Campaign Middle East - 28-November 2022

MARKETING

MENA Effie Awards announces the winners of its 13th edition in Dubai

The MENA Effie Awards have announced the winners for its 13th edition at an event in Dubai.

UAE Government Media Office took home the biggest award of the night, the Grand Prix for the campaign, ‘The Warmest Winter Livestream’. It also took home nine Golds, two Silvers and one Bronze. Khaled Al Shehhi, executive director of marketing and communication at the Media Office, also collected the Honorary Award of The Year.

He said: “This goes beyond the work and the trophies for campaigns. To deserve it you need to show excellence in strategy, innovation and performance as well as a positive impact on the marketplace. It’s always been my mission to see our region being recognised internationally for its output and I am delighted to have contributed to this with my involvement in festivals, associations and speaking engagements.”

Publicis Groupe took home 61 awards, a regional and global Effies record for the highest number of wins by any network in a single year. Publicis Groupe was also awarded The Most Effective Agency Office of the Year for Leo Burnett Dubai and The Most Effective Agency Network of the Year for Leo Burnett Middle East.

Commenting on this achievement, Bassel Kakish, CEO of Publicis Groupe Middle East said, “Our Effie wins are a testament to the creative brilliance that comes with a true ‘Power of One’ collaboration between our clients and within our own teams. I am so proud to be a part of this incredibly talented team at Publicis Groupe. Their passion and drive to deliver impactful and powerful work is an inspiration for us all. A new industry benchmark

has been set, and I look forward to continuing to raise the bar for strategic and marketing excellence for our clients and for the industry at large.” Other winning agencies include Wunderman Thompson, OMD Egypt, Code8, VMLY&R Commerce, Keko Dubai, Momentum, TBWA/RAAD.

Organiser Sahar Rafique, managing director at NordStella Events, said, “As someone who has been hosting and organising the MENA Effies for over 13 years now, I want to take this moment and congratulate my fellow industry professionals who made it as the winners tonight.”

AD Airports reveals rebrand

Abu Dhabi Airports, the operator of Abu Dhabi city’s five airports, has announced its refreshed brand architecture and visual identity.

His Excellency Eng. Jamal Salem Al Dhaheri, managing director and chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi Airports said, “As we prepare to enter our next chapter of growth and development, our corporate rebrand reflects our bold vision to shape the future of airport experiences. Our strategic pivot is a direct response to the changing nature of our sector and will allow us to augment the experience for our passengers, partners and stakeholders.”

Huda Al Shamsi, VP of marketing, brand and communication at Abu Dhabi Airports said, “Our visual identity translates over four decades of heritage and history, symbolising our commitment to the aviation and aerospace sector, our airports, and most importantly, Abu Dhabi.”

Deliveroo UAE pride themselves on their delivery quality and training. To celebrate their service guarantee, marketing agency ‘And Us’ Dubai wrote a special cookbook for them, The One-Star Cookbook. Full of dishes inspired by real online one-star reviews of delivery disasters, the book contains 36 unique creations made from real delivery mishaps. It reinforces how important an ingredient the delivery is for any dish with each dish aiming to serve as a reminder of what Deliveroo works to avoid.

Publicis Groupe was awarded The Most Effective Agency Network of the Year for Leo Burne

Al Arabiya News Network partners with MBC

Media Solutions to launch digital brand Akhtar

audiences go to social media for everything they need – of course it is more complicated than that. But we know that to keep our market-leading position we have to show that we are serious about making the best programs for social and to hire the best teams to do that.”

Ahmed Al Sahhaf, CEO of MMS said the launch of Akthar means more opportunities for brands to reach their audiences.

“We are delighted with the launch of Akthar, and congratulate Al Arabiya on the kickoff of their new digital brand. As the exclusive advertising representatives of Al Arabiya, we look forward to supporting brands in connecting with their audiences through Akthar’s diverse and rich content line-up across digital and social media platforms.”

Al Arabiya News Network, in partnership with MBC Media Solutions (MMS), the commercial arm of MBC Group, has announced the launch of a new digital content brand, Akthar.

Al Arabiya, an Arabic-language news network in MENA, introduced Akthar to expand its digital content offering and target the region’s increasingly digital savvy media consumers. The launch event, which took place at the Theatre of Digital Arts in Dubai, saw the launch of Akthar’s website and eight new social media channels in a 360-degree immersive digital experience. The eight new shows will focus on a variety of youth-focused topics that include

healthcare, food, travel, automotive, and politics.

In his opening speech, Jamie Angus, chief operating officer of Al Arabiya News Network, said, “Al Arabiya’s own slogan ‘Know More’, has given rise to our new social brand Akhtar. We believe that news audiences want to explore more about their world with us. We help our audiences know more of what they need – so they can share it with their friends and be better informed about their world.”

Angus also highlighted that the launch of Akthar,is in line with the network’s journey to becoming a digital-first organisation.

“It hass become a cliché to say that younger

Akthar’s content line-up of the eight new social media channels and shows includes: Vibes is a lifestyle social media channel focusing on the latest trends in décor, food health, fashion; Ala Fain is a travel-focused channel featuring excursions to landmarks and tourist destinations; Mahfazati showcases cryptocurrencies, emerging businesses, startups and “revolutionary financial booms”; Fil Sayara is a social media channel in which Batal Al-Goos reviews features in the latest cars; Seha will highlight health problems and addresses their causes, symptoms, and standard precautions; Shaay Tech will be youth focused and review innovations and technological inventions; Top Motion will cover upcoming projects from actors and directors, box office hits, behind-the-scenes exclusives, and movie releases; Politics will tackle trending news and explain political terms. It aims to target all generations.

To launch its new premium range, the Golden Edition, Burger King Kuwait introduced an ‘Approved by experts’ ad film which recruited gold experts from the Gold Souk, who the local Kuwaiti market is familiar with and whose refined taste always sets a golden standard. Set in a typical Kuwaiti gold store, the film depicts the life of Hakeem, a trusted gold expert who ends up giving the ultimate approval to the new Golden Edition.

‘Get

see’,

Agency M&C Saatchi Abu Dhabi Production house Filmmaster MEA Director Damiano Fieramosca

Regional proptech company Property Finder launched a new marketing campaign for its feature, Superagent. The integrated brand campaign, which is called

what you

highlights one of the biggest pain points in a home-seeker’s journey which is the lack of authenticity in listings and the process itself, proposing Superagent as the solution in each scenario.

Agency Sharpcake

Akhtar’s launch event saw the launch of its website and eight new social media channels

Mohammed Bahmishan to head FP7 McCann KSA as CEO and CCO

FP7 McCann has announced that Mohammed Bahmishan will join its Saudi agency as both chief executive officer and chief creative officer. Bahmishan is a Saudi creative who ranks among the top 10 creative leaders in the MENA region, according to the One Club for Creativity in their 2022 Rankings. He has also served as a jury member at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity this year. Bahmishan was previously the chief creative officer of Publicis Groupe KSA.

Bahmishan will lead the FP7 McCann Saudi office based in Riyadh. Its current clients comprise a mix of Saudi and international companies, including Al Rajhi Bank, Samsung, Tadawul, Aramco, Neom and SABIC. Bahmishan has replaced Marc Lawandos, FP7 McCann KSA’s managing director, who has taken on a new role as executive director at parent company MCN.

Tarek Miknas, CEO of FP7 McCann MENAT, said, “We are thrilled to have Mohammed Bahmishan on board as CEO and chief creative officer. He brings more than 20 years of creative and business leadership experience to our operations in Saudi Arabia. One of only a few Saudi creative leaders recognised globally for their award-winning work, his appointment to lead our operations

in Saudi reflects our commitment to the Saudi market. Besides his professional caliber, he fits our culture and embodies our values.”

Bahmishan said: “I am excited to be leading such a world-class creative agency in Saudi Arabia, and by working closely with our sister agencies we will be able to provide full-service communications solutions for our existing and potential clients. From branding and advertising to social media, public relations, media buying and events,

FP7 McCann has an unmatched integrated approach to communications.”

Bahmishan was the first Saudi to be featured at festivals including the Cannes Lions, The One Show, Art Director’s Club, EPICA, CLIO, Dubai Lynx, AdFest, New York Festivals, Gerety, Effies and Caples. His experience with brands spans global regional and local Saudi brands including Unilever, Kodak, Volvo, P&G, Ikea, Al-Baik, Aramco, Saudia, McDonald’s and more.

Dubai Lynx is now open for entries

The Dubai Lynx International Festival of Creativity has announced the 2023 Awards open for entries. Dubai Lynx is MENA’s premier platform for the creative communications industry to come together to learn, network and celebrate the power of creativity.

Dubai Lynx will be returning as a one-day festival on Tuesday, March 14, 2023, with the Awards Ceremony taking place on Wednesday, March 15, 2023, when the winners will be announced at the Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai.

Dubai Lynx has also announced changes to the 2023 Awards, including the new Creative Commerce Lynx and the refresh of The Media Lynx with the introduction of ‘Co-Creation of Branded IP’ category to accurately reflect the current media industry.

Thea Skelton, festival director at Dubai Lynx, said: “We are delighted to bring back Dubai Lynx in-person this year and bring together MENA’s creative community in Dubai. The changes to the awards for 2023 reflect the changing industry landscape and allow Dubai Lynx to continue setting the benchmark for creative excellence in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Entries into Dubai Lynx are open until Thursday, February 2, 2023. More information on the awards can be found at www.dubailynx.com.

ADIDAS BRING IT

ARABIAN AUTOMOBILES DESERT RANGOLI

FP7 McCann Dubai collaborated with Adidas for the first time to create a powerful campaign to strike a chord with Arabic Gen-Zs, showing off their culture and their unique world views and resilience. The campaign was to promote a range of casualwear bespoke to the region, ahead of the Qatar FIFA World Cup launch.

Agency FP7McCann Dubai Creative directors Paulo Engler and Stefan Schu e Strategy Mario Morby Production house Big Kahuna Films Director Amin Soltani (Craft MENA)

Arabian Automobiles showcased the combination of happiness of Diwali, the festival of lights, and the thrilling rides of Nissan Patrol in a film. Shot in the red dunes of Mleiha, UAE, this film celebrates the spirit of Diwali through the power and precision of Patrol. The film showcases the vehicle gliding through the dunes, culminating in a beautiful rangoli design, an Indian art form made of coloured sand, to light up the festive season.

Creative agency Amber Communications Production house Last Minute

Mohammed Bahmishan (left) with Tarek Miknas, CEO of FP7 McCann MENAT

RED

By Austyn Allison

Hypocrisy is the monster under the bed for purpose-driven brands.

Purpose and integrity are becoming more and more key to marketing strategies, and it is as rare to find a multinational company without a worldbettering corporate slogan as it is to find a big-budget ad that doesn’t focus on improving humanity’s or the planet’s lot.

The marketing world is awash with data showing how Generation Z will choose a brand for its values – and drop it just as fast if it doesn’t uphold the ideals of its customers. One whiff of a company not practising what it preaches and a cloud will hang over it for a long time.

Brands are looking at their own practices and partnerships, and changing even the

of creating all their pieces from sustainable materials.”

Wright visited Dubai recently to launch Red Impact in the region. Red Impact is the global ESG (environment, social and governance) practice within Red Havas.

Wright calls it “a strategic effort to bring more of our global experience and knowledge together to better affect organisations, whether they are government, non-government, or indeed brands”.

“Purpose is being pressure-tested like never before,” says Wright, who refers to what he calls ‘The Three Ps’: “You’ve got the pandemic; you’ve got polarised politics, which is creating very tricky waters for brands to operate in; and then you’ve had protests (around the murder of George Floyd, around climate change and around greater diversity).”

He says he likes to ask the question: “Are you painting the toilet or are you fixing the plumbing? As in, actually making a change and a difference with what you are saying you are doing as an organisation.”

Organisations make promises, says Wright. But then, “you need to do the checks and balances that you are actually going to deliver on those. Because at some point, whether it’s the media, whether it’s your employees, whether it’s a shareholder, or whether it’s some stakeholder, someone is going to ask you: Where are you at with the progress around these commitments you’ve made?”

most established of these.

James Wright, global CEO of Red Havas, Havas’s PR network, gives the example of Lego, which severed its partnership with UK-Dutch oil company Shell in 2014. Since the 1960s the Danish toymaker had sold sets of its bricks in Shell forecourts, but eventually pressure from environmental groups mounted so much that the deal was not renewed.

“[Lego] had this 50-year partnership with Shell and decided, ‘It should no longer be part of our future, because our values should be about creating a world tomorrow that is better for the kids that play with our products,’” says Wright. “They have removed themselves from that partnership and have now also moved towards a sustainable model

If a brand shares the story of its journey, it helps protect itself from accusations of hypocrisy. “If we’re on that journey, we have milestones,” Wright says. “We are going to be transparent about how we can hit those milestones. Brands should talk about those challenges, because the reality is that other companies are having the same problems.”

“The holy grail is to create an emotional connection with your consumer,” says Wright.

This is a point that Rusty Beukes agrees with. Beukes is Red Havas Middle East’s newly appointed creative director. “The PR landscape has obviously changed such a lot over the last couple of years, where people will want to relate to something,” he says.

“Consumers want to be able to relate to the content piece or the messaging put out there.”

He continues: “The more you do creative

storytelling within those PR and communication assets that we put out there, the more the consumer can relate to it.”

“How do we create content and stories for clients that mimic the way in which people consume media?” asks Wright. He answers himself: “We believe that the future for PR is in the ‘merged media’ landscape. What we mean by that is how channels are all merging into one. It’s hard to tell the difference between different channels, to tell the difference between paid, owned and shared.”

That is why, within the Havas ‘Village’ model, where practices including PR, media and creative are closely integrated, Red Havas operates as a ‘micro network of merged media agencies’. That is to say, it’s in strategic markets that are important to its clients, unlike the “mass networks” of some competitors, says Wright.

Compared with Havas’s traditional creative offering, which focuses on abovethe-line work, Beukes says, “what we do here is we lead with creatively led communications”. He adds: “It’s a lot faster in terms of turn-around, a lot quicker in terms of ideation.”

Brands are regularly trying to get as close to ‘authentic’ as they can. They are doing this through a form of curated honesty in their communications strategy. That strategy is quick, and sometimes it is a benefit to be a little unpolished. That’s fine as long as the message avoids seeming hypocritical.

James Wright, global CEO of Red Havas

INDUSTRY FORUM:

QDo creative teams produce be er work when they are dedicated to a single client than if they work across several categories?

Charli Ball Managing director, JWI

NOIn our industry, the constant pursuit to keep creativity fresh and disruptive is real. But remember creative inspiration can come from anywhere. Creatives who work across diverse categories, with exposure to a variety of targets and objectives, can develop a deeper scope for the mind to be inspired. And then there’s the question of motivation. If confined to a single client, we run the risk of developing a herd mentality and delivering stagnant creativity. To fight complacency and create truly agile and dynamic teams, agencies should consider adopting a more integrated approach, empowering creatives to be more agile, developing transferable skills and ultimately removing limitations placed on their creativity.

Ariane Haro Account director, Keko Dubai

NOCreatives get more inspired working on various brands, as it pushes them to look out for best practices and benchmarks across many categories. Working solely on one brand could create ‘creative fatigue’ where they do not feel challenged, as they would be working with the same client, guidelines, tone of voice, etc. At the same time, squeezing creatives to work on too many brands is not ideal either, as they need to grow their knowledge and expertise on each brand to create the most relevant ideas for them. Doing so while managing 10 different brands does not seem very productive.

Marwa Kaabour Group head of marketing and corporate communication, Al Masaood

NOCreative teams can benefit from the cross-pollination of ideas that come up from the different types of client industries. While account handling is very much needed to be laser focused on a single client to work out the logistical nuances of work, having diversity in the cooks of the creative kitchen can bring about beautiful and compelling ideas. By doing so, stagnancy and repetitiveness of work can be avoided.

Challenging the creatives with briefs from multiple sectors can re-energise them and challenge them to come up with great work.

Aasim Shaikh Managing director, LPS

YESThe answer is a conditional yes to dedicated teams. Client specialisation is an advantage, especially with big idea campaigns giving way to always-on campaigns. The product understanding and validated learning are also significantly higher. We have also seen an elevated sense of ownership amongst team members, dedicated to client accounts. However, this advantage stands only if there is no horizontal insulation and teams are exposed to agency work across other clients and industry verticals. Agency workflows and team habits have to be consciously built, to promote conversations across creative teams. It is important to strike a balance between client specialisation and systemic agency-wide knowledge sharing.

Tariq Al Sharabi Managing director, Cicero & Bernay Communication Consultancy

NOThis question is nuanced and requires more than a simple binary response. While creative teams and account managers have much to gain from focusing on a singular client, I believe the diversity of tasks across multiple sectors and industries offers an exceptional learning opportunity. Supporting multiple clients broadens their creative spectrums and grants them the platform to intersect client campaigns towards delivering optimal, intuitive ideas. Creativity never thrives in captivity; the more exclusive a creative person is, the smaller the scope of their creative output.

NOEvery creative wants to produce work that moves people. And when you’re focused on one thing, you have the headspace to keep challenging and improving your work because it’s that one account, and you want to keep outdoing yourself. The challenge to produce fresh work is bigger. So, a single account means a bigger creative challenge but with a more creative focus.

When you work across multiple accounts, your brain gets trained to multitask like crazy, and your creative synapses are constantly sparked. It also evolves your mind differently than when you have to keep reinventing yourself on that one brand. So whichever one of the two you’re in, you’re growing.

Anne Tulloch Director of marketing communications, Al Shaya Group

NOI don’t believe creative teams produce better work if they are dedicated to a single client, as inspiration comes from everywhere. By being exposed to multiple clients, multiple sectors and multiple customers, there is an increased understanding and knowledge as to what appeals to each of them, which can all be a very good stimulus for ideas even if it is from another sector. Furthermore, customers see multiple categories in their day-to-day lives and never any brand or creative execution in isolation. Therefore, it is important to always have a broad understanding of what they are also exposed to and ensure cut through and relevancy.

Samir Shanbhag Director, Rain Creative

NOCreative people get inspired by books, shows, movies, podcasts and art festivals. They bring these varied and diverse learnings to bear upon their craft. We often prefer creative people who have interests beyond just advertising because we know that an assortment of experiences leads to an enriched and fertile mind. Similarly, when creative teams work across several categories, they get exposed to unique challenges, multiple audience profiles and different consumer insights that align each brand with its audience. By working on brands across several categories, creative teams get better at examining a brief from many angles. Working across different categories means getting exposed to different consumer mindsets – barriers, expectations and aspirations. It is this diversity of experiences that helps creative teams give consumer insights a spin and come up with interesting solutions.

Paras Rishi Senior manager – marketing, GMG

YESThe best creative teams are expected to have the highest standards of ownership of the ongoing projects, accountability for success metrics, in-depth understanding of the client’s brand identity, customer mindset and ever-evolving competition landscape. It will help creative teams produce better work if they remain focused on a single client, without having to share headspace across several clients in different sectors if it makes economic sense for the agency and the client.

The English poets of the Romantic movement were known to have their own unique way of working from self-exile to intoxication, which helped them produce literary masterpieces. Similarly, the creative visualisers, copywriters, video editors, etc. should also be allowed to decide which way of working helps them to stay on top of their creative game and aligns with their career goals.

Serena Abi Aad Creative director, Havas Creative Middle East

Lilas Ghalayini Digital design director, Netizency

NOWhile it may be appealing to focus on building creativity and training teams to work well on one client in the short term, the long-term results do more harm than good. Over time, being exposed to only one client can lead to a limited vision of curiosity and can deter us from the drive to consistently improve our creativity.

Creative teams should have a wellrounded knowledge of different user habits, behaviours, and insights. That is key to being able to discover patterns, improve upon the ideas of others, and synthesise new ones. These creative differences and connections will help brands – and creatives – maintain relevance and will help build creative teams that are easily replaceable by the technological advancements of AI and automation.

Tarek Chebaro Client services director, Tuesday Communications

YESHaving dedicated creative resources working on a single business builds a solid understanding of the brand’s character, identity, target audience, and the taste of the decision-makers in the business. The reward comes in different shapes and forms; quick approvals and hence a faster time-to-market, higher engagement given the diversity and precision of the produced creative assets, and, most importantly, better returns. All of this boosts the team motivation and excitement and creates the drive needed to create iconic work. And as Michael Jordan once said, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

Anamika Priyadarshi

Head of marketing, Jashanmal

NOCreative teams always benefit if they are working on several categories. This enables them to have a better understanding of various businesses and use that across their body of work. Working on a single client is like a horse with blinkers that only moves in one direction, and this can also lead to monotony of work. Working across several categories will always inspire teams to perform better and excel at their work with a well-rounded sensibility.

MAYBE

It all depends on the creative person and their connection with the brand and client that they are working on. If the person is doing brilliant work on a certain client, then they must continue until they feel that it’s time for a new challenge. But diversity is paramount, especially when it comes to talent. I don’t think any good creative should limit themselves to a single client. The more brands a creative explores, the bigger his/her chances are to discover their path of excellence. It is also good to note that a lot of creative people connect emotionally with the brands they work on, especially the ones they win awards for. It becomes an ongoing challenge for them to always raise the bar.

Ayas

General manager - marketing communication Africa, Middle East, India and Oceania, Nissan

YESHaving the same creative team in our business is crucial for several reasons. To ensure consistent brand communication, creative teams need to possess a deep understanding of the business goals, target audience, values and vision. This is no easy task and comes with time spent working closely with the brand and the client. Addressing the elephant in the room, we have to admit that creative work is subjective with some personal interpretations. Spending more time with clients helps creative teams build a personal connection and grasp the client’s preferences, which over time evolves into a collective tone of voice.

Bassam

Wassim Abi Salloum Managing director - Nissan United Africa, Middle East, India, and Oceania, TBWA\RAAD

By

BACK TO BASICS

When you think back to its roots, you’ll find that commerce used to be an intimate and shared experience, where people traded, negotiated, and conversed.

Look a little deeper and something more exciting arises: culture.

From Phoenician ports to silk roads, the exchange of goods and services was seldom without stories and adventures.

In truth, commerce rarely existed in the absence of culture.

But what’s more important than knowing of the intersection between commerce and culture is knowing the ‘why’ behind it.

Because since the birth of commerce, people have looked to buy more than what they pay for.

They looked to buy a dream or a solution, an ideology or an association.

It is fair to say, we’ve always wanted a bigger bang for our buck.

Now, flash forward to today.

While online shopping has become convenient, quick and fast, one could argue that the the experience has become lonely. And while transactions are scalable, they are no longer personable.

In a cookie-less, web 3.0 trust-deficient world, commerce will need to re-route and re-focus on bridging this gap with the building blocks of commerce: interactions.

A BRAVE NEW WORLD

We are embarking upon a new era of marketing, with a paradigm shift that has changed the way brands and consumers connect. The days of brands interrupting a user’s content experience with irrelevant messaging are almost behind us. Consumers now need an experience that is interactional and collaborative, something that they can really take part in.

