72 60 Deira 20 12 12 07 15 43 60 53 01 07 53 43 55 60 72 Carrefour 12

10

31

03

29

11

31

15

Wafi

12

09

06

45

30

12

57

07

06

31

57

01

31

01

02

05

44

20

31

31

07 20

12

Dubai Museum 13

30

20

06

01

53 13

09

Expo

06

12

12

55

31

55

31

12

12

55

73

31 20

31

Carrefour - City Centre Me’aisem

21

06

43

31

01

07

60

09

08

08

02

12 61

28

21

37

43

53

31

09

08

05

33 33

27 01

43

02

01

52

09

61

31

08

06

20

21

31

31

31

12

53

20

17

06

31

08

01

61

31 26

31

50

31

08

30 20 06

55 28 44 44

43

31

ENOC Al Barsha First

19

21

20

55

09

08

21

39

01

Tasjeel Al Barsha

31

60

The Outlet Village

21

39 30 43

39

28 55

44 12 12

30

21

21

55

31

19

21

55

27

21

20

08

30 15

06

41 21

36

Dubai Parks & Resorts 19

41

Ibn Battuta mall

ENOC - Discovery 40 Gardens 50

20

20

37

69 69

Safa Park

55

18

20

31 13 54

55

31

74

28

21

74

64

43

31

15

12

20

31

16

To A

20

44

60

28

44

60

58

44

44

64

46

31

31

18

55

Carrefour BurJuman

15

12

12

31 12

60

21

64

76

31

31

20

60

Dubai Marina

25 05

31

49 31

01

67 68 65

18

31

12

31

01

31

31 13

12

01

18

44

38

42

30

15

31

55 10

44

ENOC - Umm Nahad, Ud Al Bayda