The shopping experience is truly being reimagined, evolving from buying and selling goods between businesses and consumers into an exchange of knowledge, advice and support. This encourages collaboration amongst communities for more authentic shopping experiences, subsequently resulting in higher rates of customer delight, which encourages users to joyfully share their discoveries and perpetuate word of mouth.

Liberated from the shackles of traditional sales pitches, commerce is now gaining ground as an experience that entertains, enables and connects, and allows for product discovery at rapid speed.

COMMUNITY COMMERCE

So how can businesses overcome competition, increase customer lifetime value, boost conversion rates, and attract out-of-market buyers in the long term?

Whether acquisition or retention is the objective, the buying experience should be built on expertise, dialogue and participation, powered by

communities and creators. This can be summed up in the phrase ‘community commerce’ – a fresh, user-driven marketing model that is taking hold, combining the reach of digital platforms with the intimacy of traditional commerce.

Under this model, the community is no longer a commodity for brands to benefit from, but the actual driver of commerce. In order to adapt to this shift, it is crucial for brands to understand the evolution in consumer shopping behaviours that is taking place on digital platforms.

FROM DEMOGRAPHICS TO COMMUNITIES

In order to truly resonate with users, brands need to think beyond ticking boxes and surface-level demographics. Today’s audience is less interested in being categorised by basic demographics such as age, gender, location, or even shared languages.

And, as people slowly move away from thirdparty identifiers, understanding a user through their interests and communities will be more important than ever.

FROM MASS TO EXPERTISE

By expertise, we refer to knowledge, ability, interest, passion, skill, competence and know-how. And expertise creates real influence in interestbased communities.

In order for brands to showcase their value propositions and firmly establish what differentiates them from the competition, they need to create original and niche content based on users’ interests.

FROM PERSUASION TO PARTICIPATION

While transactional experiences rely on persuasion, interactional experiences facilitate participation. Today’s shoppers don’t want to feel like they are being sold a product; they want to create with brands just as much as they want to create with each other. Therefore, instead of pumping out disruptive ads, brands should take the time to craft content that seamlessly blends into users’ edutainment time.

Such content encourages users to lean in and participate. Within communities, remixing and building on each other’s ideas is how products trend, brands get spotlighted and word of mouth takes off at scale.

BACK TO THE BASICS

Shaped by the size of the community, the bare necessities of goods and the direct nature of the real-life marketplace, retail and commerce were limited, intimate experiences. They allowed people to converse and create a support system built on trust. And today, commerce is going back to those interactional roots in order to create fulfilling, collaborative shopping experiences powered by communities, creators and brands – bringing back what we missed the most from the experience: human connections.

Elias

W. Bassil,

head of business marketing & creative strategy for consumer, retail, e-commerce, MENA, TikTok

Digital platforms take commerce back to its roots, says TikTok’s Elias Bassil

“The shopping experience is truly being reimagined, evolving from buying and selling goods between businesses and consumers into an exchange of knowledge, advice and support.”

Helping consumers understand privacy in the metaverse

With the rapid evolution of the metaverse, data privacy in this unchartered territory is raising concerns from consumers. As technology becomes more immersive to emulate 3D presence, private information about the users and their activities will be collected to a greater extent than on social media.

For a metaverse to operate, tech companies might require the biometric information and location of users to track their interaction in the metaverse. All the data collection and sharing is creating legitimate unease among users. Currently, there are no regulations or governing bodies tackling the privacy concerns that go along with new technology. This includes the metaverse’s two core technologies – virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) – that use potentially intrusive sensors and data collection.

Businesses that are jumping into the metaverse world as property owners or even renters should be aware of the main dimensions of privacy. These include the privacy practices of the platform owners and their own privacy policies. Combining both in a privacy framework that customers can understand is essential to the adoption of the metaverse in the future.

The lack of a regulatory framework is further complicating this for consumers. Therefore, businesses need to pay attention to their privacy policies to avoid risking privacy and potentially compromising their reputation.

The metaverse is relatively new and unfamiliar, and consumers’ privacy concerns are valid. If businesses take a leadership role in explaining this concept in a simple manner, they can build a robust and loyal customer base, and therefore get ahead of others.

Potential security dangers

To minimise the dangers of potential privacy breaches, businesses should be aware of what could go wrong. For example, there has been a rise in phishing attacks after the emergence of phishing-as-a-service (PaaS). These could be in the form of malicious contracts designed to steal user information. In addition, vulnerable AR or VR devices can be a fertile ground for data breaches. Additionally, an issue that could compromise consumers’ privacy is advertisers collecting user information through avatars that collect personal data.

Finally, personal information like biometric data, health information and preferences can pose real dangers to consumer privacy should it get into the wrong hands.

Counteracting privacy issues

Some immersive technology platforms are being more transparent about how they collect and distribute data and allow users to control what they share and how they share. One of the ways this can be done is by providing stronger access control, such as combining a fingerprint with login and two-factor authentication.

Currently, research is being conducted into video sanitisation by removing people from video feeds and replacing them with avatars, to protect the privacy of bystanders. In addition, using encryption-based techniques and multi-party computation can allow computation of data from two or more users without everybody being aware of each user’s

data. This will enable the protection of user interactions, including collaborations and private and public interactions.

In addition, businesses should dedicate more attention to blocking third parties from stealing information, to enhance user safety. Finally, the collection of biometric information is one of the top privacy concerns among consumers. Recent research from Duke University describes a system called EyeSyn that makes analysing a person’s eye movements easier than ever before. Instead of collecting huge amounts of data directly from human eyes, the researchers trained a set of ‘virtual eyes’ that mimic real eye movements. This could potentially reduce the need for the collection of detailed biometric data.

Role of individuals

Similarly, individual users becoming a part of the metaverse should remain vigilant of the amount and type of information they share. The good news is a recent study by Wunderman Thompson Intelligence shows that metaverse awareness reached 74 per cent in March, with a majority of participants agreeing that the metaverse is ‘the future’.

The trouble with privacy policies is that innovation happens much faster than policy making. Therefore, there is always a conflict between mitigating privacy concerns and risking overregulation and hindering innovation. However, privacy concerns are hardly a new development. Aside from the steps that businesses should take to enhance consumer privacy, it’s important that consumers are also aware of the data they should share.

Since the metaverse is a new development, it’s likely that companies may still be vulnerable to security attacks no matter how careful they are. Individuals and companies should work together to enhance their privacy and ease their concerns. Global legislation governing the use of metaverse technology is still in the making and will take effect eventually. Meanwhile, as the use of the metaverse becomes more prevalent, raising awareness about privacy and taking steps towards it should be the top priority.

By

Dr. Ullas Rao, assistant professor of finance and programme director for finance (undergraduate portfolio) at EBS Dubai, Heriot-Watt University

Heriot-Watt University’s Ullas Rao outlines steps companies can take to assuage consumers’ fears

“To minimise the dangers, businesses should be aware of what could go wrong. For example, there has been a rise in phishing attacks after the emergence of phishing-as-a-service (PaaS). ”

Welcome to the fourth edition of our annual Marketing Game Changers, which aims to recognise and celebrate those client-side marketing leaders whose actions and insights have made the greatest impact on their brands, their industries and the region’s marketing community over the past 12 months . The list profiles the men and women we feel have shaped our industry in many ways, and offers insights into what they do, how they do it, why they do it and what it means for the rest of us.

Congratulations to all the 2022 Game Changers.

YEARS IN CURRENT POSITION :  2.5

YEARS WITH COMPANY : 6.5

SIZE OF DEPARTMENT : 18

PREVIOUS JOBS

• Head of media & digital lead for MEAPAC at PepsiCo

• Consumer communications & e-business manager – North East Africa at Nestle

What is your objective in your current role?

Build transformational capabilities in the areas of data, creativity, content and media optimisation, enabling our brands to deliver holistic, relevant and engaging experiences to our consumers.

Do you have a guiding principle?

Marketing transformation is an ongoing journey that requires longevity to drive impact.

How do you make agency relationships work?

I believe that working with key partners as an extension of the team drives the best outcomes. Open and honest dialogue and working together to preserve ideas and initiatives that matter goes a long way in reinforcing partnerships.

What work do you wish you had done?

The Pepsi Super Bowl half-time show

Who inspires you professionally?

I have always been inspired by leaders who challenge the status quo and lead impactful transformations in their organisations.

What is the next big opportunity in marketing?

RAPID FIRE

What are you craving? Great food, always. What are you hiding from?

The gym. What app are you glued to? All streaming apps. What are you playing? Basketball. What are you watching? Ozark. What is your good habit?

AGENCY REFERENCE

I have worked with Mohamed for six years. He is a champion of the digital transformation agenda for PepsiCo across AMESA. One of the great traits of Mohamed is his vision of the market. He’s always two steps ahead, and on top of that he is a leader who ensures his agency is an extension of his team. He is always pushing the bar, and we are continuing to work together on combining data and creativity.

I believe the adoption of personalisation in meeting consumer needs, expectations and interests will be the next big opportunity. With such massive clutter in the advertising scene and major disruption happening in our digitally evolving world, personalisation of content, offerings and products will make a lot of difference in helping brands maintain an advantage and stay relevant.

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

Leading PepsiCo AMESA’s marketing transformation journey on leveraging data to drive efficiency and engagement. Completing the structuring of the consumer engagement function across key markets.

MOHAMED ABOELFOTOUH

Being optimistic. What is your bad habit? Not taking enough time for myself.

Hossam Sherif, senior director, OMD MENA

Senior director, consumer engagement & marketing capability – Africa, Middle East & South Asia, PepsiCo

AIDA MOHAMMED AL BUSAIDY

What is your objective in your current role?

Associate vice-president, consumer advocacy, Dubai Economy and Tourism

additional positions : Founder of Nateeja marketing agency; e7 founder & board member; development editor of E-Sail magazine

years in current position : 1 years with company : 9  size of department : 18 previous jobs

Dubai Economy and Tourism for 9 years , previously in PR and C2C since 2016. Prior to that, Masdar, and before that, Dubai Holding. recent campaigns

• Destination campaign with Karim Benzema (globally focused).

• Worked with Shaun White to showcase three areas of Dubai to explore.

• Mall Alone with Tom Felton.

• Martin Lawrence with the familyfocused trip.

• Gamification programme with the CIS market, focused on driving searches and bookings to Dubai.

• Kayak city guide – Dubai is the first city to have been selected for this.

• Expo (let’s not forget that). Had over 400 influencers, celebs and key opinion leaders (KOLs) including for a mega GCC fam trip

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

Running a strong Emirati force of up-andcoming marketers who are driven to deliver data-driven content that helps meet Dubai’s overall objectives of 25 million visitors by 2025.

Over 40 per cent of DET programmes are focused on lead-to-search, so working with KOLs and content creators, but the content sits on platforms that drive searches and potential bookings.

Worked with more than 800 celebs, influencers and KOLs since the start of the year.

Diversified our portfolio of activities, including gamification, so we don’t just do the typical visit Dubai itinerary and post and close the books.

Expanded the number of markets so the learning curve is different and better.

To strategise, implement and execute always-on and data-driven programmes focused on consumer marketing curating tactical, seasonal and niche campaigns that help drive visitation to the city of Dubai. This is done either directly with the content produced (by us or others), through content creators, KOLs and celebs and through the platforms we run or co-own.

Do you have a guiding principle?

Absolutely. My two favourites are ‘do unto others as you would have them do to you’ and ‘never look back unless its to see how far along you’ve come’.

How do you make agency relationships work?

People – everything starts with people. Building relationships with those who have the same ethos as you. Every connection, meeting and project is about give and take, so if you and your agency don’t speak the same language there’s no respect and the outcome won’t be good for either side.

What work do you wish you had done?

Oooh, interesting. Well I studied journalism so I’ve done writing, advertising, PR, social marketing, influencer marketing and TV presenting. I guess radio is probably one element I would love to try, or perhaps expanding a podcast series.

Who inspires you professionally?

Everyone all the time, I learn from the big guys on top all the way to my kids. Someone will always be able to show you something different, something new and it’s up to you to open up your mind and realise if this is something you want to engage with.

What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment?

The clutter of opinions, channels and formats. You need to cut through the noise of so much and people’s attention span is getting shorter so its no longer 360-degree marketing, its 360 +++.

What is the next big opportunity in marketing?

I’ve got three: 1) Customer experiences and curating their stories; and 2) employee engagement – so, again, people, but really using them as core ambassadors; and 3) visual content story telling, so using the likes of Pinterest to really grow.

What can we expect to see from you and your brand in the next year?

Dubai’s story is woven in the fabric of the people who live in it and visit it – we always have something up our sleeves. All I can say is sit back and enjoy it because it’ll be an interesting couple of years.

AGENCY REFERENCE

Sylvia Shohdi, business lead, Starcom

RAPID FIRE

What are you working on?  It’s always a secret until it isn’t.

Who are you following?  News sites (BBC mainly and The National); HH MBZ, HH MBR and HH Sheikh Hamdan.

What are you craving? Italian, always.

What are you hiding from?  Drama and dramatic people. What app are you glued to?  WhatsApp – I run over 22 groups on two phones from project groups to my kids’ groups and another 50 that I am a participant in, so I’m a bit busy.

What are you playing?  MatchMasters and Words 2, and let’s not forget Padel tennis (with my husband, friends, kids and various other Padel enthusiasts).

What are you listening to? Reggaeton with Khaleeji music.

What are you reading?  A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman.

What are you watching?  Currently my weight. Where are you travelling? Last travel was to Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

What is your good habit?  Linking conversations, people and programmes to get a macro view of everything.

What is your bad habit?  Over analysing.

I have had the pleasure and honour to work with Aida for more than eight years now. Aida has been an instrumental marketer and leader who vastly contributed to the success of our marketing campaigns, which led to growth in tourist numbers in the last year. Aida has worked with some of the most notable celebs in the world – young, new, old and interesting – in the last 12 months, developing strategies that push the boundary of normal influencer marketing. For the gamification programme that was run for the CIS market, we worked on creating a special game that used KOLs and influencers to both visit Dubai and create content, and to push the game back in market. The concept was to gamify Dubai and engage the audience to push summer traffic. The results garnered more than 120 per cent success and will be used as a benchmark for future gamification projects.

As part of the core team from DET that ran the international marketing for Expo, Aida and her team were instrumental in running special influencer and celeb campaigns working closely with Expo and the pavilions directly, including a 40+ delegation of GCC influencers for the last two-week push.

Aida worked on the M(all) Alone concept, which featured actor Tom Felton. Dubai Mall was used as the sub destination, where it looked like Tom was stuck alone in the mall and then proceeded to discover all the things one could do if one had a chance.

I am most proud of work work together on Dubai Presents, a global campaign that positioned the city as an entertainment property, as Hollywood actors Zac Efron and Jessica Alba acted their way across six films in different genres. The campaign delivered 770 million video views and 90.6 million organic views on talent channels.

HUDA AL SHAMSI

Vice-president of marketing, brand and communications, Abu Dhabi Airports

additional positions : Member of the advisory committee at Al Forsan International Sports Resort years in current position : 4 years with company : 4 size of department : 24 previous jobs

• Director of marketing at KBBO Group.

• Head of marketing and communications – under the Cultural Programmes and Heritage Festivals Committee – at the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism.

• Project manager at Sorouh. recent campaigns

Following months of creative planning and collaboration with our most important stakeholders, we conceptualised the ‘Change Starts Here’ campaign, which served as the foundation for the public launch of our new corporate and brand identity. The integrated approach was strategised to achieve the following objectives under our new identity: to raise awareness of our redefined purpose, shaping the future of airport experiences; to communicate our mission statement, to provide a world-class airport ecosystem; to challenge the current perceptions of Abu Dhabi Airports; and to reinforce our position as the gateway to Abu Dhabi and a global travel hub. Our external effort was supported by our ‘Champions of

Change’ campaign, an employee-centric initiative which was designed to cascade our redefined values across our organisation.

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

Launching the new corporate identity for Abu Dhabi Airports, which included crafting a vision and mission which accurately captures its ambition for the future, developing a refreshed brand architecture and designing a new visual identity.

Organising and hosting Air Expo 2022 at Al Bateen Executive Airport.

Spearheading the cultural transformation at Abu Dhabi Airports through the Champions of Change campaign.

What is your objective in your current role?

To drive the ongoing transformation and cultural change that is happening at Abu Dhabi Airports by communicating a powerful change story. I am an avid believer in driving positive and sustainable change through people, and one of the most effective ways to do this is by ensuring that a shared sense of priority exists across the organisation.

Do you have a guiding principle?

Make a real difference and know what you want people to remember you by.

How do you make agency relationships work?

By defining clear objectives: Working with three different global agencies who specialise in different areas, it is especially important to set clear and specific objectives. This will help define goals, facilitate planning and provide direction, as well as set expectations and recognise what measurable success looks like.

Synergy and collaboration: For example, the launch of our new brand is an example of what we can achieve when we co-create and communicate.

Transparency and open communication: It builds trust, boosts morale, improves teamwork and encourages people to share their creative input freely, which almost always leads to better results.

What work do you wish you had done?

I would like to work on more campaigns that are rooted in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Raising awareness on important topics such as gender equality and female empowerment has always resonated with me, and one of my personal goals is to make a real difference through the work that I do.

What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment?

Measuring and articulating the business value of marketing to the wider organisation. It is always a challenge to demonstrate the full impact of our work to executives who are deemed ‘non-marketers. Fortunately, data analytics have become more advanced in recent times, and we now have access to host of tools which can help us measure impact and effectiveness of our efforts, quantifying the return on investment to the rest of the business.

What is the next big opportunity in marketing?

The metaverse – an immersive digital environment that allows people to communicate virtually using augmented-reality technology – is being seen as the future of human interaction. For marketers, this represents an opportunity to engage and interact with consumers in new and innovative ways, pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

AGENCY REFERENCE

John Brash, founder & chief executive, Brash

RAPID FIRE

What are you working on? Fostering personal and professional growth.

Who are you following?

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

What are you craving? Exchange of knowledge.

What are you hiding from? Uninspiring work. What app are you glued to? Instagram. What are you listening to? Meghan Markle’s ‘Archetypes’ podcast.

What are you reading? When Women Ruled the World by Kara Cooney. What are you watching? The Crown

Where are you travelling? Italy.

What is your good habit? Laughing – it’s good for the soul.

What is your bad habit? Not working out as much as I should.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Huda for over 10 years on various brand programmes. Her main achievement recently has been leading the marketing and comms programme on a significant major corporate identity re-brand, a brand with an ongoing legacy and great significance to the country and government – formally ADAC, now ADA. This involved strategically managing various key aspects of the brand programme, from defining the vision and mission and a name change through to designing a complex brand architecture model, covering all five ADA airports and companies with a robust, world-class and future-proof brand system.

The significance of the project put great pressure on the team. Huda managed her team and the stakeholders – including the chairman and the board – with direction, insightful decision-making and clarity. Her creative agencies both respected and enjoyed the process and her clear communication. The brand launch was a huge success with fabulous feedback from the business, the employees, clients and partners. The next stages are now cascading the new brand throughout the business, internally and externally with clients and partners.

Whilst this project would be more than plenty to manage for most, Huda is simultaneously leading a similar parallel project on the new Midfield terminal

Two key aspects of her professional drive and approach come to mind that characterise my collaboration with her. First – and my favourite – is her ability to think big and grasp the magnitude of the opportunity. Many marketers play safe but Huda pushes her team, myself and my agency Brash to produce work that is not only powerful and world-class but also relevant to the business and the industry. Second is her conviction that brand begins at home – so we worked together to create an engaging and dynamic internal engagement programme to help employees (and ultimately the business) understand and embrace the brand, delivering personal and professional growth and success.

Huda listens, gains profound insights and makes extremely well-informed decisions. She is optimistic and solution driven. Above all, she gets the bigger picture and pushes for excellence in all she does.

ULA BIEGANSKA

Head of marketing, LEGO Middle East and Africa

additional positions

Chairwoman of advisory board at Play Included (nonprofit) years in current position : 6 years with company : 9 size of department : 7 previous jobs

• LEGO Group, regional senior manager for girls’ audience, Prague

• Procter & Gamble, brand manager, fabric enhancers MEA, Geneva

• Procter & Gamble, hair care associate brand manager Poland, Warsaw recent campaigns

• Build. Unbuild. Rebuild

• Brick The Rules

• Ramadan Through the Eyes of Children

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

Building the LEGO brand as the toy market leader in the UAE.

Introducing Emirati girls as global LEGO brand ambassadors for the first time in ‘Girls are ready’ campaign.

Opening more LEGO stores in the region to bring more cool experiences to all families.

AGENCY REFERENCE

What is your objective in your current role?

To inspire kids, families and adults in our region to spend time creatively playing together.

Do you have a guiding principle?

True leadership is to make people around you succeed. Staying humble, focused and genuine is the only way we can make a real difference.

How do you make agency relationships work?

I believe that agency-client interaction is about human-to-human relationships first. It cannot be transactional but has to be based on respect and care for one another and a joint passion to create something great together. That is how we managed to maintain long-lasting relationships with our partners in the region.

What work do you wish you had done?

I have done so many projects I have dreamt of and worked for great brands in different geographies. But there is always a hunger for more.

Who inspires you professionally?

I have met many wonderful mentors who inspire me, so I would not be able to name just one. From a leadership point of view, I learn the most every day from my team and my agency partners. I work with so many remarkable individuals around me, with such a variety of skill sets and competencies, that it always brings something new to my world. Lastly, from a functional point of view, I really love reading Mark Ritson’s take on marketing.

What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment?

Marketers struggle to be long-term driven and data-focused. We jump too often into cool, creative ideas, calling something that is just a temporary fashion trend ‘innovation’. It is a balancing act –we need to be bold and test new ideas, of course, but at the same time we should stay humble and try to learn on the way.

What is the next big opportunity in marketing?

Embracing technology while remembering ethics and keeping the privacy of the users intact. We have a strong responsibility towards our fellow human beings and we need to respect boundaries. Many things can be done these days. It does not mean they should be done.

RAPID FIRE

What are you working on?

My first fantasy novel. Who are you following?

Lots of AFOLs (adult fans of LEGO), some comedians (Ricky Gervais, Trevor Noah) and every-day humour (Dubai Problems).

What are you craving? More time.

Who are you hiding from? I never hide.

What app are you glued to?

I am old school. A paper notebook is the thing I always keep with me to write down my thoughts. What are you playing with? LEGO bricks. Always.

What are you listening to? A recording of my daughter laughing uncontrollably. Always makes me giggle.

What are you reading?

Too many emails. And any bloody crime story to relax.

What are you watching? My daughter growing up. Where are you travelling? Anywhere off the grid.

What is your good habit? Switching off my phone. What is your bad habit? Not picking up my phone.

Urszula Bieganska, known to the world as Ula, has been instrumental in establishing the LEGO brand in the Middle East and Africa. From making this toy brand equally appealing to girls and boys of all ages and making it more accessible to children of all abilities, to creating culturally relevant communication for the region, Ula has done it all.

I’ve known Ula for more than five years now and am fortunate enough to have worked on some award-winning campaigns over these years.

The first Ramadan campaign we worked on for the Middle East was produced locally and was a huge success story. This paved the way for many more successful campaigns and the LEGO brand taking the markets by storm.

A campaign that is very close to my heart is ‘Imagination has no gender’, work that stemmed from a casual discussion on the need to change gender stereotypes and how parents in the region see LEGO

as a construction toy for boys.

We are currently in the midst of rolling out an extensive LEGO campaign that pans across most of the emerging markets in the world.

Ula is simply a force to reckon with. She personifies a superhero herself, both in her personal and work life. Her untiring passion to create work that matters goes beyond all odds. No matter how many projects she may be juggling at a time, she will always make time for some much-needed fun and games with her super-talented team. I can proudly say that she’s one of the few superheroes I’ve seen off the big screen.

Yes, she’s a wife and mum, and an amazing marketer. But what the world knows little of is the fact that she will be publishing her first novel this year, she is into adventure sports and loves trying out recipes that are hard to pronounce.

Though she paves her own path, she’s a trailblazer at it.

Vidya Manmohan, founder and creative chairwoman, V4Good

KIRK COLLINGWOOD

Director of marketing, Saudi Aramco

YEARS IN CURRENT POSITION : 6

YEARS WITH COMPANY : 14

SIZE OF DEPARTMENT : 34

PREVIOUS JOBS

• Served as director of PR strategy at Aramco.

• Before Aramco was with Philip Morris International for 18 years. Managed the GCC markets, as well as postings in Slovakia and Switzerland.

RECENT

CAMPAIGNS

• Powered by How global campaign, running across 14 international markets and global media.

• Sponsorships include Formula 1, Aston Martin F1, F2/F3 sustainable fuels, Aramco Team Series women’s golf (Ladies European Tour), IPL cricket, ICC cricket, China Basketball Association, Dakar rally, etc.

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

Adding three major Asia-based sports properties to the portfolio. This was quite a challenge during the Covid-19 pandemic.

AGENCY REFERENCE

What is your objective in your current role? To build Aramco brand awareness, familiarity and advocacy among our target audience.

Do you have a guiding principle? Ruthless simplicity.

How do you make agency relationships work? We work with multiple agencies in various disciplines. For me, it is essential to understand how the agencies work and what the capabilities are across their respective networks. Supporting their systems and knowing what to ask for by way of internal capabilities shortcuts time and understanding gaps. Also, let them add value and give them the space to develop quality solutions.

Who inspires you professionally?

Charlie Munger, vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. His focus on people and social systems to understand the financial markets (and really all business) really kickstarted my interest in mental models and applying thinking from unrelated fields to brand management to make sure I’m focused on humans.

What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment? Data – too much of it and not enough of it.

What is the next big opportunity in marketing? Meaning – I think brands have really suffered over the past few years with the rush to adopt social causes as social media badges, replacing meaningful work in social circles. I think we’ll see brands seeking ways to be human, regardless of the tribe those humans belong to.

What can we expect to see from you and your brand in the next year?

The Aramco brand has so much runway ahead – it is tremendous working on a brand not trapped by legacy activities. Over the next couple of years we’ll be focused on leveraging touch points to build personal relationships. That’s common speak in consumer goods but in truth only runs transaction-deep. We’re looking at that through a deep scientific lens with stakeholders who want to understand how we can positively affect the work together.

RAPID FIRE

What are you working on?

I never stop working on productivity.

Who are you following?

Shane Parrish, who runs the Knowledge Project and Farnam Street blog.

What are you craving?

Someone to make me a great salad. I love an everything salad but am seldom invested in the effort/reward payoff enough to make one for myself.

What are you hiding from?

YouTube – I’m such a sucker for it. I love to learn new things from independent creators. If I’m not careful, I’ll search how to fix a door latch and end up studying how to graft grape vines.

What app are you glued to?

Readwise – I use it continuously in the background. It pulls my highlights from multiple inputs: Kindle, browsers, Instapaper, Medium and even paper books and deposits them automatically into individual linked notes for me in Obsidian.  The time and effort saved is huge and I’m capturing so much relevant content that becomes useful to me later through exponential links.

What are you playing?

I’m always looking for three to play a few rounds of 42. It’s basically bridge played with dominoes instead of cards, and is a classic old Texas game.

What are you listening to?

A lot of podcasts at 1.7x speed, but I prefer to think about my luxurious weekend morning coffees with Amy Winehouse.

What are you reading?

The Three Marriages by David White.

I’ve worked with Kirk since July 2019. Kirk launched Aramco’s first-ever global brand platform, Powered by How, at the end of 2021, the culmination of more than a year’s worth of work. More recently, he expanded the company’s portfolio of sports sponsorship properties. Building on a first season as a main sponsor of F1 in 2021, under his stewardship Aramco also became team sponsors of Aston Martin Racing in 2022, as well as striking new deals with IPL Cricket in India, the ICC T20 Cricket World Cup in Australia and a new sponsorship deal with the Chinese Basketball Association.

The collaboration I’m most proud of is building the Aramco brand together. Aramco is now the Middle East’s most valuable brand, the world’s second largest B2B brand, this year’s highest new entry in Kantar’s BrandZ Global 100 (#16) and the fastest-growing brand in the 2022 FutureBrand Index.

Kirk is calm, considered and highly strategic. He has a deep understanding of his business and a great appreciation of the value of partnership. He listens to all points of view, not just those of a senior team, and has built up a deep bond of trust and affection with everyone who works with him. He also always makes a point of thanking the team for their efforts (even if he hates what they’ve just presented to him).

I’ve learned patience from Kirk. Sometimes, aligning multiple stakeholders in large organisations requires tact, diplomacy and picking the right moment to have key conversations. I’ve also got huge insights into Texan culture – I didn’t know that deep-frying turkey was a thing until I met Kirk.

What are you watching?

I’m currently binging a small farming course created by Conor Crickmore at Neversink Farms in upstate NY. He manages a gorgeous, weed-free, organic no-till farm with hand tools.

Where are you travelling?

I used to travel for places but now mostly travel for people.

What is your good habit?

I think my best habit is being all-in.  I love to learn new things and to develop a new hobby or habit – and dive into it head-first, sometimes wallet first.

What is your bad habit? Being single minded. Hyper-focus gets things done, but it also gets me in the dog house for everything else I didn’t even see.

Tom Vick, executive vice-president business lead, McCann Worldgroup

BEATRICE CORNACCHIA

Senior vice-president, marketing and communications, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Mastercard

YEARS IN CURRENT POSITION : 5

YEARS WITH CURRENT COMPANY : 31

SIZE OF DEPARTMENT : 50+

PREVIOUS JOBS

• Vice-president, consumer marketing Europe, Mastercard

• Director of marketing, Italy and Greece, Mastercard

RECENT CAMPAIGNS

• Launch of the world’s first Touch Card

• ‘Out of this world’ football game

• Internal change management programme to integrate 12 new markets into Mastercard’s EEMEA region

• Expo 2020 Dubai sponsorship

AGENCY REFERENCE

Ali Ahmad, General manager, head of business leadership, FP7 McCann

My partnership with Bea goes back to late 2018. Although many things have happened during that period of time, a global pandemic for one, each year had its own beauty in terms of successful initiatives, brand recognition and more and more increase in brand affinity.

On a brand level, against a backdrop of category and consumer challengers, Mastercard’s brand equity has increased with improved levels of affection across the MEA region. In Egypt, against a tough competitor with a strong legacy, Mastercard had a very good year. And Priceless is a 25-year-old brand device that Bea has made feel as fresh as it did all those years ago through the latest #PricelessToMe and Zero-Gravity campaigns.

There have been a lot of collaborations that I’m proud of. Yet if I had to be really selective, I’m most proud of Astronomical Sales, a compelling e-commerce-led idea that was done in collaboration with Noon, as well as the Zero-Gravity football stunt, in which we partnered with Luis Figo and hosted the first ever football match in zero gravity, breaking a Guinness world record.

Bea is a driven, innovative and passionate marketer. She is extremely aware of the role the brand plays in people’s lives and is commi ed to ensuring that it delivers on every front. She is the perfect custodian for one of marketing’s most powerful brand assets, Priceless, because that’s her North Star for everything the brand produces: Priceless marketing, Priceless branding, Priceless communications. Bea understands the value of big ideas and always challenge her partners to deliver ideas that create big and meaningful impact.

Every time I sit with Bea, or even exchange emails, two things stand out: her drive in making things happen and her focus on achieving greatness.

What is your objective in your current role?

I wake up every morning to create opportunities that enable people to engage with and love the Mastercard brand. Both internally and externally – to foster mutual trust, loyalty and understanding with customers, consumers and our employees.

Do you have a guiding principle?

Creativity is intelligence having fun. We base our content on real-world data and insights, which ensures that the creative elements relate directly to a specific need, desire or pain point. We never aim to sell; we aim to engage.

How do you make agency relationships work?

At Mastercard, we are one family, and we believe in partnership. That includes our agencies. This means mutual trust, healthy creative friction, and transparency. It is like any relationship, really – you need all these elements to make it work long-term.

Who inspires you professionally?

Every human being. More specifically, my team. From the senior leaders to the most junior graduates, they show up every day with passion for excellence and for challenging the status quo. These are the people that have inspired me at Mastercard for the past 31 years.

What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment?

It is fair to say that ever since 2020, the ways we’ve had to pivot, adjust content and address challenges have been unlike anything we have had to do before. The biggest challenge therefore is staying ahead of the pace of change. While media platforms and networks constantly tweak their ad offerings and functionality, user preferences also shift fast. Being agile and keeping up with this pace of change is what keeps us relevant.

What can we expect to see from you and your brand in the next year?

To continue to connect everyone with Priceless possibilities. Next year, we celebrate a major milestone as we mark the 25th anniversary of Priceless. What was launched as a now iconic ad in 1997 has grown and evolved over more than two decades to become our brand DNA. It has become the manifestation of our company’s good intent and mission to promote inclusivity at scale around the world. I had the great privilege of being part of the team that created and launched Priceless, and I count it as one of the greatest highlights of my career to date.

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

2022 has been a significant year for Mastercard in our region on several fronts. This year, we expanded the region with the integration of 12 new markets, under new leadership and with a new global growth strategy. And we undertook this change-management programme under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable, with the devastating invasion of Ukraine – a key part of our region. Despite these challenges, over the past year we have successfully continued to launch industry-leading campaigns and elevate the Mastercard brand among consumer as well as B2B audiences. As a result, the EEMEA region demonstrates some of the highest brand affection and media penetration scores for Mastercard globally, and we continue to grow as one team across the expanded region.

RAPID FIRE

What are you working on? Taking our dialogue with people to the next level.

Who are you following? Simon Sinek and Samantha Cristoforetti. What app are you glued to?

FT – from business to fashion and everything in between, it has it all.

What are you playing? ‘How to Fail’ with Elizabeth Day.

What are you listening to? All people who I trust and respect, but then I follow my instinct.

What are you reading? Invisible Woman by Caroline Criado Perez .

What are you watching? The Morning Show on Apple TV. Where are you travelling? In any part of the word that has a story to tell.

Tarek

BEVERLEY D’CRUZ

Chief brand officer, Pizza Hut Middle East and Africa

years in position : 2.5 years with company : 16 size of department : 15 previous three jobs

• Chief marketing officer, Pizza Hut UK

• Marketing director, KFC Canada

• Digital marketing director, Pizza Hut Canada recent campaigns

• Pizza Hut partners with PLG on Gaming

• Pizza Hut and KFC collaborate

• Pizza hut and Earth Hour

AGENCY REFERENCE

Over the last 12 months, we’ve had the distinct privilege of working with Beverley D’Cruz. In that time, she has proven herself to be every agency’s dream client – generous both with her time and her advice. Under her watchful eye, she skillfully guided numerous Pizza Hut marketing teams from all over the region and unified them into a single unit operating as one.

As a marketeer, she demonstrated a penchant for taking chances on big ideas and empowered her colleagues to think outside of the (pizza) box, inspiring those in her charge to ever dizzying heights of creativity and professional fulfillment. Her passion and enthusiasm for her industry are infectious; her presence, an unwavering source of knowledge and leadership that guided her team through the tumultuous times as the QSR industry grappled with the fallout of Covid-19.

While running a marketing department in favourable economic times may be simple, it is the hard times that really prove to be the ultimate trial by fire. And it is in precisely those fraught moments where Beverley’s indomitable spirit shines brightest – a calm and measured voice of reason, maturity and tactical brilliance that inspires all those who are lucky enough to work with her.

What is your objective in your current role?

My goal is to grow Pizza Hut in the region by focusing on RED: relevance, ease and distinctiveness.

Do you have a guiding principle?

I live by the mantra of ‘Be kind, be courageous, be awesome.’

How do you make agency relationships work?

I believe in honesty, transparency and partnership. I see my agency partners as an extension of my team.

What work do you wish you had done?

I love being disruptive and I do the work I have on my wish list. There are two pieces of work that I have found most exciting, and I wish I could do more of. One was Open Kitchens at KFC, where we invited consumers to come to our kitchens and cook with us to bust the myth that KFC uses mutated chicken. We also met with farmers and had lunch with them on a farm. The second piece of work is LeadHERship in Africa, where via marketing my team and I get to affect the lives of 150 women.

Who inspires you professionally?

I find Michelle Obama super inspiring. Her book Belonging really resonated with me. I love how as a strong, smart woman she led from the back and supported Barack.

What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment?

Authenticity. As brands and marketers, we try too hard to sell to our consumers. I wish for more honesty and transparency.

What is the next big opportunity in marketing?

The next big opportunity in marketing is to truly understand the psychology of our consumers. Psychology and technology work hand-inhand, and by understanding one you get better at the other. In a world of information overload, online anonymity, more peer influence, shorter attention spans and customers being more empowered, it is critical to understand our consumers better

What can we expect to see from you and your brand in the next year?

You can expect to see disruption. We are on a journey to make Pizza Hut the fastest-growing, most loved brand in META. Fasten your seatbelts.

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

Re-entry into KSA with a new partner winning minds and hearts of Saudi consumers.

Opening the 100th store in Turkey in 2022.

Launch of social purpose programme in South Africa called LeadHERship.

RAPID FIRE

What are you craving? Coke Zero.

Who are you hiding from? From negative people that suck the joy out of life. What app are you glued to? Lucid.

What are you playing? Wordle.

What are you listening to? I love listening to podcasts, and my go to fav listen is Shagged, Married and Annoyed

What are you reading? Ikigai

What are you watching? The Crown

Where are you travelling? Last pleasure trip was to the Maldives. Last work trip was meant to be Nigeria.

What is your good habit? I love lifting weights and am at the gym seven times a week.

What is your bad habit? I love food. My job doesn’t make the issue easier.

Fadi Yaish, CEO and chief creative officer,� and us

Head of marketing communications, Jeep Middle East

additional positions

Country lead Middle East & Egypt, Women of Stellantis; member of board of directors of Italian Industry & Commerce Office in the UAE years in current position : 2 years with company : 7 size of department : 5 previous jobs

• Head of marketing communications, Alfa Romeo, Fiat & Abarth Middle East

• Head of marketing communications, Abarth EMEA

• Global head of marketing, events and F1 Group, Lotus Plc.

recent campaigns

• All-new Grand Cherokee 7-seater Wildly Civilized

• All-new Grand Cherokee 5-seater A New Era of Refinement

• Call Of Adventure

• Nature Is In Our Nature

• Jeep Wrangler 392 Rewild Yourself

• Jeep Road To Juventus

• Ali Hammoudi Grand Cherokee 2.0

Marine Melhem, Senior manager, communications consultancy, One Team Stellantis

I have worked with Cristina for three years so far. I would say one of her main achievements was how she changed the game on the three Italian brands (Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Abarth). These brands had very low to no awareness in the region and she helped elevate them, giving them a unique positioning in the region, especially Fiat, which has been recognised as one very successful brand transformation from the HQ team.

The collaboration I’m most proud of is how we convinced the global team of the three Italian brands that the relevancy of the global campaigns did not fit our region, and how we managed to create our own very creative content with almost no budget.

Cristina is a very results-driven person, who is super dedicated to her brands and campaigns. She is very passionate (as a true Italian) and will not give up on her goals.

What is your objective in your current role?

To elevate the Jeep brand’s premium positioning while changing audience perceptions.

Do you have a guiding principle?

Stay true and authentic to who we are. The Jeep brand values of freedom, adventure, authenticity and passion have been embodied in our DNA for 80 years.

How do you make agency relationships work? Constant dialogue, two-way communication, trust.

What work do you wish you had done?

I am a big fan of luxury communication, in particular Bulgari jewellery.

Who inspires you professionally?

I seek inspiration from every person I meet and from every situation I experience. I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason and if someone comes into your life at a precise moment, it is because they are meant to tell you something and inspire you accordingly. My team and my colleagues at work are also a constant source of inspiration, especially our head of corporate communications, Reham El Didi.

What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment? To entertain our audience with new, fresh, engaging content that can drive consideration and conversion.

What is the next big opportunity in marketing? Increasingly immersive customer experiences that enable people to connect with our brands and products in new and unexpected ways.

What can we expect to see from you and your brand in the next year?

We will continue to engage with our community. We will introduce two new nameplates in the ME region and we will continue to support the Jeep Grand Cherokee family as well as our Wrangler and Gladiator nameplates.

RAPID FIRE

What are you working on? New product launch –watch this space.

Who are you following?

Female empowerment groups.

What are you craving?

Happiness and success.

Who are you hiding from?

Nothing, I never hide from anything or anyone.

What app are you glued to?

Instagram, TikTok, health apps.

What are you playing?

I do not play.

What are you listening to? Lounge music.

What are you reading?

Good Vibes, Good Life by Vex King.

What are you watching?

Now, the Netflix Series From Scratch.

Where are you travelling?

Everywhere. I love travelling. My last trip was to Paris and Milan.

What is your good habit?

Find the positive side on everything; drive and motivate people.

What is your bad habit?

I am very quick; I need to accept everyone’s speed to deliver.

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

With more than 220 million views, the Ali Hammoudi Grand Cherokee campaign was the most successful social media influencer marketing campaign in the history of Jeep globally.

Silver Award at Dubai Lynx 2022 for Jeep Wrangler 392 Rewild Yourself launch video.

Cannes Lions 2022: 9 nominations in the Outdoor, Print and Industry Craft categories for Call of Adventure campaign.

One bronze, one silver at London International Awards 2022 for Call of Adventure campaign.

Launch of the all-new Grand Cherokee seven-seater and five-seater in the Middle East.

REFERENCE

NOREEN NASRALLA

Group SVP brand & communications, e&

additional positions

Active member of e&’s sustainability committee

years in current position : 1 years with company : 1 size of department : 300+ previous jobs

• Marketing and media advisor, Abu Dhabi Department of Municipalities and Transport

• Director of marketing and comms, Modon Properties

• Regional GM, marketing and activations – mixed-use real estate, Al Futtaim

recent campaigns

Earlier this year, we embarked on a new and exciting chapter in our group’s growth journey to create a digitally brighter future while empowering societies with the dynamic evolution from Etisalat to e&. In support of the company’s transformation, we had to reflect this growth in the transformation of our group brand hierarchy. This branding exercise was a monumen tal one as it set the scene for devel oping our new corporate storytell ing and narrative for the group and the various business pillars.

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

I am humbled to be amongst a handful of women who take a seat at the leadership table, garnering respect and confidence from peers to drive e&’s communication strategy in line with our long-term development and strategic plans. At e&, our leadership has seen a 50 per cent increase in women in leadership positions since 2021. Aside from my daily responsibilities, I am also happy to be a member of e&’s sustainability steering committee to oversee the group’s sustainability strategy initiatives.

What is your objective in your current role?

I’ve seen the group’s adoption of a growth mindset and progressive outlook to transform from a telco to a global technology and investment conglomerate by exploring and employing new technologies for the benefit of customers. It is my aspiration to continue championing the vision the e& brand has in digitally empowering societies and developing new opportunities for ESG campaigns and initiatives that directly affect the communities of our operating markets, bringing positive changes in our sector.

Do you have a guiding principle?

A successful leader can bring the vision of the company to life only when surrounded by hardworking team members who are dedicated to their work. The chain is strongest only at its weakest link. Empathy and great team spirit are an absolute requirement if we are to make a difference. It is not particularly easy for women to lead in our culture, so I believe in ‘making possible’, backed by having a clear vision in mind and going forward with passion, perseverance and purpose. Once an individual aligns their vision and purpose to that of the organisation within which they serve, it is a lot easier for work to flow easily.

How do you make agency relationships work?

Through continuous communication and collaboration when it comes to trends, benchmarks and performance.

Who inspires you professionally?

My late father. He taught me the ethics and passionate endeavours of delivering and running forward like a horse with blinkers on its eyes so that it is focused on what lies ahead when racing to the finish line. Through his dedication and passionate achievements, I was inspired to believe in myself further and grow up as an empowered female in a family that thrives on accomplishments.

What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment?

Studies show that hiring top talent is about to become the biggest challenge in marketing in 2023. Hiring top talent takes time and energy and must be a wellthought-out process, especially in light of the changes the pandemic brought in terms of remote and hybrid working models. Finding creative talent that is diverse and keeping them motivated in a fast-paced environment is a key challenge.

What is the next big opportunity in marketing?

We’ve already seen how technology is transforming the marketing industry. Martech tools will become the norm. Extended reality (XR) is here to stay, where augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MX) will have massive attraction power for customers, while also improving consumer perception of the products and services. These are exciting times in the marketing industry as we explore what’s possible through delivering immersive virtual experiences to our customers. In addition, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are fast becoming valuable marketing tools, especially in their use cases for predictive marketing analytics and digital insight reporting.

AGENCY REFERENCE

RAPID FIRE

What are you working on? Continuous learning and personal development. Balancing the mind, heart, body and soul.

Who are you following? The leadership of our country.

What are you craving? Lifting weights. What are you hiding from? Negative energy. What apps are you glued to?

Calm and Adidas. What are you playing? Strength-training exercises.

What are you listening to? Abdul Majeed Abdallah, Amr Diab and Adele.

What are you reading? Leaders Eat Last

What are you watching? Cooking shows.

Where are you travelling? Always to London.

What is your good habit? Meditation.

What is your bad habit? Carrying my portable juicer in every trip.

We met Noreen during the pitch phase and have known her for most of 2022. Noreen has been instrumental in introducing the e& mother brand and launching ‘Make Possible’. The vision is to evolve Etisalat from a telco to a purposeful technology conglomerate that strives to empower societies all around the world. Together with the Publicis Groupe and Saatchi & Saatchi ME, she has been driving the subsequent transformation of the Etisalat brand while orchestrating and streamlining all the e& entities to work together to deliver on this narrative. During this period, some key initiatives have been the complete rebranding, launch of the e& Money super-app, signing on as a founding partner for the F1 Abu Dhabi GP and leading the e& COP 27 main net zero announcement and schedule of communication. The collaboration I am most proud of is the introduction of the e& mother brand to the world, positioning it as a tech conglomerate and driving that transformation from big campaigns and launches all the way to guidelines and internal branding. There was a big challenge around retaining and building on the legacy of Etisalat while positioning the new mother brand. Although this task is not yet fully complete, it has had a promising start.

Noreen has a strong vision for where she wants to take the e& mother brand and is able to bring that to life through meaningful initiatives, not just new products and services. She puts emphasis not only on what we are selling but, more importantly, on how we’re helping. She has the unique ability to take a big-picture approach while also being able to cascade that down to her team and create purpose-driven actions. She has a strong sense of purpose and a resilient and persevering mindset that encourages her team and agency to help her overcome all obstacles. This is only possible because she has a very human approach and operates both intuitively and with transparency.

Ramzi Sleiman, regional managing director, Saatchi & Saatchi MEA

ANJA PETROVSKI

Marketing & PR director, Volkswagen Middle East

YEARS IN CURRENT POSITION : 2

YEARS WITH COMPANY : 10

SIZE OF DEPARTMENT : 10+

PREVIOUS JOBS

• Marketing communications senior manager, VW ME

• Brand communications manager, VW ME

• Associate account director, Memac Ogilvy

RECENT CAMPAIGNS

Despite the semiconductor crisis it’s still been a busy year for Volkswagen in the Middle East. We successfully launched two new products in 2022: the all-new Golf R and the redesigned T-Roc. We also did a brand campaign that focused on Volkswagen’s key a ributes of comfort, design, safety and technology. We did this in partnership with Google to test if gender and age bias exists in advertising, and the impact this has on campaign metrics. For after sales, an often overshadowed area of the automotive business, we did our first ever TikTok campaign in collaboration with the brand, designed around the trend of ASMR.

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

There has been a lot to celebrate this year. Firstly, sales records. This year we smashed our own records with our best sales month in over 80 months and the highest month of Teramonts sold since its market launch in 2018. In addition to this, we did this while sustaining and improving our brand metrics like awareness and first-choice across the region. None of this work could have been possible without the people in the VW marketing team and our agency partners, who I am glad to say have all stayed with VW this past 12 months and will continue into 2023.

What is your objective in your current role?

For the marketing at Volkswagen to work cohesively when it comes to both brand and sales. Yes, marketing needs to support sales in the lower funnel, but this shouldn’t overshadow brand advertising. My goal is to make sure VW walks this fine line so we continue to address KPIs for both brand and sales.

Do you have a guiding principle?

Yes, I have always believed in ‘Love what you do and success will follow’. This is what I apply both in and out of my professional career.

How do you make agency relationships work?

Firstly and most importantly, trust. We need to remember that we employed these agencies for a reason and we need to trust in them, trust that they have the best intentions for our brand and trust the work they are doing. In addition to this, I think agency communication is super important. I don’t mean just emails, phone calls and status meetings but communicating with everyone as they are part of our team so we all work together cohesively.

Who inspires you professionally?

Women, particularly women who successfully navigate being a mother, wife and leader. Elda Choucair is a real inspiration to me. I look up to her as a mother and leader, and for her loyalty and career progression within Omnicom.

What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment?

Trends to invest only in bottom-of-the-funnel, especially with sales targets or budget cuts. As marketers we need to remember the value of the brand and make sure that marketing works to support the brand as well as sales.

What is the next big opportunity in marketing? The metaverse.

What can we expect to see from you and your brand in the next year?

Continued partnerships, continuation of brand and tactical advertising and some new and exciting products. Stay tuned.

AGENCY REFERENCE

The pandemic brought with itself many uncertainties and didn’t mirror its impact from one industry to another. For the automotive industry, owing to the disruption in supply chain, it meant that Anja and the regional marketing team had to go back to the drawing board and rewrite the syllabus, as there would be no new models to launch. This meant doubling down on consumers with data-driven insights that resulted in an incredibly successful brand a ribute campaign deployed across the region. Relying heavily on research, Anja’s team found a gap and shifted the narrative to focus more on brand over the product to solidify the foundation with a focus on Volkswagen’s quality, comfort, technology and safety. As the supply challenges begin to abate, the Volkswagen brand is now in an even stronger position and capitalising on foot traffic to dealerships.

RAPID FIRE

What are you working on? Lots of exciting things.

Who are you following? Female leaders.

What are you craving? Mom’s homemade Serbian food.

Who are you hiding from? Finance.

What app are you glued to? LinkedIn.

What are you playing? Self-help books on Audible.

What are you listening to? Self-help books on Audible.

What are you reading? Self-help books on Audible.

What are you watching? Anything horror, the scarier the better . Where are you travelling? Anywhere with a beach.

What is your good habit? Good listener.

What is your bad habit? After I have listened to you, talking to you too loudly.

It’s very hard to pick one collaboration I’m most proud of, from Disney, LEGO, Carpool Karaoke and more, but I would say the T-Roc launch tops the list. We identified a female Saudi gamer and built a story around her to push for locally relevant content that engaged a new and emerging audience for the brand.

Anja is articulate, and very focused, authentic in her approach, inclusive and very much a team player who energises and motivates.

From her, I have learned to build a strong, resilient team that keeps itself motivated and works cohesively towards the same goal, bringing a diverse range of agencies into the fold and giving them a seat at the marketing communications table.

Simon Ashwin, Chief digital & client officer, Middle East & Africa, Cheil

•

TIM SHORROCKS

What is your objective in your current role?

Communicating the inspirational, multi-layered and complex narrative of NEOM – targeting B2B and B2C audiences globally. We are constantly looking for innovative ways to communicate the NEOM story and keep our audiences engaged. We want to provide a customer experience and journey that is rich, rewarding and meaningful, and represents a fair value exchange for our customers.

Do you have a guiding principle?

• Cisco EMEA, marketing director

•

• The Line

• Tonomus

• Trojena

• NEOM Beach Games

AGENCY REFERENCE

Well, whatever we do has to be tightly tied to our evolving business objectives. That’s something that was ingrained in me during my time with my erstwhile employer Amazon. The construction is moving at rapid pace and spinning up many new NEOM subsidiaries. We will start to show the world more of the progress that we are making. Our research clearly tells us there is a hunger for this and our teams working onsite here at NEOM can see the gigantic construction effort going on all around us. We will begin to peel back the curtain for the outside world, as we know there is still work to do when it comes to showing people how our ambitious vision is turning into reality.

How do you make agency relationships work?

It’s very much about treating our agencies as partners by enabling them and trusting them to do great work. This is crucial and, because that has happened, they have won many awards for the work they’ve done for NEOM. I will concede that we are not the easiest client to work for because of the scale and complexity of the project, which brings tight timelines and tests creativity to the limits. However, everyone believes in the vision so we have the type of buy-in that means our agencies will go beyond to help us deliver something special with every campaign.

What work do you wish you had done?

I have worked with Tim for eight months. He has immersed himself in a very intricate and complex organisation with marked global and regional pressures. He’s quickly taken on implementing his foundational principles for not only current challenges, but also the future of marketing for NEOM – no small feat. He proactively assesses evolving needs, builds his teams and implements key changes, while also delivering a strong battery of cross-funnel work with a clear direction for the future.

NEOM is a blank canvas for a new era of sustainable living. Our ‘Made To Change’ platform brought this idea to life, launching across TV, cinema, social and OOH. Beginning at the dawn of mankind, the film charts significant moments of change from history, before traveling through a series of vignettes to represent a sector within NEOM, each framed by a simple ‘Let’s Change…’ proposition. Designed to inspire, it offers a tantalising glimpse of what the future could look like. With Tim’s backing, the platform has since inspired 12 different campaigns, helping to double global awareness and increase investor leads by 361 per cent.

As NEOM gains global appreciation, engaging and sustaining the audiences’ interest to be part of NEOM becomes essential. Our CRM and data approach is the key to that success and takes clearly defined audiences on a journey to ultimately, live, work and be part of NEOM.

Tim is smart, collaborative, incisive, considered and dedicated with a relentless drive and passion for excellence across all areas of business.

From him, I have learned that it is possible to build a plane while you are flying. NEOM demands a steady hand and a clear, firm vision in the face of dynamic needs and communications challenges, both of which Tim displays daily, under incredible pressure.

The Droga5 Superbowl campaign ‘Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns Home’ was truly ingenious. That sort of work changes the game, but then again Droga is someone who has done it time and time again. That’s the reason he is perhaps the best ad exec in the history of the industry.

Who inspires you professionally?

The work by the Nike marketing team is always inspiring and thought-provoking, combining big ideas with creative effectiveness. That has been the case for decades, and achieving that quality and consistency over such a long period of time is something all of us in the industry naturally aspire to.

What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment?

It depends on what the product and market is. For example, in Europe or the United States it might be navigating the cost-of-living crisis and reaching the target audience with sensitive and nuanced messaging, using smaller budgets. In Asia, it could be about making the biggest bang because new companies and products are jostling for market dominance in a high-growth region. Here at NEOM, we have very different challenges to navigate. A significant investment from a visionary leader and government managing the fastest growing economy in the world, to build the most ambitious project the world has ever seen. All by 2030. Marketing challenges certainly don’t come much bigger than this.

What is the next big opportunity in marketing?

The metaverse is obviously coming down the line, but it will take some years yet to mature and become business-critical. In the meantime, the low hanging fruit is probably still the marrying of creativity and data to inform the work for it to have the biggest impact possible on your business.

RAPID FIRE

What are you working on? Many exciting NEOM developments, including a new corporate brand campaign. Who are you following? Marketing professor Scott Galloway.

What are you craving? Time with family during the festive holidays.

What are you hiding from? The cold British winter.

What app are you glued to?

I spend too much time on WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Instagram.

What are you playing? Learning to play tennis.

What are you listening to? Many podcasts. I particularly enjoy the Digital Marketing Podcast and Kermode & Mayo’s Film Review. What are you reading? Slough House spy novels by Mick Herron.

What are you watching? Ozark, Succession and House of the Dragon

Where are you traveling? Australia, where my wife is from. What is your good habit? Getting up early to work out.

What is your bad habit? Going into the office on weekends.

Sailesh Jani, Global business lead, McCann Worldgroup

Oh my Pod, have you heard this?

Listen to Campaign’s latest podcasts to join in the debate and discussion of the latest developments in the region’s media, marketing and advertising scene www.campaignme.com/category/podcast/

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Digital Essays issue 2022, where we take the pulse of the digital world through insights and analysis from the region’s leading digital marketers. This is a great place not only to learn, but also to see what is on the mind of the region’s leaders in this field. In the pages ahead, you will find a mixture of theory and practice, and of futurism and realism.

Some of the topics are perennial favourites. They will come as no surprise to readers familiar with this annual special issue, or to anyone who reads Campaign regularly throughout the year.

For example, the imminent phasing out of third-party cookies continues to be a concern. The transition is inevitable, but will not be smooth, not matter how well prepared the market is. It will change the industry when it happens.

Data is still a hot topic. There is either too much of it or not enough, depending on how you look at it. Agencies, publishers, clients and suppliers alike are working hard to make sense of as much of the information out there as possible. Our essayists look at the use of data not only to predict and measure campaign success, but also to create informed creative work.

Social media is key to marketing plans, even as popular platforms are facing upheaval. Serious questions hang over what will happen to Twitter, now that it has been bought by Elon Musk. And these essays were written just before large-scale layoffs by large-scale tech players including Facebook parent company Meta.

Meta has gambled big on the metaverse, and everyone in the media, marketing and advertising industry is talking about it, even if they are only dipping their toes in the water or watching from the shore.

Brands want to get into the metaverse, agencies have to figure out the best ways to help them do that, but by some accounts, consumers are ambivalent about the promise of virtual worlds. Mark Zuckerberg may be mirroring Henry Ford’s feelings about faster horses.

But this issue is one of the places you can read about the alternatives to today’s digital status quo. Read on to find out what the industry sees ahead of it, and what it is doing to get there.

BEYOND THE OBVIOUS Viktor Maksymov, director – performance, OMD UAE

CHECKMATE: WHY BEING HUMAN WINS IN THE END Daniel Shepherd, regional head of strategy & product, PHD

CHANGING THE NARRATIVE FROM ‘INFLUENCERS’ TO ‘CREATORS’

Nour Chaar founder and CEO, InHype

CONSUMERS WANT MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS WITH BRANDS

Tony Wazen, CEO, Digitas Middle East, a Publicis Groupe company

CONNECT TO CONVERT Rana Zeidan, head of APEX, Publicis Groupe

IS SOCIAL MEDIA TAKING OVER ZMOT? Natale Panella head of digital, Fusion5

MAKE YOUR YOUTUBE SPEND WORK HARDER Mike Gray, managing director EMEA, MiQ

LET THAT SINK IN Ali Aboukhreibe, director of strategy, Boopin

THE METAWHAT? James Dutton, regional digital director, UM Worldwide

MULTIPLE SCREENS MAKE A COMEBACK Sachin Kumar, business director, Connected TV – ArabyAds

CREATING POWERFUL IMAGES WITH DATA-DRIVEN INSIGHTS Janira Hernandez head of MEA, Ad-Lib Digital

FINDING YOUR DIGITAL NORTH STAR Burt Reynolds, regional director - data, technology and consulting, MediaCom

GEAR UP FOR THE METAVERSE David Do Rosario, head of digital specialties, Havas Media Middle East

GROWING YOUR BRAND ON TIKTOK John Karam, social media manager, Hashtag Social Media Agency

MEET ME IN THE METAVERSE Mohammed Mohsin, experience optimisation director, Reprise Digital

NAVIGATING A COOKIELESS WORLD Jennifer Wartabedian, digital director, Initiative

BRANDS GO BIG ON RETAIL MEDIA Yves-Michel Gabay, managing director, Gamned! MEA

Motivate Media Group

Head Office: 34th Floor, Media One Tower, Dubai Media City, Dubai, UAE. Tel: +971 4 427 3000, Fax: +971 4 428 2266, Email: motivate@motivate.ae Dubai Media City: SD 2-94, 2nd Floor, Building 2, 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: +97126573401, Email: motivate-adh@motivate.ae Saudi arabia: Office 452, Regus Offices, 4th Floor, Al Hamad Tower, King Fahad Road, Al Olaya, PO.Box 12381, Riyadh 6764, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Tel: +966 11 834 3595 / +966 11 834 3596 Fax: +966 11 8343501 London: Motivate Publishing Ltd, Acre House, 11/15 William Road, London NW1 3ER. motivateuk@motivate.ae www.motivatemedia.com

Cover designed by Thokchom Remy

With the FIFA World Cup in our corner of the world, football is on everyone’s mind. While we keep our eyes on champion strikers in the hope of spectacular goals, those getting the ball to their feet at the most opportune time and place get much less attention. The same applies to digital marketing.

Yes, strikers get the goals and often secure the victory. However, a team of 11 strikers cannot go far. They need other players to help them get into position, and this is why assists are the second most important performance metric in football after goals. However, marketers are humans, and like the rest of us they focus on the goal scorer.

The World Cup will hopefully change this perception and people will recognise the contribution of assists better on the pitch and, for marketers, online. Like the path to the goal, the journey to conversion has many steps and each needs to be identified, quantified and computed in strategy and budget allocation decisions. Every marketing channel has an ‘assist’ value in the consumer journey. Each needs to set the right expectations and be compared with channels that directly contribute to conversions or acquisitions.

But how do we zoom out to see both the bigger picture and the finer details in the consumer journey? Beyond crude vanity metrics that define efficiency, how can we assess what influences consumers’ decisions or effectiveness? Here are key factors to consider:

ATTENTION PRECEDES VIEWABILITY

If an ad is not displayed and seen properly, it cannot do its job. Viewability metrics help decide where to allocate digital media investments for upper-funnel activities, but being visible does not mean media is being viewed. Enter attention metrics. We have invested heavily in understanding how people consume media in addition to the best ways to talk to them. By integrating attention within the entire planning process, we are transforming the media equation towards attentive cost per miles (aCPMs), which help to translate the true cost of the attention advertisers buy and the true value it generates for advertisers. Initial evidence demonstrates that optimising attention delivers better results in terms of business and brand measures. In the future, attention metrics will play an ever-increasing role in media planning decisions.

A GOAL FOR EVERYONE

Everybody in the team – keeper, defenders, midfielders and wingers –offers a unique set of skills and can create a lot of assists. The responsibility of a planner is to determine the universally accepted KPI for each platform and to design measurements that define the business impact. While brands are fine working with metrics like cost per view (CPV), cost per mile (CPM) and cost per click (CPC), the way we measure will

change soon. Whether it is reaching potential customers, high-quality traffic or completion rate, we need to be clear about what success looks like for every single line in the media plan.

KEEP REFRESHING YOUR LINEUP

If you always field the same squad, it will get exhausted at some point and you will let competitors score when you could have been the one gaining points. No two games are alike, and having fresh and unique talent on the bench allows you to have the optimal formation in any situation. Keep looking around for upcoming opportunities, test and learn, build your team with rising stars you have identified before everyone else, and lead the table.

TRACK ASSISTS

There are several ways to measure the impact of a channel on the end goal. To do it accurately, we need to have some factors in place such as the correct conversion window to track pixels and capture meaningful assists.

Making sense of all the information available quickly and effectively can be complex. However, it is essential to determine which platform provides the most assists easily and clearly.

Armed with this knowledge, we can direct resources to the most promising positions and capitalise on every available talent on the pitch.

With third-party cookies facing terminal extinction, attribution will need to evolve away from the multi-touch attribution (MTA) methodologies we use today. One such approach is conversion modelling – a cookie-less solution that relies on a machine learning algorithm to determine the channels that generate growth. Simple attribution models will be relegated as they cannot provide a full view of the most effective combination for any condition. To go all the way and be on top of the world, ensure that you make everyone in the squad count.

By Viktor Maksymov, director – performance, OMD UAE

We often narrow our focus and take in the most salient information to simplify complexity. This could be a costly mistake, writes OMD UAE’s Viktor Maksymov

‘‘NO TWO GAMES ARE ALIKE; AND HAVING FRESH AND UNIQUE TALENT ON THE BENCH ALLOWS YOU TO HAVE THE OPTIMAL FORMATION IN ANY SITUATION.”

In 1996,

language, not theirs. With this, we can expect an explosion across the region of devices such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home in Arabic. The arrival of voice search in the Middle East will unlock huge opportunities for consumers and advertisers.

These language advancements promise not just stimulation for the ears but also a feast for the eyes. New digital imaging software from companies such as Dall-E 2 and Midjourney can render entirely new images and pictures based on verbal cues and prompts. The potential uses are mind-blowing. The ability to spark ideas and pitch concepts with nearperfect artwork in a flash is game-changing.

There are fears about its possible impact on jobs in creative industries. But we are missing the point; the time saved in aligning clients and agencies on a concept will be significantly reduced, freeing up time for better collaboration and innovative thinking to build better campaigns. AI image software may be able to render a perfect VW Beetle on the surface of the moon, but you will still need a human to think a lemon should instead represent the car.

of Arabic coffee. Moreover, in our day-to-day media buying operations, technology has an increasingly profound effect on results and outcomes. We use platforms that enable functions from microoptimisations to biddable media campaigns.

Technology can process data in minutes that would otherwise take a human several months to deliver. This AI technology powers the twin engines of campaign success and effectiveness through better results and efficiencies. It also requires fewer human hours to execute.

We are far from doing away with the need for humans as some dystopian visions have predicted. Rather, AI enables us to do more of what we are really good at – being more human. Much like Kasparov versus Deep Blue, the ability to set a campaign strategy or even pivot midway is still the preserve of a human mind – one that is liberated from the computational dog work that machines eat for breakfast.

Deep Blue during a six-game

competition known as the ‘Battle for Humanity’. When AI battled the world’s greatest chess player for supremacy, this title did not seem like hyperbole. The fifth game was the most notable. As it entered the middle phase, Kasparov suddenly changed his strategy. The processing power of Deep Blue enabled it to compute thousands of moves in a second, unlike its human opponent. However, it was not prepared for Kasparov’s main weapon – his very humanity itself. Unpredictability, emotion, and even irrationality – the most human and inimitable qualities – left the computer flummoxed. With Deep Blue’s chipboard frazzled by this unexpected twist, it made a succession of poor moves before being defeated by the man. A quarter of a century later, AI’s power has improved exponentially. Far from the world of science fiction, this has led to increasingly radical applications in our daily lives and work.

AI AND THE FUTURE OF MARKETING

If a computer is to eventually pass the ‘imitation game’ and pass itself off as human, it first has to talk our language. The huge strides in natural language programming (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU) are unlocking the secret to AI. In essence, computers can converse in our

We can already see the benefit of using AI in creative for our own clients. Our machine learning tool allows us to optimise every element of a creative message – colour, copy, call to action (CTA), logo size, placement, etc. Think dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) after a particularly strong shot

The way we choose to adapt in this AI-enabled world will define how we thrive as leaders, strategists, digital experts, planners or traders. AI helps us feel less like machines and more like humans. In a world of increasingly fluid lines between geography, role and real and virtual life, the human qualities of compassion, empathy, unpredictability, emotion and irrationality will become more essential. The way we motivate teams, relate to other individuals, nurture, encourage and inspire great work will set our organisations apart from our competitors.

In PHD’s most recent book, Shift: A Marketing Rethink, we talk about a people-shaped future. It is essential to create environments enabled by technology for our people to flourish, and not the other way around. Political commentator Thomas Friedman nails this succinctly. “Machines can be programmed to do the next thing right. But only humans can do the next right thing.” AI is not here to replace humans but to liberate and channel the human element in us. Our job is to encourage, support and inspire this.

The two adversaries in the world of chess met again in a 1997 for a rematch. After improvements were made to Deep Blue, Kasparov was roundly beaten. Reflecting on this in his later years, he was far from bitter about the advancements of AI. His comment still holds true: “What we need is better humans, not less technology.”

By Daniel Shepherd, regional head of strategy & product, PHD

Russian Grandmaster Garry Kasparov defeated IBM’s AI-powered super-computer

chess

InHype

Let me tell you a little secret. I am kind of over the word ‘influencer’. It has lost its allure, meaning and cultural relevance.

Let’s move away from the word ‘influencer’ and the catch-all phrase of ‘influencer marketing’. Let’s embrace the reality of what influencers actually are. They are content creators. This is what lies at the heart of what they do. They are entertainers, brand experts, reviewers, storytellers and crafters of tales that capture people’s imagination – all in quick, snackable, bite-sized content. Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok have known this for years. They know the power that content creators wield, both for audiences and for brands. Why else would TikTok host creator camps in China, where content creators provide strategic counsel to brands? Instagram too has placed creators at the heart of its strategy, openly acknowledging that it wants to provide them with new ways to tell their stories, to connect with their audiences and to express themselves. By the end of this year, Meta will have invested more than $1bn in creators across Facebook and Instagram.

TikTok’s community-driven approach is helping to forge an entirely new way for brands and creators to connect with their communities, and this is only the beginning. The management consultancy Deloitte noted in its 2022 Global Marketing Trends report that influencers may be the next iteration of the creative agency. That would mean moving the relationship from ‘influencer’ to ‘creator’, and placing those individuals and channels at the centre of the brand to work on bigger-picture creative challenges. So why do we continue to call content creators ‘influencers’? Why are trustworthy experts in their fields, with dedicated audiences, being looked at with something akin to derision? I know we cannot move away from the term ‘influencer marketing’ entirely, but let us

increase on the previous year with no sign of that growth rate reducing. It is also the highest growing marketing segment. 75 per cent of brand marketers say they intend to dedicate a budget to influencer marketing this year. Although some of those budgets are relatively new, Traackr’s 2022 Influencer Marketing Impact Report noted that 51 per cent of marketers said they spent between $50,000 and $500,000 a year on influencer marketing, and 15 per cent spent more than $1 Million.

As we prepare to enter 2023, that investment will only increase as brand managers delve deeper into a category that maximises return on investment and offers a unique ability to produce meaningful conversations. We already know that marketers are increasing their creator budgets across social, that the likes of Instagram are committed to continue building a suite of tools that support creators’ needs and ambitions, and that creators themselves are closer to products – and customers – than almost anyone, as Deloitte notes in its 2022 Global Marketing Trends report.

BETTER ROI WITH CONTENT CREATORS

Content creators are not just another marketing channel; they are an entire ecosystem rolled into one. They represent both the creative and the channel. Compare this ecosystem with the wider industry where PR agencies, creative agencies and media agencies can all be involved in the creation of a single campaign. That is a lot of money and time, not to mention production costs and retainer fees – all of which magnify a brand’s expenditure. With a content creator, you get the media, creative, PR and agency all in one. This is where you maximise return on investment.

And then there’s impact. Traackr’s 2022 Influencer Marketing Impact Report noted that more than half of marketers (54 per cent) said that influencer marketing has successfully increased brand awareness. More significantly, 82 per cent acknowledged creators’ impact on driving sales. Earlier this year, TikTok also released a report stating that TikTokspecific branded content in collaboration with creators drove a higher ad recall of 27 per cent, while partnering with creators boosted view rates for in-feed ads.

It is evident that content creators are hugely effective and the industry is booming. That’s where InHype steps in. Our role as a next-gen digital creators’ agency for brands is to help companies maximise the potential of content creators. As a hub for creation, curation, execution and measuring of content creator campaigns, InHype plans and creates branded snackable content worth sharing on social media. We do so by helping brands formulate strategic objective-driven ideas, identifying the right content creators, and using global data tools for analysing and measuring results. In doing so, we leverage creators as brand ambassadors and brand storytellers.

By Nour Chaar, founder and CEO, InHype

BUILT FOR THE PLATFORM WORLD

Meaning over distraction; that’s what consumers are demanding from brands today. At present, most brands fall short on the promise of creating meaningful connections with their audiences. This can be possible only through a complete marketing transformation.

We live in an age of connectivity. Yet, people feel more isolated and disconnected from each other than ever before. With the pandemic, loneliness has become a global health concern that can diminish our wellness and longevity. Digital devices play a significant role here. While it does help to kill boredom, the constant buzz of information has created a collective anxiety. We are beginning to see that screen time does not free our minds; it locks down our opportunities to connect creatively. To factor this in, the entire marketing ecosystem is evolving.

LOYALTY IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Earning consumer loyalty is the ultimate goal for brands. The majority of consumers are multichannel users but it can be a challenging experience for them to switch between channels –only half of them transition smoothly. There is a major disconnect between owned and paid touch points. Due to lack of efficiency in the process, most consumers feel no loyalty to brands. This issue can be addressed by adding depth to the relationship with consumers and by demonstrating that brands know their consumers. Since brands often place the majority of their data in the hands of mega platforms, they can find it tricky to access insightful and connected marketing data. Either they do not have data, or it is siloed, and often both.

Brand marketers are currently managing an average of 23 channels. They resort to reach and retargeting by using distracting advertising. Often, their actions do not match their professed values. Hence, marketing is not trusted

anymore and the world is ad-blocked, overloaded and too distracted to bother.

EMPOWERING THE CONSUMER

The consumer channel ecosystem has evolved considerably over the years. From accessing a few channels with limited choices, consumers have moved on to consuming content on multiple channels that provide plenty of options. Presently, they hold more power and decide which brands they want to interact with. Factors such as volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity continue to shape clients’ business today.

Most consumers are underwhelmed with their brand interactions. For example, they expect contextualised engagements based on previous

interactions and believe that brands should recognise them across various touchpoints. The pressure is mounting for brands. They will soon have no option but to transform their overall approach to marketing and focus on strengthening relationships with consumers.

THE NEW MARKETING LANDSCAPE

Modern marketing challenges can be summed up as a perfect storm. We are witnessing changes in consumer behaviour, the channel relevance is shifting, and disruptive technologies are changing the marketing landscape. On the other hand, there are commercial demands, financial pressure, legislative changes, additional traceability and increased measurement.

The marketing approach has altered accordingly. These marketing challenges have pushed marketers to create experiences that help brands create a meaningful and sustainable connection with their audiences. Meaningful communication is created over connected campaigns when the media and creative come together holistically. Brands are creating memorable interactions with holistic brand experiences, producing resonant conversations with social marketing, and covering paid, owned and earned media. By identifying pivotal moments in people’s lives and envisioning ways to create connections, they can improve marketing effectiveness and create longer brand advocacy.

Being data-driven and digital sits at any brand’s core. It is the foundation to provide a personalised and connected customer experience. As communication specialists, our approach should centre around connecting data from first-, second- and third-party observations and this is powered by technology, creativity, data sciences and customer strategy. After all, factors like website and app design, UX and UI, tech stacking and tagging are essentials for a seamless customer experience.

Personalisation-at-scale is a game changer in the modern digital world. When it comes to consumers’ growth and retention, the integration of marketing technologies and advertising technologies will help to provide better end-to-end customer experiences. One of the key factors is to ensure you use the right technology infrastructure to drive better efficiencies from multiple marketing operations.

By

a Publicis Groupe company

Tony Wazen, CEO, Digitas Middle East,

Tony Wazen

‘‘CONSUMERS HOLD MORE POWER AND DECIDE WHICH BRANDS THEY WANT TO INTERACT WITH.”

It sounds very simple: find the sweet spot of your target audience and yield the result you want. The catch?

Today’s complex consumer is not easily wooed. If you want their time and attention, you need to reach out to them wisely. Thanks to the advancements in digital, the task is much simpler, but only if brands have the right strategy and tech tools in place.

The digital ecosystem is evolving constantly, while the economic downturn continues to cause uncertainty in delivery and overall client commitments. Still, one thing is for sure: we are in need of a big shake-up if we are going to come out stronger on the other side. On a wider scale, the MENA market still lags behind more established markets when it comes to digital adoption. The region certainly does not lack ambition and it is known for innovation. However, we are reminded that mindsets do not change overnight.

We see a gradual shift as new channels take away from the spend on traditional media. This is a good indicator that clients are ready to embrace the next wave of digital platforms like podcasts, DOOH and e-commerce. Performance is turning into a larger focus area for clients. Embracing the right technology can help with integration and measurement while mapping the consumer journey across multiple devices and content. Experience is everything; it starts with understanding who the audience is and what they need.

Clients need to consider digital as an end-to-end server that is plugged into multiple layers of technology. It allows them to tailor personalised messages at a contextually relevant time and place. This is an important factor when brands work towards building and sustaining a connection with consumers who are increasingly vocal that they do not

want to be disturbed or bombarded with multiple messages. Consumers also prefer content that is relevant to the platform they are active on. There is a golden opportunity here to move from the concept of hard-sell towards storytelling, especially with audio as an aid. Consider the power of a human voice when you want to induce an emotive reaction. It is real, open and honest – the perfect counterpoint to untailored or automated communications. Moreover, the context, relevance and positioning play a huge role, in addition to content and channel. Brands need to be aware that clutter is a real issue. By bidding and owning key spots, brands can ensure that visibility and viewability are taken into account and it will help drive return on ad spend.

funnel awareness. It can ensure that their budgets are optimised according to what performs best. This is a key step to reduce clutter and improve conversion potential across the rest of the funnel. Brands also need to be more confident about using existing technology to effectively manage and monitor campaigns in real time.

Currently, programmatic is not used efficiently enough to add meaning to media spends. Yet, this technology can help us to actualise reach across every channel, improve relevance and deliver content at the right time. This comes as a huge advantage at a time when costs are soaring. Adding programmatic to your tech stack will give you complete visibility across multiple platforms, thereby allowing for a more targeted approach.

When it comes to walled gardens and

INVESTMENTS IN FOCUS

With uncertainty surrounding world economic markets, marketers are taking a cautious approach to investments as we close Q4 2022. It is not easy for brands to move from established media to newer channels. Yet, staying stagnant is a sure-fire way to lose relevance in this progressive, digital-first world. It boils down to how we reframe online media and show the value behind data-driven intelligence.

Brands can gain insights about channels that resonate most with their target audience by starting from upper-

investment share, we see that clients are beginning to diversify their budgets – a smart move considering their reach is stagnated and the frequency cannot go any higher. This is especially true of social platforms right now as there is so much content circulating. If it is not 100 per cent relevant to the environment, a brand does not stand out and risks being relegated to just another click.

To stay ahead of the curve, clients ultimately need to be more flexible in allocating their investments and distributing a portion to new tech, particularly those that focus on IDs, targeting and cookieless solutions.

THE COOKIELESS FUTURE IS HERE

We may have been mentally preparing for the cookieless future for the past few years, but we are still far from prepared for the day when it comes into effect. Clients need to collaborate with agencies equipped with the right tech tools to prioritise first-party data and work with partners that are developing contextual targeting solutions.

By failing to act now, brands risk losing their media presence or audience tracking measurement when the cookie finally does crumble. To ultimately succeed, we need to prioritise connection over conversion and explore the full scope of digital offerings.

By Rana Zeidan, head of APEX, Publicis Groupe

Publicis Groupe’s Rana Zeidan shares how advertisers can achieve reach on every channel, improve relevance and deliver content at the right time

‘‘CONSUMERS ARE INCREASINGLY VOCAL THAT THEY DO NOT WANT TO BE DISTURBED OR BOMBARDED WITH MULTIPLE MESSAGES. ”

BYE-BYE COOKIES HELLO REAL PEOPLE

REIMAGINING

THE ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH

Would you have imagined a few years back that brand discovery and web search would move to social media?

Recently, Prabhakar Raghavan, a senior vice-president at Google, stated that 40 per cent of youngsters who look for a restaurant online do not go to Google Maps or Search. Rather, they look up information on TikTok or Instagram. This is a strong statement, considering Google coined the narrative of ‘Zero Moment of Truth’ (ZMOT). The concept acknowledges that consumers perform research on a product and consult information sources before making a decision to purchase.

While online search engines maintain their leadership in the domains of discovery and organising information, social media is beginning to play a

holds true not only for products and business discovery but also for publishing content such as ‘how-to’ instructions and conceptdescriptions.

ENSURING AUTHENTICITY OF INFORMATION

Content verification is a tangible risk: How can we verify the authenticity of information and avoid misinformation? Given the nature of social media algorithms, consumers rarely feel a need to click outside the app. As a result, users do not tend to look elsewhere for additional sources of information for fact-checks.

MONETISING GEN Z

Some may argue that millennials are not an easy target to monetise. However, it is the same audience that will tap into a disposable income in the future. Hence, the opportunity to access Gen Z today for brand discovery purposes is concrete. In the always-on game of relevance, it is necessary to make brands discoverable on search platforms in all the evolving channels to sustain brand equity.

The Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, is an e-commerce powerhouse in the country. It created a successful model by connecting local and retail businesses with customers through categorisation of services and video content. Businesses can share basic information, waiting lists and coupons or discounts – all while being supported by local creators’ video experiences. The effectiveness of its discovery can be seen across all demographics and not just across Gen Z. It emphasises that early adopters can quickly turn into a majority if brands use a highly relevant content ecosystem.

DIVERSIFY BRAND DISCOVERY BASED ON INDUSTRY

significant role and is expected soon to take a larger slice of the discovery market share. What is driving this shift and what can brands do to leverage their content strategy?

VIDEO OVER TEXT

Gen Z-ers prefer social video content over walls of text since it is shorter, more interactive and easier to find. At a time when attention spans are dropping, short content is more relevant than overcrowded paragraphs of text. This

This leads to the question of how businesses should diversify their brand discovery in their customer journeys. Should they divert more resources to social media, use creators’ content or supply relevant and accessible discoverable content through an updated SEO strategy?

The answer lies in the type of industry the brand works in. Users are keen to see a visual representation of the information they search for. They want the result and content to be short and concise. Highly visual industries such as travel, beauty, luxury, fashion and food have a tangible advantage over the others and should be the first to drive transformation.

From a creator-economy standpoint, the opportunities for brands and creators to collaborate and monetise are endless. Brands currently choose their creators based on factors such as audience affinity, reach and engagement level. This is gradually shifting to the capability of the creators to be found and rank high for specific topics or queries.

At present, the SEO industry is worth more than $80bn and Google holds 90 per cent of the search engine market share. As TikTok and Instagram are gaining a higher market share in discovery and search, we are at the cusp of a decline in SEO and content marketing.

While brands work towards delivering high ranks and satisfying users’ demands, search algorithms and content creation on social media will soon be driven by a higher level of customisation and optimisation. Social will ultimately become part of the SEO discipline.

By Natale Panella, head of digital, Fusion5

As the market share for discovery and search shifts from search engines to social media, brands are finding new ways to get noticed, says Fusion5’s Natale Panella

‘‘MAKING BRANDS DISCOVERABLE ON SEARCH PLATFORMS IN ALL THE EVOLVING CHANNELS IS NECESSARY TO SUSTAIN BRAND EQUITY.”

Drive the outcomes that matter to you. Step into the future of marketing with us.

A Choueiri Group Brand

The premise for advertising on YouTube is clear: you can reach billions of potential customers on the world’s most popular streaming service, target them based on demographic or interests and pay only when they engage. Combine this strategy with other market-leading data sets such as data pulled from smart TVs that can enable brands to understand viewing habits of specific audiences, application programming interface (API) data from YouTube that can unlock a plethora of insights for every video on YouTube and brand safety compliance that includes brand safety and brand suitability. You now have every tool you need for an all-encompassing growth marketing strategy.

With a great deal of powerful data available at our fingertips, cherry-picking

understand the risks of the platform as well as ways to mitigate them. Applying AI-driven brand safety is as important as brand suitability. It ensures that campaigns are only associated with appropriate content and your brand’s reputation will not be tarnished by videos that follow.

UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE ACROSS DIVERSIFIED SCREENS

Consumers have moved from traditional television to mobile devices. Demystifying your target audience goes beyond understanding the content they consume to identifying the devices they are on. YouTube marketing is vital for capturing their attention, especially when deployed alongside TV campaigns. Brands can use smart TV reach extensions that enable brands to reach viewers across different

YouTube advertisers often rely on viewthrough rates (VTR). VTR is the number of completed views of a skippable ad divided by the number of first impressions and it tells you little about why your advert has not performed as expected.

Optimising the full potential of API data can help advertisers understand why audiences are reacting – or not reacting –to a campaign. Over time, brands can develop a failproof roadmap to create successful YouTube campaigns, maintain results and adapt them to changing trends.

the most important figures can turn into a task. On the other hand, if you ignore data, YouTube advertising performs like traditional TV advertising. Unless your North Star metric is directly salesoriented, you may never know whether your campaign was successful or not. If you are disconnected from real marketing outcomes, you may end up with little knowledge of how to best navigate your YouTube campaign.

REACH MORE WITH LESS

YouTube campaigns can net you massive results when done right. However, setting them up to facilitate optimum performance can be a difficult and time-consuming task. Even the most experienced marketers run into roadblocks while trying to collate data and analytics across multiple platforms. If you identify precisely which platforms to partner with at each step, that’s half the battle won.

Achieving the best possible performance requires marketers to

devices based on the content they are watching at the time. It makes retargeting much easier and helps guide users down the funnel to make a purchase.

The evolution of screen diversification is backed up with robust viewing data. According to statistics from Google, TV is YouTube’s fastest growing screen and reported a year-on-year increase of over 100 per cent since 2020. The rate of scale and opportunities will only continue to grow as device diversity continues to evolve. MiQ sees this in action as many campaigns are already delivering approximately 30-40 per cent of impressions across CTV.

REALISE THE POTENTIAL OF DATA

The YouTube format offers better scope than television to deliver content to the right audiences. It presents far more opportunities to analyse results and fine-tune your approach. However, not everyone has achieved success through YouTube. One of the key reasons is that

There are plenty of opportunities to market better on YouTube, but right now most marketers are not seizing them. It is a tough pill to swallow, but tackling YouTube campaigns with a linear TV approach implies that you are misspending at every stage and losing opportunities to reach the right audience, understand them better and generate more sales.

By

Mike Gray, managing director EMEA, MiQ

MiQ’s Mike Gray shares his thoughts on using smart data strategies to maximise ROI on YouTube campaigns

‘‘TACKLING YOUTUBE CAMPAIGNS WITH A LINEAR TV APPROACH IMPLIES THAT YOU ARE MISSPENDING AT EVERY STAGE AND LOSING OPPORTUNITIES TO REACH THE RIGHT AUDIENCE.”

TOYOTA

LAND CRUISER 300

// OBJECTIVE

To generate greater awareness and consideration for the launch of the new Toyota Land Cruiser in the UAE, across the DMS universe

CHALLENGES

Employ a precision marketing approach (Communicating with the right users, via the right message / creative).

Di cult market circumstances with economic downturn and automotive industry struggling with production, supply chain (lack of microchips) and transport related issues.

Improve ad recall for the Land Cruiser campaign

Strong competition from other automotive brands playing their cards to increase market share.

// APPROACH

DMS created custom audiences for the launch of the new Land Cruiser 300 campaign through an interactive data collection method “Zero Party Audiences”, which make research addressable at scale and enable user targeting based on their answers. The Brand’s target was segmented into two groups (Personas and Auto Intenders). Through the addressable research, DMS was able to collect data categorized according to precision marketing audiences

As well as users with intentions to buy a new car within the required price range / type (SUV) over the next 2 years.

The media strategy was designed to target each set of audiences with custom creatives running across the DMS portfolio split into awareness and consideration phases with a de-duplication data setup.

Toyota launches the Land Cruiser 300 with precision marketing powered by Zero Party Data to increase personal relevance at scale

MEDIA IMPACT (compared to benchmark) +68.6% increase in CTR with ZPD

BRAND IMPACT (compared to benchmark)

// KEY TAKE AWAYS

DMS successfully pioneered the first automotive campaign utilizing zero party audiences, proving them to be a good fit for the campaign (displaying higher a nity towards the brand).

The Toyota Land Cruiser personas and intenders’ zero party data can now be leveraged across future activations. The insights obtained from the research proved very useful for optimizing the campaign, as well as the creative mes sages.

While the strategy for this specific cam paign, did not take into account Footfall attribution measurement, we had recommended this additional step to complement the success which the campaign had already achieved.

The solution validated the precision marketing audiences of Toyota Land Cruiser as addressable and scalable.

Katib BELKHODJA Marketing Director - Al-Futtaim Automotive

"With a heritage of fast-selling popular models and most-awaited model launches, the Toyota Land Cruiser holds iconic status within the region. To continue our market dominance, we decided to implement the new precision marketing strategy that allowed us to be more relevant to di erent audiences and respond to specific customer triggers. The results speak for themselves, we now have a diversified base that relates to the brand, be it diverse nationalities, age or gender. This will further reinforce our leadership position in a category we are synonymous with.”

Roxane Magbanua Executive Business Director - PHD

“The introduction of Zero Party Data solutions enabled our precision marketing to achieve a wider reach, higher quality, and better relevance. This is an important part of our data strategy now as we continue to strengthen our business accountability to our client, Al-Futtaim automo tive. We were very impressed with the team at DMS for being the first company to roll this out in the region and we thank them for this collabo ration. We share the same values of always pushing the boundaries when it comes to data and technology and we will continue to challenge the solutions in the market to deliver disproportionate growth for our clients.”

Mathieu

Yarak Group Senior Director – Data & Insight - Choueiri Group

“Creating innovative data solutions is our passion, and we always strive to provide our clients with better results. By targeting quality-precision audiences at scale, we help our clients to raise their precision marketing game with Zero Party Data. This solution was adopted and implemented by PHD and Toyota (Al-Futtaim Automotive) as a “first” for the automo tive industry, demonstrating how our partners can embrace and utilize data in an innovative way. The deployment across Al-Futtaim's automo tive brands has worked well to illustrate the power of Zero Party Data.”

Elon Musk loves a good dad-joke, we realised, after he waltzed into his newest venture as the CEO and owner of Twitter. With his controversial yet expected first moves, the owner of SpaceX and Tesla has now been upgraded from being a regular user of social media like any of us into a decision and policy maker. Regardless of whatever reforms Musk intends to instill within Twitter, many questions have come to light. Here are some of the key ones.

WILL IT LEAD TO MORE SOCIAL NETWORK ACQUISITIONS?

One of the main questions that surfaced is whether the Twitter buy-out will set a trend of social platforms getting acquired by private owners. With the ongoing tug-of-war between data owners and regulators, can we expect someone like Jeff Bezos to buy out TikTok, for instance? It may be harder for entities such as Google, worth $1.5 trillion, and Facebook, worth $500bn to be taken over. However, advertising and data partnerships have already been established between the giants, and this may open the door for a possible merger in the coming years.

WILL AD CONTENT PRECEDE USERGENERATED CONTENT?

Twitter’s core strength lies within conversation and engagement. With the new private and for-profit ownership, we can’t help but wonder if Twitter’s algorithm will be tampered with to an extent that the platform starts promoting tweets by its top advertisers. Twitter users respect the communication platform as a space to express opinions and discuss views. The social network has always emphasised the importance of meaningful content as it presents a platform for all – governments, policy makers, journalists, celebrities and everyone else. Its content always stood out as a reason for its success; it served as a source of truth and as a platform for the full opinion spectrum. This was evident in the success of Spaces, launched in 2021, which provided more than half a billion global users an opportunity to engage in audio discussions and even contribute through audio, or through simple emojis.

HOW WILL THE PUSHBACK AFFECT TWITTER?

Musk is not a publicly loved figure. Nobody is, but the pushback is quite strong from social justice warriors globally. Activists who are working against Musk

may drive users away from the platform. We live in a world where ‘cancel culture’ is quite strong. Twitter is likely to face this backlash from users who are spoiled for choice and can shift towards other social platforms swiftly. Moreover, the introduction of an $8 fee for verification also presents a challenge as account verification no longer relies on merit but is based on a subscription fee. Musk indicated that the guidelines and checks for verification will remain the same. However, why would a contributor pay for a platform? Imagine Google charging YouTube content creators for uploading videos and driving more

dwell time on the platform; it does not make sense. On the other hand, Netflix rightfully charges a subscription fee for providing content with an algorithm built around individual interests.

HOW DOES IT AFFECT ADVERTISERS?

Musk claims that Twitter will work as a platform that places freedom of speech before political correctness. However, that isn’t necessarily a good thing as it opens the door for hate-speech, racism, sexism and more undesirable content on the pretext of freedom of speech. This will hugely affect users and turn Twitter into a keyboard battlefield. It also directly affects advertisers as issues around brand safety crop up. In all probability, ads may appear below tweets that discuss extreme opinions and do not conform to an advertiser’s message, or do not even comply with regulations within specific geographies. For instance, a brand like Jaguar Land Rover has substantial rules about factors such as brand safety. With such challenges, Twitter’s employees can foresee difficult days ahead if they intend to maintain their ad-revenue streams. Besides, the EU’s GDPR principles vary from other regions and may limit the freedom that Musk indicates. Brands must be extremely mindful about compliance with GDPR, CCPA and other governing bodies. Hours after Musk posted his tweet, “The bird has been freed,” the European Union’s commissioner for internal market, Thierry Breton, warned the social media platform. Referring to compliance rules and regulations, Breton posted his response, “In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules.”

IS IT THE BEGINNING OF X?

The silver lining of the Twitter acquisition is that this step can be considered the billionaire’s first move towards creating ‘X’, the ‘everything app’ which has been in talks for a while. The concept of X is a brilliant showcase of how the future will be seamless and autonomous. Considering the pace at which we are moving towards everything 5G, X may be that app that unites the world, should Musk stick to his promise of helping humanity. If you have watched the Nosedive episode of Black Mirror, I can understand why you do not agree that the prospect is exciting. If the digital future scares you, it will be good to know that Nokia 3310 has great battery life.

By Ali Aboukhreibe, director of strategy, Boopin

Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has raised several questions in the advertising community. Boopin’s Ali Aboukhreibe, director of strategy, shares his thoughts

We Live to Futureproof Your Growth

We are UM. We are in the busi ness of building brands that stand the test of time. Brands that disrupt, rather than be disrupted.

At UM we believe that enduring brands are created by design. We know what makes them tick, see what they have in common, and understand what sets them apart.

Enduring 21st century brands excel at three things: Winning hearts in Culture - Win ning minds in Community - Winning wallets in Commerce. This is what makes UM MENA, a unique partner for so many fast-growing companies, and consistently has kept us in the #1 position* for years (* source: RECMA)

Picture the scene; it is 1992 and Whitney Houston topped the charts with her hit I Will Always Love You. It is also the year that I – then a floppy haired teenager – started university and read about the future in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. This is when the world first heard of the term ‘metaverse’.

“Hiro’s not actually here at all. He’s in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. It beats the U-Stor-It.”

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992).

Flash-forward 30 years later. This forgotten term from a dystopian future, ‘metaverse’, is the hottest thing for marketers in 2022. Marketers are like cultural magpies – we always look for the next shiny new thing. When we speak about marketing, it is hard to avoid the metaverse. On the other hand, it is rare to hear of consumers doing the same. When it comes to consumers, we hear radio silence. It is important to understand what is going on here.

IS THE HYPE REAL?

Let me start by stating that ‘metaverse’ is a terrible term for this megatrend. This is important because naming mistakes can reduce our field of vision for an innovation that is predicted to transform consumer experiences over the coming years. For instance, we coined the term ‘cyberspace’ in the early 90’s but that did not age well. Earlier this year, Apple trademarked ‘RealityOS’. It would be interesting to see what they have in store for the future. Looking into Google Trends interest over time, we can see that there was no search volume until Facebook changed its name to Meta. However, the name change was followed by a spike in interest for a few weeks. Over the last few months, Meta’s search interest has dwindled to a trickle. It was the same with e-commerce.

THE METAVERSE IS TRENDING MORE THAN EVER, BUT IS THE HYPE REAL?

Marketers face an enormous challenge today as the ongoing desire to do something cutting-edge, exciting and award-winning is undeniable. Far too many experts have used the rinseand-repeat formula of describing the metaverse as a virtual avatar world where ‘legs are optional’. The hard truth is that the metaverse is a digital distraction, though most people do not want to accept it. There are many popular virtual worlds which are being talked about but are not accessible or have no users. Consider Decentraland; it is known to be one of the metaverse’s biggest players. However, it

averages fewer than 650 active users, and it is certainly not a viable tactical platform choice today.

The metaverse needs further improvement and enhancement before we consider investing in it. At present, we are expecting a global recession – probably one that is limited to developed western markets. Even if the GCC economy remains unscathed, those of us working with global brands are likely to feel a budgetary pinch. David Ogilvy once said, “Your role is to sell. Don’t let anything distract you from the sole purpose of advertising.”

During the foreseeable future, we need to create balanced plans that can aid a brand’s growth and grow brands with innovative ideas and budgets. It is safe to say that now is not the right time to invest in virtual property in Decentraland

LEVERAGING THE METAVERSE FOR THE REAL WORLD

It is not all doom and gloom in the new universe. While we may have been distracted by the term ‘metaverse’, there are amazing extended reality (XR) spaces that have proven successful for brands. One of these is the oft-forgotten territory of gaming. As a parent of two pre-teen boys, I can attest to the time spent on the iPad in gaming. The virtual worlds of Minecraft and Roblox already provide an immersive virtual experience without the need for VR headsets. Their 8-bit-style graphics take nothing away from the overall experience. This month, Roblox published a report on digital fashion which stated that 70 per cent of Generation Z get their inspiration on real-world fashion from their avatar fashion choices. This reiterates that the virtual world plays a significant role in the real world.

The opportunity for advertising and marketing experiences in the metaverse is still in its infancy. It has taken the internet 30 years to go from flat, static HTML to today’s vast digital economy.

One future-facing example is Wubud, a virtual country being developed by Paul Walsh in Canada. The early previews are impressive, taking us well beyond the limited projects shared earlier.

You can expect virtual experiences to take years to evolve as the virtual worlds are only just beginning to hatch. We are at the cusp of the next wave of digital disruption; it is time to explore ways to futureproof consumer experiences.

By James

on,

digital director, UM Worldwide

Du

regional

With an impending recession, marketers need to identify the potential the metaverse holds for brands, writes UM Worldwide’s James Dutton

It started with one click on a mobile phone. Today, mobile screens have turned into an extension of one’s identity. It knows your preferences, affinities and everything about your online behaviour. Consumers across the top 10 mobile-first markets spent a little under five hours on their mobile devices every day in 2021. However, it’s not all good news as we see a big dent on the consumer’s attention span. With the rising app-economy, mobile phones have turned into an everything-device used for multiple daily activities. The same screen serves the need for communications, transactions, gaming, entertainment and shopping. Clearly, the per capita time on engagement – call it attention or brand recall – goes for a toss. On a lighter note, isn’t the human in us demanding a lot from the small screen?

The subtle, yet loud shift of consumers towards connected TV (CTV) is a part of a need-based evolution. There is a need to break the clutter and segregate screens that deliver experience versus transactions. This behavioural change is irreversible and is bound to explode as adoption increases. CTV presents an exciting proposition for the audiences with its flexibility

to provide diverse and rich content on-demand with ease of access and better control. The customer feels like the king again.

A GENERATION OF ‘CORD-CUTTERS’ AND ‘CORD-NEVERS’

CTV is the primary reason for the rise in number of ‘cord cutters’ – consumers who have switched from traditional cable TV to streaming services or internet-based cable alternatives. They tend to be more demanding and want to stream content at will. However, a massive parallel boost to the adoption of CTV also comes from another consumer segment – the ‘cord nevers’, consumers who have never paid for a cable plan. Their interest leans towards streaming services for their entertainment needs. The audience segment here primarily comprises of Gen Z-ers. These two consumer segments have propelled CTV adoption through the roof.

THE INCREASING CLUTTER ON MOBILE DEVICES NEGATIVELY AFFECTS CAMPAIGN INTERACTIONS, CONNECTED TV BUILDS A ROBUST CASE

If connected TV is getting consumers’ attention, it is a winner for advertisers too. Let’s take a look at recent numbers and understand the impact of CTV on ad spend. According to Statista, the CTV advertising spend in the United States alone was valued above $14bn in 2021. It is expected to cross $38bn by the end of 2026. While the US leads in CTV ad spend globally, European advertisers have increased their investment in this channel along with marketers in EMEA, LATAM and Asian markets. In the first half of 2021, CTV advertising in the EMEA region witnessed a 100 per cent increase compared with the first half of 2020. It is reassuring to see that after North America, EMEA made the biggest CTV share gains, increasing from 8 per cent to 22 per cent in 2021. Given that the MENA region, especially markets of UAE, KSA, and Egypt have high internet penetration and a considerable Gen Z population, we can expect CTV advertising in MENA to scale up and turn into a dedicated channel of spending.

CTV ADVERTISING SOLVES A REAL-USE CASE

As the increasing clutter on mobile devices negatively affects campaign interactions, CTV builds a robust case for itself. It amplifies the need for advertisers to build engagement with consumers and create maximum impact that generates better brand recall. Factors such as high engagement rates on CTV, better ad-recall among consumers, large-screen ad experience and uncluttered CTV screens provide advertisers the ability to create immersive and engaging content for consumers. Besides, due to coviewing, CTV ads reach one to five potential consumers in every household, enhancing the campaign exposure while limiting the cost to a single impression. With a better sales attribution capability and accurate targeting and measurement, CTV has become the most soughtafter advertising medium in several markets. CTV advertising opens up innovative and experiential advertising capabilities with its firstscreen experience and highly effective niche audience-targeting capabilities. Considering how well it does globally, we will see massive adoption of CTV advertising in the MENA region. With a massive reach of more than 20 million unique devices, household sync, first-screen advertising experience and multiple targeting options, ArabyAds CTV Ads opens up significant potential and a new channel for advertisers.

By Sachin Kumar, business director, Connected TV - ArabyAds

‘‘AS

FOR ITSELF”

Marketers are constantly trying new solutions to produce engaging ads that increase ad performance in addition to driving brand awareness. Between product, promotions and people, advertisers have many options while choosing images for creative ads. But how do we know which one has the most significant impact and why?

Ad-Lib.io, a Smartly.io company, has worked with multiple global brands across industries. We decided to analyse creative data to observe how people – particularly faces – can affect ad performance and look into factors that drive consumers’ interest. Our data analysis show that ads with faces often outperform ads without faces. We assessed creative findings and dug into clients’ questions about levers of creative effectiveness, and how we apply analytics to test hypotheses on the drivers of performance. For example, what is the impact of a person’s face on the ad viewer? Do consumers respond with empathy, selfrecognition or admiration?

We observed a 30 per cent increase in click-through rates (CTR) for creative ads with human faces when compared with ads that comprised only copy and ads with generic images. However, adding a face into a creative ad thoughtlessly will not always work. Entropy makes a huge difference here.

WHAT IS ENTROPY

Entropy is a statistical measure of information transmitted by an image. An image with lower entropy typically has fewer colours and less variation. Higher entropy means the opposite – lots of colours

and elements come together in a single image to convey a lot of visual information. We analysed creative ads with faces and different levels of entropy to measure their performance impact. The results showed that adding a face leads to higher predicted CTR in simple ads with low entropy. However, adding a face to an already busy ad with high entropy only increases visual clutter and will decrease the ad performance simply because the face on the ad cannot stand out and capture viewers’ attention.

THE FACE-IMPACT

Why does adding a human face to a creative ad make a difference? Faces, in short, are very memorable. We took face-related analysis a step further by applying open source memorability models to advertisements – with and without faces. The memorability models create a heat map with locations where the ad performs well.

On every image, some regions of the image are likely to be forgotten, imagined or hallucinated. The model uses a neural network to consider various clusters of gradients, textures and colour features to highlight regions that are more memorable than others. When analysed and measured with this model, we observed that ads with high visibility and memorability scores

incorporate high concentration on the face. Our analysis also shows that fewer, larger faces make consistently more memorable ads than those without any human faces or that display a crowd of faces. When the ad is less busy, the memorability improves significantly.

Memorability is just one of the many creative and media factors that affects ad performance. It is essential to consider recent advances in data and modeling to measure visual impact, especially during pre-campaign analysis. Working with advanced technology such as heat maps can help identify elements that draw consumers’ attention in a creative ad. Too much red on the heat map indicates that the ad may be overly busy, and too little red indicates a lack of noticeable elements in the ad. During a pre-campaign evaluation of creative ads, placing faces, entropy and memorability at the top of your checklist can ensure improved ad performance.

It helps to work with the right technology partners who can provide tools such as heat map analysis. It allows brands to understand and assess creative data before and after campaigns.

By Janira Hernandez, head of MEA, Ad-Lib Digital

Can data help advertisers choose images and ensure high visibility for creative ads? Ad-Lib Digital’s Janira Hernandez answers

Everyone in marketing and advertising seems to have a prediction of the latest tech trend that will radically define the future of marketing. We have seen this incarnate in a multitude of acronyms such as MX (marketing experience), CX (customer experience), DX (digital experience), IoT (internet of things) and NFTs (non-fungible tokens). This is where the rubber hits the road. Digital acceleration, transformation and leverage are not limited to technology.

We live in an era of unprecedented dynamism. Through these years of successfully consulting and deploying client projects globally and regionally, we followed a key mantra of timely recalibration. To be aligned with their North Star, brands can navigate and drive value from their investments and efforts in their digital and partner ecosystem by following these three tenets:

RECALIBRATE FOR GROWTH

As marketers, we are muddled up with ways to improve our martech, adtech and xtech as a prerogative. The need of the hour is to take a step back and view the big picture of a business’s growth stack. This translates to looking beyond the enablers of marketing effectiveness and efficiency – which are presently tied to cost savings directly.

At a high level, this could be evaluated with a two-way diagnosis framework, ‘P-I-E’, which defines and elevates the roadmap based on prioritisation of projects, investment return and ease of execution. We have seen clients drive traction through this structured and integrated workbench. Digital ads accomplish one of two things: generate demand or capture demand. As we approach a year of economic contraction and a possible recession, we see a clear benefit here; the value exchange becomes clear to the business. Digital driven by marketing will be seen as demand generation rather than a demand capture, which is currently a cost-centric approach.

RECALIBRATE FOR FLUX

Today, technology’s tectonic plates are shifting at their quickest pace since the launch of the iPhone in 2007. The relationship between marketers and digital platforms is being redefined.

This can be attributed to two key events: a. The removal of intermediaries from core offerings across big tech providers such as Apple for hardware, Google for services, Amazon for e-commerce, etc. Businesses are now becoming solely focused on driving top- and bottom-line growth by crisscrossing into each other’s territory – largely the ad and tech market. For instance, consider Apple’s ad ambitions or Microsoft’s

LinkedIn buy-out in addition to the arrival of new avenues such as Netflix ads and Elon Musk’s obsession with transforming Twitter. Shareholders and investors will continue to increase pressure on these tech giants. As they explore and find their footing, flux will be a mainstay.

b. The rise of mid-tier technology platforms. Think of the unicorn generation of technology startups that have mushroomed since 2020. They entered the startup world with software/platform-as-aservice (S/PaaS) but most of them are yet to turn cash positive on the back of the investor goldrush. Imminently, these enablers will experience a radical streamlining of their offering and resources in lieu of profitability. As marketers, you need to realise how this affects the capability of your technology or partners to develop and deliver at the pace of your growth plans.

RECALIBRATE FOR EXPONENTIALISM

Everyone is familiar with the volume and veracity of data that is currently being generated. What is probably unknown is that 80 per cent of that data was generated in the last two years and only 2 per cent is being effectively tapped into on a continuous basis. While artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have rightfully been hailed as saviours, the human intervention and execution needed for analysis in the near future will continue to be a handicap. As marketers, we need to ring-fence how we game the data and algorithms:

a. Codify your operations with repetitive bandwidth techniques and automate the workflow with solutions such as low-code/no-code solutions. These include building competitive digital intelligence, outbound performance optimisation, personalisation, etc. While their costs and resource crunches are debatable, these systems become adept at aggregating learnings and executing in the long run, giving you the opportunity to incorporate any form of modelling or incremental datasets in a modular fashion.

b. Talent maturity is often addressed as an afterthought. However, it is the people in your team who need to be malleable to the changing pace of transformation today. This is possible through change management and being adaptable for adoption; the former primarily focuses internally while the latter is about staying proactive to external undercurrents.

In a world driven by disruption, make sure you are on the right side of change.

By Burt Reynolds, regional director - data, technology and consulting, MediaCom

Flux is here to stay. Marketers need to recalibrate and think beyond technology, writes MediaCom’s Burt Reynolds

‘‘80 PER CENT OF THAT DATA WAS GENERATED IN THE LAST TWO YEARS AND ONLY 2 PER CENT IS BEING EFFECTIVELY TAPPED INTO ON A CONTINUOUS BASIS.”

The metaverse is taking over the world with a new wave of usability improvements. The move from web 2.0 to web 3.0 will change the way we experience the internet. We recently witnessed significant changes in the industry, such as Facebook’s corporate name change to Meta in honour of the metaverse trend, and Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Closer to home, the metaverse has become a priority as the UAE placed itself among the first movers. Dubai has created a committee to position itself as ‘a key city in the metaverse’ and seeks to increase the contribution of the metaverse sector to Dubai’s economy. The industry size is expected to reach $4bn by 2030 and create more than 40,000 virtual jobs.

THE METAVERSE DEMYSTIFIED

Going back to basics, the most common definition of metaverse is ‘a virtual digital world where interconnected platforms replicate and enhance real-life experiences or create new digital and hybrid services’. The journey of digital transformation involves:

Web 1.0 with the Tron version: It included users and builders with web browsers that had images, colours, audio, and eventually video.

Web 2.0 and the social network era: Tech companies such as YouTube and Facebook started utilising user-generated content as a service.

Web 3.0 in the form of Ready Player One: The metaverse fits in this era as it will be a contemporary version of web 3.0. It focuses on user experience rather than technology.

The era of the metaverse is identified by creativity and entrepreneurship. You, or technically your ‘avatar’, can move around stores, offices, theatres and other places in the metaverse. Your avatar can meet other avatars, have conversations, attend concerts, make purchases, organise meetings – and it does not require your physical presence. Besides, AI and blockchain can cut out the middleman

to make information and services more readily available, more private and potentially more secure.

However, the question about how to navigate the metaverse remains unanswered. While devices like VR glasses and headsets are being explored widely, various possibilities lie in the enhancement of phone cameras for voice commands rather than URLs, which will overlay virtual objects in a supermarket, street or your living room. The next big thing may even reside on technologybased holograms. It may seem like a sci-fi movie currently, but who would have imagined the potential of mobile phones in the early 2000s?

APPLYING LESSONS FROM THE PAST

Looking back at Microsoft’s and Facebook’s histories, the two organisations were slow to adapt to new technologies. During the initial mobile internet boom, Facebook did not pick up its pace as expected. It resorted to acquiring emerging competitors such as WhatsApp and Instagram, which otherwise threatened to eclipse Facebook through their mobile apps. After losing about half a million global users in the fourth quarter of 2021, Facebook is currently looking for a new growth story with Meta while its core business hits maturity. Similarly, Microsoft underestimated mobile internet usage and missed out on dominating the smartphone market. As a result, the tech giant had to manage a costly turnaround. In the era of the metaverse, both Facebook and Microsoft have taken the lead by implementing the next major technological shift. Both organisations seem to have learned a lesson and do not want to miss their boat.

Meanwhile, the list of companies offering a flavour of the metaverse continues to grow. Google is working on an updated metaverse version of its interactive glasses, and Apple intends to announce its own. Epic Games, a video games and software developer, has raised

$1bn to support its internal development of a metaverse. Online marketing is in for a big overhaul, and so are our daily lives.

ARE CONSUMERS READY FOR THE METAVERSE?

Businesses are gearing up, but are consumers primed for life in the metaverse? Based on the 2022 Havas Metaverse Prosumer study, the answer is yes – but with a heavy dose of caution. Today, over 96 per cent of Prosumers in the UAE have heard of the metaverse and are aware of, or have engaged with metaverses/gaming platforms such as Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft or Decentraland. Most UAE Prosumers believe that metaverses are the future of the internet, and over 54 per cent of them are willing to spend their money on a virtual experience. However, the desire to participate in this new wave of technology coexists with the anxiety that the metaverse will negatively affect our lives. For instance, 63 per cent of prosumers are afraid that being immersed in the metaverse will kill their desire to go out and explore the physical world, while 55 per cent of respondents believe that metaverses will worsen the digital divide between those with access and skills and those without.

Do we already have a metaverse? Many elements that the metaverse promises – such as web conferencing, video channels and e-commerce sites – are already accessible as virtual services, but without the new 3D interface. Second Life, Minecraft and Roblox are examples of virtual games turned into virtual worlds. However, the biggest differenciator is that navigating the metaverse today is a traditional experience. Consider Gucci’s metaverse experience in Roblox; a user downloads the Roblox app, searches for Gucci by typing it, and clicks on a 2D image of the Gucci Garden displayed in the results. This is followed by an immersive multimedia experience that explores and celebrates Alessandro Michele’s creative vision. However, new

While the metaverse makes its way into the mainstream, David Do Rosario of Havas Media Middle East offers his thoughts on whether businesses of the future should invest in the metaverse

models and interface modes are required to bring a truly new experience.

ADDRESSING TODAY’S DIGITAL CHALLENGES BEFORE WEB

3.0

As we unlock the next level of the digital evolution, there is a need to reflect on the security aspects of how we transact online. Consider financial transactions done online; conventional payments were not designed for the web. Credit cards are now commonly used for digital transactions, but it is an afterthought with several shortcomings. The concept of web 3.0 ideally includes cryptocurrency or digital currencies. Most metaverse platforms have built their own blockchain currency into the system. However, a lot needs to be done to clarify legal compliance and security. Local and global regulations have crushed Facebook’s multiple attempts to create a

global digital currency, Libra and Diem. It takes more than a blockchain solution to create a digital currency, and the legal framework for an actual digital currency does not exist yet.

The web is a great tool, but it suffers from major flaws. Customers and businesses have no real identity on the internet. To address fraud and digital crime, society must stop addressing identity as an afterthought and start considering trolls, hate-speech and online bullying as a critical issue. There is a need to focus on the positive impact of the web on the lives and safety of vulnerable users, including minors.

SHOULD I INVEST IN THE METAVERSE?

As we continue to create and explore the new digital world, more questions will arise. The future of the metaverse is yet to be defined. Many businesses are beginning to identify their potential and are happy to join the metaverse. Several brands have already made the leap by naming their ‘head of metaverse’, purchasing land on it, or adding to their NFT collection.

However, it would be ideal to take a pragmatic approach and take a moment to reflect on whether it is the right choice for your organisation. Creating a new internet experience is an important step. This will allow us to look back and identify aspects that need to be adjusted or improved. There is a lot of room for improvement in today’s customer experience before we all enter the world of holograms.

Organisations are on different stages of their journeys of digital transformation. Some businesses are barely starting their digital transformation into web 2.0 and this requires the involvement of various internal departments, specialised companies and creative and media partners so that they do not blindly perform a marketing stunt.

What makes the the metaverse extremely interesting is that the concept in its entirety is yet to be defined. A new wave of usability improvements will change the tide, and this is going to transform the way we experience the internet, especially from the consumers’ perspective.

Enterprise companies must first figure out their digital transformation. This will give them sufficient insights and time to prepare themselves for the metaverse. With companies focusing on performance marketing today, everything needs to be linked to ROI – it is a matter of finding the right spot in the innovation cycle. You can either choose to be a first mover in the generation and mobilisation of metaverse – but overinvest – or you can be a part of the experimentation phase as a follower. Ensure more certainty for your business.

By David Do Rosario, head of digital specialties, Havas Media Middle East

‘‘IT WOULD BE IDEAL TO TAKE A PRAGMATIC APPROACH AND TAKE A MOMENT TO REFLECT WHETHER IT IS THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR YOUR ORGANISATION.”

Take a look at the Instagram pages of an average brand and a regular user. It is often easy to identify which one is a brand and which one isn’t. However, when you do the same for two TikTok pages, the difference may not always be so obvious, considering that the brand uses TikTok to make TikToks, and not ads.

WHY IS THE DIFFERENCE SO EVIDENT?

One of the things that sets a brand’s social page apart from an average users’ page is that the brand’s content centres around its products. It follows brand guidelines and features its offers, prices and logos in a post. These elements do not come off as natural to the social platform. While the style and content vary from brand to brand, it is clear that as soon as any of the above points become the focus, content starts drifting away from what a normal user would post on its page. This brings us to an important question – why do normal users post what they post? Most people use social media to interact, update, entertain and educate their friends and family. They post content that their friends and family are likely to engage with, such as pictures from vacations, funny memes or an interesting take on the news. Meanwhile, brands post content that their audience are interested in engaging with, which leads to a completely different outcome.

CREATING FOR TIKTOK

With the rise of TikTok, brands are increasingly resorting to a natural and user-focused content strategy that they would not normally use on other

platforms. When you observe brands that are successful on TikTok, you will notice that they post content that blends with the style of average users. On the other hand, TikTok ads that look like conventional ads usually do not perform well on the platform.

To what extent does a natural and TikTok-friendly approach work? Overall, the average engagement rate by followers on TikTok is above 7 per cent – that is six times higher than the engagement rate on Instagram Reels, which lies at 1.65 per cent, according to Socialinsider. Evidently, users on TikTok enjoy the content more.

ENGAGE BETTER

Can brands replicate their TikTok content strategy to other platforms? There are three aspects to consider here — content that the audience wants to consume, content that brands want their audience to consume and content that brands want to communicate packaged in a way that interests their audience.

There is no magical formula to ensure success when it comes to social media but there are ways to increase engagement. The first step for brands is to understand the nature of the platform they are communicating on. For instance, what works on TikTok may not necessarily work on Twitter. Secondly, brands need to understand their audience, how they prefer to communicate and topics that interest them. Most brands are guilty of bombarding their audience with content or trying hard to sell using social platforms. Thirdly, keep the

content relevant and timely. These two factors are underestimated but it can make a huge difference to how the content performs. Nobody wants to see a brand hop on a trend that died three months ago. Additionally, not every piece of content needs to be a high-end production. Sometimes, simple content created on a phone can outperform the highest quality content.

The safe bet: always offer value through content –whether it is entertaining or educational – and always prioritise your audience.

By John Karam, social media manager, Hashtag Social Media Agency

TikTok is one of the hottest tools for marketers but most business are yet to benefit from its power and reach, writes Hashtag’s John Karam

‘‘NOT EVERY PIECE OF CONTENT NEEDS TO BE A HIGH-END PRODUCTION. SOMETIMES, SIMPLE CONTENT CREATED ON A PHONE CAN OUTPERFORM THE HIGHEST QUALITY CONTENT.”

If there is one trend that dominated business conversations in 2022, it has to be the metaverse. While many people still struggle to define exactly what the metaverse is, there is no escaping its growing impact with more than 500,000 searches per month and an expected market size of $800bn by 2024, projected by Bloomberg.

In a nutshell, the metaverse is a sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality and the internet. It is a shared virtual space where megatrends converge, with the user

experience augmented with the help of technology through avatars, shared screens and space or remote education and meetings.

Mark Zuckerberg famously calls it the ‘next internet’ and rebranded Facebook to Meta, stating that the metaverse would be his company’s focus. Devices and experiences will soon follow in the form of augmented reality, virtual reality and smart glasses. Microsoft recently acquired Activision Blizzard, a developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and products on consoles, mobile and PC. While Microsoft claims it was not a metaverse-focused acquisition, it will surely provide the company with metaverse opportunities. Google, Apple and many more tech brands are considering how they can take advantage of this intriguing new space.

DUBAI’S RACE TO THE METAVERSE

As ever, the UAE is at the forefront of new technological advancements. Just recently, the Dubai Metaverse Strategy was launched with the goal of making the emirate one of the top 10 metaverse economies and aims to build on Dubai’s success in attracting more than 1,000 blockchain and metaverse companies. It also promotes Dubai’s goal of supporting more than 40,000 virtual jobs by 2030 Thus, metaverse marketing has become a hot topic in the digital marketing world in the UAE, particularly when it comes to e-commerce and SEO.

The rise of the metaverse has also given digital marketers a lot to think about. Staying updated with the latest technological advancements is crucial when competing in today’s marketplace. The potential for digital marketing in the metaverse is limitless as it offers new and unique opportunities for brands looking to promote, market and sell products and services and raise awareness. More than 95 per cent of Fortune 500 companies already rely on at least one social media platform to market their business, but there is scope to go much further when entering the world of marketing in the metaverse.

E-COMMERCE AND SEO IN THE METAVERSE

Ever since the term ‘omnichannel’ became a key concept in the retail industry, brands have been

pushing to create cohesive experiences between e-commerce, stores and social media. That is why the metaverse is so enticing. It has the potential to improve current practices and create unique experiences for customers.

Creating a true customer journey in the metaverse is not a matter of duplicating a brand’s retail or online store into a virtual store. Instead, leaders building this new form of commerce need to be innovative and seize the opportunity to create a brand experience with their communities. It will also provide opportunities for brands to offer their customers hyper-personalised experiences without worrying about the boundaries of the physical world.

Additionally, with the advanced product visualisation capabilities in the metaverse, consumers can make more informed purchasing decisions, which could lead to increased profits. Indeed, studies show that consumers are willing to pay up to 40 per cent more for a product that can be tested in 3D –that is a serious incentive for brands in these challenging global economic times.

When it comes to SEO, just like when they transitioned into optimising to get found in search popular engines such as Google and YouTube, marketers now need to start analysing how to get found in the metaverse. Using keywords like ‘metaverse’ while optimising content will help attract the relevant audience via organic search results. Optimisations will still have to be domain-targeted and handled case-by-case. For Facebook (Meta) and the main search engines, it will be important to have optimal social pages and directory or location pages if companies have retail or office locations on each platform. Brands’ SEO strategists must stay up to speed with webmaster blogs and venue announcements for new guidelines and algorithm updates. The current algorithms reward brands for having more complete and accurate information. Expect this scoring pattern to continue and to be increasingly emphasised.

With the extraordinary revenue opportunities offered by the metaverse, competition for user attention and engagement will be fierce. Hence, the time for digital marketers to get familiar with this brave new world is not sometime in the next 12 months; it is right now.

By

Mohammed Mohsin, experience optimisation director, Reprise Digital

Oil and data are valuable assets, but both are becoming increasingly scarce in the region. Enterprises are relying on data to not just survive, but to identify new revenue streams and lead in the new normal. Large innovators such as Amazon, Netflix and Uber have business models centred around effective use of data.

With rigid laws and privacy fears, marketers are beginning to feel the loss of third-party cookies, which leads to challenges in tracking and understanding online user behaviour. While some fear a ‘cookieless’ future, adopting new strategies that rise above cookies will eventually give brands an upper hand in the industry.

WHAT DOES A COOKIELESS FUTURE LOOK LIKE?

Advertisers will depend less on third-party cookies – the traces of data exchanged with advertisers that contain personal identifiers of consumers browsing the web and apps. This greatly affects websites using third-party cookies which can detect consumers and target them with relevant communication and ads.

The direct impact of a cookieless world will be observed in the size of third-party audiences. Audience sizes will deteriorate drastically, and data will no longer be scalable enough for effective campaigns and reach. This will also lead to irrelevant messaging and lower conversions.

To overcome the loss of third-party cookies, marketers should shift to the use of first-party data, which is crucial in the modern and transparent data ecosystem. First-party data manages user identities and allows advertisers to develop customer relationships, while delivering more personalised user experiences, relevant communication and precise audience segmentation.

With this precise and reliable data, businesses can analyse a customer’s behaviour and preferences to address their requirements. You can track a customer’s online behaviour on owned channels such as a website or an app and bring together key insights to enhance their overall experience. Moreover, first-party data reduces overall costs as you needn’t purchase it from a third party. Processing this data may require more time and effort

but it will pay off with detailed insights about customers. With first-party data, you can build stronger marketing campaigns with audience segmentation based on demographics, interests, online behaviour and purchase behaviour. First-party data allows you to detect patterns and predict trends. It enables businesses to create extremely data-driven and well targeted campaigns with personalised experiences that strengthen customer relationship and brand loyalty.

THE RISE OF CDP

As enterprises increasingly rely on firstparty data and business leaders prioritise their customer information, we have observed an increase in the adoption of customer data platforms (CDPs). A CDP is the essence of an organisation’s customer data as it allows brands to acquire, manage and activate data through various marketing channels such as social, programmatic and video ads. A CDP comes with numerous benefits such as: A unified database for omnichannel marketing for personalised communication. Every interaction a brand has with its users – through the website, mobile app, email or social media – provides insights into their interests. A CDP can consolidate this data in ways that customer relationship management solutions (CRMs) cannot.

AI-powered personalisation, which can be used to identify potential customers as well as clients who are unlikely to convert.

The main disadvantage of first-party data is its lack of scalability, and that’s

why brands need to leverage data partnerships to widen their reach. For instance, we have noticed a rise in data partnerships and collaboration with telcos. They have a massive amount of data that can be converted into meaningful insights using location info at a very granular level. The concept of collaborating with data providers is not new, but recently technology and innovation have improved the efficacy of these alliances across different verticals. Data partnerships are very powerful as they drive valuable efficiencies in marketing and advertising, scale for reaching consumers, and deliver real benefits for consumers.

THE VERDICT

It is time to accept that first-party data is the future of marketing. With a CDP as a key component of data management strategy, businesses can adapt to the phasing out of third-party cookies by using a single platform to unify and consolidate all first-party data from multiple sources. By embracing this deeper level of data collection, alongside personalised content, businesses can understand customers better and improve their overall marketing performance.

By Jennifer Wartabedian, digital director, Initiative

Retail media has been an experimental playground for a while, and this year it evolved into a strategic advertising channel for most brands. In the first quarter of 2022, the spend on digital retail media advertising in the United States was 44 per cent higher when compared with last year. At a global level, this spend has increased by 38 per cent during the same period, states a study by Statista.

The MENA region currently lacks a strong ecosystem and hence the figures are lower here. However, with the extent of innovation we see here, we have no doubts that retail media will turn into a source of growth for the advertising market.

Retail media works as a great ally for brand awareness and optimised sales for advertisers such as retailers. It equips them with a new lever to monetise their most essential data, transactional data. Retail media is a constant source of innovation. However, it can be challenging to understand and implement formats and methodologies.

UNDERSTAND THE PRIMARY POTENTIAL OF RETAIL MEDIA

The world is at a pragmatic turning point in advertising, and retail media clearly offers a lot of potential. As a method of targeted advertising that focuses directly on the consumer’s purchasing path, retail media campaigns have two intentions:

For the brand: To work on powerful brand awareness and brand image throughout the consumer journey and boost sales by capitalising on the available ultra-captive transactional data.

For the retailer: To benefit from a significant additional revenue source, thanks to audience- and customer-data monetisation.

Retail media is not a new concept if you consider point of sale (POS) tools or promotional highlights

at a physical store. The field of retail media is now expanding into digital. Online retail media allows brands to mark their presence throughout the acquisition funnel including internet users’ first searches – thanks to digital advertisements in search and programmatic advertising. The relevance of retail media is amplified by the multitude of choices available throughout the conversion path and activation levers. However, developing the strategies can turn into a complex task.

FIGURE OUT THE OTHER BENEFITS

The primary purpose of a retail media strategy is to maximise the performance of a brand’s digital campaign by effectively associating with the retailer’s assets. Owned media – including advertising efforts on e-commerce, social networks, newsletters and every other means of communication that belongs to the retailer – is essential and profitable for retailers.

It is strongly recommended to improve the effectiveness of this strategy by adding paid media that includes retargeting, display and video, search engine advertising (SEA), social media, etc. and capitalising on consumer data monetisation via an audience extension. This enables a brand to go beyond its limitations and intervene at any desired stage of the conversion funnel. Finally, consumer data can also benefit brands that want to understand customer behaviour better or measure a campaign’s impact. At present, these surveys and learnings are essential for advertisers, and retailers must find ways to analyse and monetise their consumers data. Retail media providers that power the future cannot afford to ignore this additional measurement and understanding element.

BUILD OR OUTSOURCE

internalise the skills and technologies required to implement a retail media strategy or build an external partnership. The former seems to be the most adopted solution currently. The solution makes sense for distribution giants with the financial means and a sufficient volume of potential advertisers to make this approach justifiable and profitable in the short term. This internalisation ultimately means creating an advertising sales house and can even go as far as setting up a selfserved platform for brands and agencies. For instance, retail media platform CitrusAd and Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) have come together to enable Carrefour franchisees to provide brands and suppliers with insights and relevant first-party data. However, in 2022, outsourcing appears to be more popular. While outsourcing, we encourage retailers to choose partners based on their expertise, ability to segment and activate data, work across different web environments and innovate with customised or optimised creative technologies. Retail media is a dynamic and evolving industry, but it is still at a nascent stage in this part of the world.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE IN THE REGION?

Consider the recent MAF announcement and also how retail media is taking off in the US and Europe. Regional retailers are beginning to understand the value they can extract from customer data that they hold exclusively and will monetise it soon. They will partner with data management platform (DMP) suppliers, demand-side platforms (DSPs) and trading desks to put in place self-served platforms which are easier to scale-up. They can also push tried-and-tested live-shopping technologies and add to these the social segment the retail media currently lacks.

Yves-Michel Gabay, managing director, Gamned! MEA

‘‘THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF A RETAIL MEDIA STRATEGY IS TO MAXIMISE THE PERFORMANCE OF A BRAND’S DIGITAL CAMPAIGN BY EFFECTIVELY ASSOCIATING WITH THE RETAILER’S ASSETS.”

Retailers have two options: they can either

Retail media can help brands maximise the performance of their digital campaign by effectively associating with the retailer’s assets, Gamned! MEA’s YvesMichel Gabay writes

Saudi focus

Transcending potential

For most of us living in the Middle East, the past decade has been no less than a roller coaster ride. As we coped with the financial crisis of 2008 and the market started to recover, major economies like the UAE and KSA took a bold and ambitious stand to make the region a powerhouse. We have seen globalisation transform the region while welcoming new businesses, entrepreneurs, media, artists and talents from across the globe. It is a success story that changed so many lives.

The Middle East region has seen the launch of the most ambitious visions that have snowballed into transformation at a hyper speed. Such as the UAE Vision 2021, KSA’s Vision 2030, Qatar National Vision 2030, Egypt’s Vision 2030, and many more initiatives launched to support the growth of the region’s economy. They are powerful national transformation visions with the conviction to facilitate exponential growth.

The UAE launched a very ambitious vision to position the country on the global map and make it a business hub. And today, we all can see the position the country has acquired on a global scale. With the launch of The Fifa World Cup, Qatar has aggressively positioned itself as a sports hub with an investment of about $200bn to host the world for the most awaited sports tournament.

With the launch of KSA’s Vision 2030, the country rolled out plans to revamp each sector, announced investment, liberalised business

regulations and developed infrastructure as it embarked on a journey to bring widespread and long-lasting change.

Six years since the launch of the Vision, the Kingdom has seen a quantum leap across sectors. With international businesses expanding their operations into the capital, an overhaul of infrastructure, the launch of more green initiatives and pledges from the government, a significant boost in tourism, the launch of e-services for operational processes, increased focus on digital payment solutions and financial instruments, uptake in sports activities by residents, the e-commerce boom and so much more has already been accomplished.

One of the key pillars of the Vision is to create a vibrant society for its citizens and residents. In order to create a thriving society, the leadership of the country has been pushing forward across each avenue to establish and expand an international market within the country itself, allowing it to compete on a global level.

One of the biggest projects launched recently by KSA is Jeddah Central, with a total investment of SAR 75bn, as one of the many milestones in enhancing the community living in Saudi Arabia to make Jeddah one of the most attractive residential hubs across the world. The project is expected to achieve an estimated added value of SAR 47bn for the Kingdom’s economy by 2030.

In 2022, Savvy Games, owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF), announced a $38bn investment in gaming companies intending to develop the growing gaming and e-sports industry in the Kingdom. The country’s greatest asset is its population, 60 per cent of which is below the age of 35. According to a report published by Boston Consulting Group, there are 23.5 million gamers in the country. That is about 67 per cent of the young population. Gaming has become more mainstream in recent years and in a bid to compete on an international level, Saudi Arabia is ramping up its participation with investments and global partnerships.

The international market has been pushing the cause and benefits of electric vehicles to reduce carbon emissions significantly. The global population has unified in its purpose to reverse

climate change and is getting involved in the conversation and making this transformation a ground reality. Bolstering its commitment to diversifying the economy and, more importantly, reducing carbon emissions, the Kingdom recently announced the launch of its own electric vehicle brand in partnership with Foxconn. By 2026, the country aims to manufacture and export more than 150,000 electric cars.

With multiple initiatives launched over the years and billions of dollars committed to investment, Saudi Arabia has opened up a whole new consumer market, attracting people from all over the world. The business climate is ripe and yielding, but the ongoing societal changes make a case for themselves. With a majority millennial and Gen Z population, access to the latest technology, 96 per cent smartphone and internet penetration, a scalable economy and sustained development initiatives, the Kingdom is charting its course to global competitiveness making it a magnet for investment.

Entourage’s Mohammed Tayem writes how the Kingdom has powered growth through Vision 2030

‘‘In order to create a thriving society, the leadership has been pushing forward to establish and expand an international market within the country.’’

MOHAMMED TAYEM, founder and CEO, Entourage

The state of digital in Saudi Arabia is evolving beyond expectation and gaining exponential interest, both regionally and globally. Since the launch of Saudi Vision 2030, the Kingdom has taken great strides towards a more advanced digital transformation. The Saudi Vision 2030 aspires to build a digitally led economy, and in pursuit of this goal, the government has launched a range of digital-first initiatives. The vision will benefit both the public and private sectors by uplifting and empowering their overall growth and development through a digital lens. But businesses might wonder how that affects them, especially if they are not in a highly technical industry. As the nation steadily expands its focus on digital transformation, it becomes requisite for businesses to reevaluate their strategy with the Saudi 2030 vision in mind. If we fail to strategise innovatively and keep up with the times, we will be left behind.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING

A data-driven approach can help your business grow across the board, from logistics, accounting, and customer service efforts to marketing and outreach initiatives. While devising a digitally conscious and data-first marketing strategy is vital for all businesses globally, the Kingdom is indeed at the frontier of digital transformation and advanced data.

As paid advertising witnesses unprecedented times with an all-time high in terms of revenue and ad spend in Saudi, businesses must step up their digital game. Having increased by more than 50 per cent in the last three years, the improvement in average spend per user throughout the Kingdom shows promising growth.

Some of the challenges that CMOs are dealing with in 2022 are the inability to create meaningful connections with their customers and being able to optimise marketing funnels by using big data. As traditional marketing channels become more decentralised and the digital landscape more segmented, it becomes critical to create meaningful relationships and connections with your customers. Similarly, marketers are facing another set of challenges. According to the Oracle Marketing Trends 2022 report, 38 per cent of marketers surveyed said that maximising channel performance is one of their top marketing challenges. While 32 per cent said that one of the biggest challenges they deal with is segmenting and targeting audiences.

This is where the data-driven approach comes into play. The ‘Vision 2030’ expansion involves advanced use of technology, which means

Saudi focus

Keeping up with digital

By Salma Eraki, content manager, Assembly Global

brands and marketers can utilise targeted usage of data and intelligence. Digital transformation will make relevant data available through a data-driven media planning approach.

It helps drastically increase your chances of targeting the correct audience and driving more revenue by leveraging advertising automation. Properly targeted messaging enabled by data-driven marketing can improve conversion rates because it is more likely to reach the right audience and attract relevant attention.

Embracing machine learning and utilising big data to elevate your marketing strategies can provide a better understanding of your customers and enable you to meet them where they are. Leveraging the power of big data through analysing the customer journey and employing personalisation and automation can ultimately help brands drive results and allow them greater insight into consumer behaviours.

VISION 2030’S IMPACT ON E-COMMERCE

With the highly promising investment opportunities that Vision 2030 will bring for businesses in different industries, the contribution of modern trade and e-commerce is projected to increase to 80 per cent of the retail sector. Additionally, Saudi consumers are moving in the direction of digital payments, which is a natural progression since Saudi Arabia’s internet penetration rate stood at 97.9 per cent of the total population at the start of 2022. As Saudi consumers spend more time online and get more comfortable with digital payments, their interest in e-commerce grows. According to a new report by BCG, titled ‘The SAR 50 Billion E-commerce Opportunity in Saudi Arabia,’ the sector’s market value increased by almost 60 per cent between 2019 and 2020 and is projected to exceed SAR 50bn by 2025.

As a result of the e-commerce boom under Vision 2030, every sector of the Saudi economy for business-to-consumer (B2C) goods and services saw increased digital spending in 2021. This resulted in a significant increase in consumer demand for digital commerce and associated services.

Vision 2030 is a uniquely transformative economic and social reform blueprint that is opening Saudi Arabia up to the world. Tech enthusiasts or not, this great endeavour to transform and innovate inspires us all to think of what the future holds for the Kingdom with great optimism. As Saudi Arabia strives to create a more diverse and sustainable economy, businesses are left with endless opportunities to claim a place in this future-facing initiative.

Assembly’s Salma Eraki writes on the role of digital in the Saudi 2030 Vision and how businesses can benefit from it

Many things have changed in Saudi Arabia since the inception of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s Vision 2030, and we can all observe the difference. Prince Mohammed is interested in the growth and support of youth, sports and overall quality of life. The advancement of sports is one of the most apparent shifts in the country. Prince Mohammed has placed a great deal of trust in Prince Abdul Aziz bin Turki Al Faisal, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Sports, and that faith has been proven correct. He is both young and energetic, and his accomplishments are noteworthy. He was one of the first Saudi athletes to compete in international events and inspired many Saudis to compete at the same level as he did. His contributions to the sports field are impressive and should be recognised.

The sports scene was able to get this momentum going through the restructuring of the active sports federations, concentrating on their growth, providing them with the appropriate funding and electing young CEOs and board members who are passionate and competent. People we knew or heard of while growing up, either because we went to school with them or we worked professionally with them, had an unusual or peculiar enthusiasm for other sports at that time. Back then, most of us simply watched football and had no idea what the difference between jiu-jitsu and wrestling was, but some of them were watching or competing in MMA, golf or tennis and had gained a wealth of knowledge about each discipline. Then, announcements

Saudi focus

were made regarding the establishment of new sports federations, one of which was for Saudi Esports, along with others.

On the other hand, the establishment of fully government-funded sports enterprises served as a means of assisting sports in the development of their respective ecosystems with the goals of driving job creation, producing commercial possibilities and producing revenue streams.

been going on, and the signal of change that is the largest national sporting event, known as the Saudi Games. During the competition, over 6,000 competitors competed in more than 45 different sports. Both male and female participants made up the amateurs and professionals in this tournament. It was incredible in every way, and not only did it engage our pride and enthusiasm, but it also represented a turning point in the history of sports in the country. Seeing all these talented women representing their teams and competing was an inspiring sight.

The torch relay began in Riyadh and continued to a total of 17 different cities across the Kingdom. The torch travelled all over the country. It was done in a way that allowed everyone to participate, and residents from each city joined in the celebrations. It was a beautiful way to celebrate. Athletes from each city took turns carrying the torch and making their way to a variety of historical sites and landmarks while being celebrated by the people of their own city.

The most important factor that led to the expansion of athletics in the country was the historic decision to let women in the country participate in sports. This decision was a game-changer for the overall advancement of sports. These young female athletes are paving the way for young people of the future generations to follow in their footsteps and break limitations.

This past month, we had the opportunity to witness the fruit of the labour that has

Ready, Saudi, go

The Saudi Games made former athletes feel relevant and respected by allowing them to share their knowledge with future competitors. This helped the Saudi Games succeed. This well-attended national event brought together people from all walks of life to compete, which in turn has created a sports culture that is vital to a strong nation.

Our nation will create athletes of worldclass calibre, who will go on to win gold. We are already seeing the positive effects on society as well as the sporting community. And we expect better things to happen in the future. Future iterations of the Saudi Games may include younger age groups, showcase various regional talent, or possibly feature competitors from around the world.

I believe that the Saudi Games will continue to grow and become one of the most well-known names in sporting competitions over the world.

Fusion5’s

Abdulelah

Shaher Al Nahari writes how the sports culture in the Kingdom has transformed in recent years

‘‘The most important factor that led to the expansion of athletics was the historic decision to let women participate in sports.’’

By Abdulelah Shaher Al Nahari, director of business development – KSA, Fusion5

TARIQ AL SHARABI

MATTER OF FACT

News, views & trends from across the spectrum

IS GOOGLE BECOMING IRRELEVANT?

While Google continues to be the most popular search engine worldwide, more consumers are using Amazon to find products, Instagram and TikTok to keep up with trends, and Snapchat’s Snap Maps to locate nearby businesses. This lays the foundation for one of the most underreported stories of 2022 with the potential to have the greatest long-term e ect: the speed at which search results are fragmenting. Accessing information is no longer a unilateral practice of googling, with more young people opting to access the internet through social or entertainment apps.

Managing Director of Cicero & Bernay Communication Consultancy

But Google is not one to go down without a fight. In response, the search engine is updating its standard interface to elevate users’ search experience by launching a number of new features, such as topic-specific tools and other adjustments that will make searching on the platform a more visual experience.

For instance, when looking up a location, you might find pictures, a small map showing its location, travel information, the weather, and even brief videos. These are presented in vibrant, card-style blocks with media and imagery interspersed rather than as a list of links or in a text-heavy format. A juggernaut like Google being compelled to change is a testament to the growing power and influence of users. Though this has been an expanding trend for around a decade, its results are being felt most today, with those who grew up using digital tools driving change or improving on what is out there through their own innovation.

not to rest on its laurels as the primary video-meeting platform, Zoom is out

reimagine its ecosystem to o er users a centralised digital workspace that integrates their emails and calendars. This is yet another step forward that will further cement Zoom’s lead ahead of Teams and way ahead of Skype.

#NOT

Brew, please.

BrewDog took a hard stance by rolling out a World Cup campaign to highlight the alleged human rights abuses perpetrated by the host country. Except the company is still selling its products there and the convenient disregard of the human rights abuses taking place elsewhere in the world, just south of Lebanon, is evidence of BrewDog’s and other corporations’ hypocritical concerns and politics.

Source: Forbes.com

Loredana Matei

MARKETERS AND THE CASE OF FTX

TECH TIPS

Loredana

Media reports alleged that the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, had used funds from FTX customers inappropriately to make risky investments in Alameda Research, a hedge fund he also ran. The suspected commingling between the executives of both companies triggered customers of FTX to rush in withdrawing their deposits, which also led to the overnight collapse of the firm.

, founder and executive director of Jensen Matthews PR

FTX being referred to with terms such as ‘bankrupt’ and ‘fraudulent’ on various broadcasting platforms will have a negative impact on the credibility of the cryptocurrency industry, where Bitcoin prices, for example, spent most of the previous month trading in a narrow range of between $19,000 and $20,000. This is because the company seemed to be one of the few that has seen stability in what has been a rough year in the crypto sphere. In the heat of the catastrophe, it didn’t get better when Bankman-Fried exchanged words in the media with the founder of the leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, Changpeng Zhao, who had called the former names. These media and Twitter wars by founders have a history of negativity, which doesn’t augur well for an already volatile market in this case.

So how do marketers play a role in all this?

‘Marketers’ in this context refers to advocates within the crypto sphere who put out information on new and traditional media platforms, most of them being journalists and broadcasters. Media platforms are meant to disseminate information in an ethical way, educate and, in some cases, entertain. They are also a sort of watchdog for the community as people use the information garnered to assist them in making critical decisions.

There is, however, a thin line between being a watchdog and putting out speculated information that can crash a market. The harm cannot be easily undone, and it creates a lacuna between sanitising the industry and helping it to thrive. Real transparency is essential, but it also has to be backed by data.

The FTX collapse is a massive blow to the crypto community and represents a step back from the hard work that has been put in to build trust between regulators and users. Therein lies the validity of calls for regulation of marketing messaging in highly volatile markets such as that of cryptocurrency. In the meantime, it is the right call for marketers to always crosscheck materials and messages, not pushing out everything that comes their way. That responsibility also comes with the understanding that every piece of information they put out there has the potential of being a high risk – in terms of the money that can be lost, and being an overall lead to a whole market collapse.

Media back and forth, and lately the trend of so-called ‘Twitter Wars’ that founders of cryptocurrency firms engage in, has affected stocks and assets in investments within the ecosystem. Marketers can help here too by being part of a controlled messaging system where founders should not use social media platforms, especially Twitter, as a warzone or to drive an ego-boosting agenda. It should instead be a platform to take very responsible stances in terms of what is going on in the ecosystem, and where it is headed. That will make room for a progressive trajectory, contrary to what looks to be the norm.

The FTX collapse has revealed the responsibility that marketers have to keep the industry honest, and in the process make sure that crypto firms have a clean and ethical strategy as well. They have to craft messaging around crypto coins and exchanges in general, making sure they provide accurate representation in the media.

As simplistic as it sounds, marketers can play a role in advising founders to take a step back from Twitter, for instance, and rather aid in leading content to deliver responsible messaging around their businesses and the ecosystem of highly volatile markets.

Marketers should practise the evangelism of optimism, being mindful of their role in paying attention to reportage that does not harm the industry but rather sustains it to thrive even in times of uncertainty.

FoxPush announces new demand side platform

FoxPush Publishers and advertisers AD Tech Solutions have announced the launch of their new demand side platform (DSP).

FoxPush expanded its adtech services, where advertisers can run their campaigns while targeting audiences with the use of modern artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms to help them increase their ad’s relevance and spend their budgets in the right place.

Through the new DSP, advertisers get access to data management platforms, without any additional commission fee and can reach a marketplace of websites (FoxPush network), ad exchanges, and supply-side platforms in different environments; Web, App (Android & ios), and, mobile.

A demand-side platform is a system that allows buyers of digital advertising inventory to manage multiple ad exchanges and data exchange accounts through one interface.

“With the FoxPush DSP, your teams are well positioned to identify, reach and buy with precision,” said FoxPush in a statement. “We provide an elegant user experience for the seamless activation of your campaigns, across channels, real-time backed by your proprietary data. We are the first DSP in the MENA region with Arabic language flexible and sophisticated targeting capabilities, helping advertisers reach the users by their behaviours, interests, geo-fencing, etc. Moreover, FoxPush’s user-friendly DSP centralises the ad-buying process, allowing advertisers to have a wide cross-channel reach from a single source.

“Any advertiser willing to run any type of campaign can run it in nanoseconds, especially lead campaigns; an automated machine learning technology is in place to qualify the leads by customising a recorded phone call that follows up on the lead acquisition to guarantee a better ROI to the client,” said FoxPush.

FoxPush’s DSP will also be able to provide advertisers with real-time campaign monitoring and detailed end-of-campaign reports.

Matei

Marketers should always crosscheck materials and messages. That responsibility comes with the understanding that every piece of information they put out there has the potential of being a high risk.

Changing the game

There are two main focuses in this issue of Campaign Middle East: Digital Essays and Marketing Game Changers.

I’ve written more about the Digital Essays in my introduction to that section on page 43, and I’d recommend you check out all the essays (the real thing is always better than my summary). The people who have written the essays have bravely tackled the unenviable task of balancing a realistic view of how things are now against a forward-looking prediction of where things are going in their fast-changing industry. And digital is in a state of turmoil at the moment, with Twitter, Meta and other tech companies laying off staff and shifting focus. Whether the changes are because of madmen at the helm, a global economic slowdown or just because we didn’t become as digitally native post-Covid as we thought we would in the thick of the pandemic, the crystal balls of technology soothsayers around the world are a tad cloudy right now.

But at least it’s a good time to hire tech talent, said one global network CEO I spoke to recently. If employees are being asked to leave the walled gardens of Big Tech and Big Social, they will be welcomed by agencies and clients looking for talent with insights into that secretive horticulture.

The other focus of this issue is our annual selection of Marketing Game Changers. It’s now the fourth year in this series, and I like to think it is a success story. We began it as a way to make client-side marketers feel more welcome and involved with the Campaign community, by celebrating the achievements of the people who run brands from within.

When we first launched Game Changers, we were necessarily limited to the people we knew about ourselves – the ones who we had crossed paths with organically or through their agencies, and whose work we admired. This year, we reached out to our ‘Game Changer Alumni’, the people who we have recognised in previous years. We asked them who we should be looking at and who we might have otherwise missed. Consequently, I think, the 11 individuals profiled from page 17 represent a wider range of remarkable

talent than we could have reached on our own. Thank you to our past masters for reducing our top-talent blind spot.

No one who is featured isn’t remarkable. Just take a look. Some have been in their roles for a long time, building iconic brands and crafting household-name campaigns for decades. Others have made a big splash in the past year alone, and all have made an impact on their brands, their industries and the region’s marketing community.

AUSTYN ALLISON

Editor austyn.allison@motivate.ae @maustyn

The past year is one that has seen the world diversify again. The shared experience of Covid-19 made humanity more unified than ever, and marketing reflected that. Now we are once again celebrating what makes regions different. We have a high proportion of Game Changers involved with national brands that are shaping the way the world sees our countries and the entire Middle East.

Perhaps my favourite bit about the Game Changers is the smaller details, though, rather than the big picture. Who is obsessed with smallhold farming? Who is writing their first novel? Who runs more than 20 WhatsApp Groups? My colleagues and I have been downloading new podcasts and apps, and comparing our reading and games choices as we read what regional marketers do in their spare time.

I recommend you do the same. Enjoy reading about the people who are shaping the industry. Celebrate them and learn from them, and see what you discover for yourselves.

Hidden in plain sight

There’s an old joke about a man who crosses the border every day with a wheelbarrow full of sand.

Every day the guard stops him and searches through the sand, every day he finds nothing.

For years the man crosses the border with the wheelbarrow full of sand, the guard knows he’s smuggling something but he searches in the sand and finds nothing.

After many years, the guard says he is retiring, can he ask the man one question? As it’s his last day, the man agrees to answer it.

TROTT

The guard says: “Every day you cross the border with a wheelbarrow full of sand and every day I search the sand and find nothing. I have to ask you, what are you smuggling?”

The man replies: “Wheelbarrows.”

That is the principle of Hiding in Plain Sight.

In 1942, the allies lost the Battle of the Java Sea, the Japanese sank almost the entire fleet. A small Dutch minesweeper, the Abraham Crijssen, managed to escape.

It was slow and poorly armed and in seas now controlled by the Japanese navy. The only chance was to get to Australia; don’t stop just keep going and pray.

But they were in waters constantly

patrolled by the Japanese navy.

The captain decided instead to hide in plain sight. He disguised his ship as a jungle island. The crew covered it with every bit of foliage they could gather, and they painted every bit of metal to look like sand and rock. The ship travelled only at night, during the day it moored next to a similar looking island.

Japanese planes passed over, looking for a ship but all they saw was small islands.

After eight days, the Abraham Chrijssen arrived safely in Australia.

Edgar Allan Poe was the first person to write about hiding in plain sight, in 1844 in The Purloined Letter. The entire French police force search a flat for an incriminating letter. The flat they are searching belongs to a criminal mastermind, so they know it must be in the most devious of hiding places. They search for secret compartments, they search behind the wallpaper, they search inside the legs of furniture, they poke needles into cushions, they find nothing.

Eventually Poe’s detective, the precursor to Sherlock Holmes, says that he has found it.

The police are gobsmacked and ask him what they missed.

He says they missed the obvious,

it was crumpled up and dirty on a table by the door. The place that the master criminal knew was far too obvious for them to even consider.

We are like those policemen. We have entire research and marketing departments dedicated to finding the most complicated solutions to brand problems.

Clients change agencies based on these different complicated strategic insights. But all the sophisticated marketing types ignore the basic problem. The numbers are: 4 per cent of advertising is remembered favourably and 7 per cent is remembered negatively.

These are the only numbers we seem capable of understanding.

We totally miss the biggest number of all which is hiding in plain sight: 89 per cent of advertising isn’t noticed or remembered.

While we are looking for more complicated solutions, we miss the fact that guarantees the failure of whatever we do: 89 per cent of advertising isn’t noticed or remembered. Just like the border guard, or the Japanese navy, or the French police force, we miss the real problem because it is hiding in plain sight. As Bill Bernbach said: “If no-one notices your advertising, everything else is academic.”

Dave Trott is the author of The Power of Ignorance, Creative Blindness and How to Cure It, Creative Mischief, Predatory Thinking and One Plus One Equals Three

Volkswagen… “Not sure enough care has gone into the idea.” (RM)

Nike… “The words and the pictures seem to be hi ing different briefs.” (RM) Home Centre… “An amusing way to portray a slightly standard topic.” (AF)

QFFD… “Hard-hi ing films such as these are still required in this century.” (AF)

Use the QR code to view this work on Campaign’s website.

Private View

RICHARD MIDGELY

Chief strategy officer, Audience Collective

NIKE: SPORT IS NEVER DONE (1)

This is a great message. But it is not clear whether they are talking to the kids – it looks like it with all the special effects and cool activities – but then the message seems to be much more for the parents. Unfortunately, in trying to do both, it misses the mark. It would be much better to focus on one audience or split the creative and the media buying. This is a case where the words and the pictures seem to be hitting different briefs.

HOME CENTRE: MEET YOUR DREAM SELF (2)

It gets straight to the core message and immediately had me interested. A bit of humour on the fact that we could all do with a six-pack is also a nice addition, if not a little lazy – just bashing men for not being sexier. But my biggest issue is what are they selling. Beds? Pillows? Apps that play soothing music? Very boring stories told by someone with a very dull voice? I can only assume they are so famous for beds that they can sell us sleep solutions. Sometimes we need to ensure the message is not lost in the cleverness. Once we have the viewer’s attention, we then ensure they get the message.

QFFD: WOMEN IN CONFLICT ZONES (3)

Wonderful production values and a very poignant message. What was very clever here is that not only did the QFFD want us to know that they provide money for women and girls in terrible circumstances but equally that there is a benefit to getting women and girls involved in the solutions. It didn’t just show them as victims but as part of the solution.

ALWAYS: THE NOT HOT COLLECTION (4)

I thought this might be a spoof ad. But then I realised it’s a very brave concept – finding a solution for women who are suffering in the heat more than normal due to their periods. But then it dawned on me: how brave would a woman have to be to wear clothing that actually advertises the fact that she has her period? I’m not sure society has reached a stage where this would be something that women want to do. I hope I am wrong and I hope this is a solution that many women feel they can embrace.

VOLKSWAGEN: WE CARE TOO MUCH (5)

Is it me or does this guy really not care at all? He should be spending his time caring about my car when all he seems to care about is dancing around and using the tools for props. I get that it’s advertising and someone has briefed the agency that they need a ‘TikTok’, but surely you could find a better way to dramatise how much he really does care than dancing, not letting you have the car back or getting into very strange positions to clean every inch? But just dancing? I’m not sure enough care has gone into the idea.

AMANDA FOXPRYKE

Deputy managing director, Performance Communications

NIKE: SPORT IS NEVER DONE (1)

In the classic Nike way, they have nailed the concept and message with fast-paced and exciting content to highlight an important topic around physical play for kids at a younger age. They got all the relatable nuances right in a fun and cheeky style. It’s great to see Nike supporting a good cause and creating relatable content to push that. It’s also nice to see a meaningful activation happening in the market to accompany this campaign to bring it to life in a physical way.

HOME CENTRE: MEET YOUR DREAM SELF (2)

This was an amusing way to portray a slightly standard topic and sales message. Mattresses are maybe not the ‘coolest’ products to sell. You can tell they had fun creating this content with a little humour and concept play, all of which communicated the key message in a very easily relatable manner.

QFFD: WOMEN IN CONFLICT ZONES (3)

An extremely effective film which portrays the issues and challenges faced by women in conflicts and wars –emotions certainly run high when watching this. The key takeaway from this is the simple fact that hard-hitting films such as these are still required in this century when we like to believe that the world has become a more civilised place. The hope for all of us is that one day these types of campaigns will no longer be needed.

ALWAYS: THE NOT HOT COLLECTION (4)

This is often a difficult product and message to get right, but Always certainly found the perfect partner for this collaboration – as the symmetry works very well. There is a natural connection between Nasiba’s new collection and Always’ new product, and therefore, a stronger message for the consumer to buy into. It was also a bold campaign to launch in the KSA market to change perceptions about this personal topic and around Saudi fashion. I think it is a job well done.

VOLKSWAGEN: WE CARE TOO MUCH (5)

The topic of Aftersales, especially for those working in the automotive world, is often considered a tough sell for marketers, but Volkswagen showed this isn’t the case with the creation of quirky content to sell the ‘We Care’ message to customers. Not only was the content catchy and fun, but it was also created in perfect TikTok style (dancing included!) – a nice way to communicate a business message with personality and fun.

Nike

Title: Sport is never done

Agency: Wieden+Kennedy Production house: Camouflage Production

Home Centre

Title: Meet Your Dream Self

Agency: FP7 McCann Dubai

Production house: Big Kahuna Films

QFFD

Title: Women in Conflict Zones Production house: The Film House Writer and director: Omar Khalifa

Always

Title: The Not Hot Collection Agency: Leo Burnett Lebanon Production house: Liwa Content Driven

Volkswagen

We Care Too Much

Agency: Create Production house: Create Production Creative partner: TikTok

The Spin

The Spin is no stranger to mistargeted press releases, but Interface Tourism may have raised the bar when it sent us an email about Chile winning a ‘Tourism Oscar’ for its green credentials. The email was in French.

One piece of ‘verte’ news we can totally get on board with, though, is the update that Green Planet in Dubai has introduced two as-yet unnamed ‘sloth sisters’ to its indoor forest. We’ve not been this excited here at Spin Sloth Watch since the gender reveal of a three-month-old sloth baby back in January.

The Spin loves a clever bit of design work, so we take our hats off to the American University in Dubai graphic design students who put together this invite to their show, disguised as packing labels.

The word ‘as’ indicates at least a degree of concurrency and should be used with caution in headlines. Something an unfortunate sub-editor might have forgotten when she wrote this sell about the passing away of actor Leslie Phillips. We suspect his wife might have actually reserved her tribute until after her husband’s demise.

Appointments

WebEngage announced the appointment of HETARTH PATEL as the new vice-president – MENA and managing director – UAE. Working closely with the founding team, Patel will spearhead WebEngage’s growth aspirations in MENA. Prior to joining WebEngage, he headed strategy and sales development for customer experience solutions at Oracle.

Horizon Holdings appointed NABIL MOUFARREJ as its managing director to lead its Riyadh operation, Al-Afak. In his new role, Moufarrej will support and lead the existing team.

He brings 26 years of communication expertise, having worked in

some of the most reputable agencies in the region.

BPG (part of the WPP Network) announced senior-level appointments.

It appointed DARIUS LABELLE as EVP/chief client officer to lead the agency’s CX, digital, creative, and strategy products. LaBelle has two decades of experience in strategy, brand, business growth and CX across consumer, healthcare and B2B. He has worked with agencies including BBDO, Ogilvy, Havas and Sapient and for brands including Emirates and Aldar. Before joining BPG, LaBelle was based in New York, where he helped launch Havas Health CX.

RAMY EL SAKKA has been appointed as the SVP/chief creative officer of BPG. El Sakka has worked agencies including

Viola Communications has appointed SAMER KHANSA as integrated client services director for its integrated client servicing division, operating out of Viola’s Abu Dhabi headquarters.

Khansa has more than 21 years of experience in the industry. He has managed various accounts for companies such as PepsiCo and brands such as Adidas, Emirates, Etisalat and GE.

Impact BBDO announced the promotions of NOURAN SALEH to senior account manager and MAY MADI to account manager.

Nouran Saleh has experience handling accounts across a range of industries. Some of the brands she has worked with include Reebok, INGLOT, Marks & Spencer and Modesh. She joined Impact BBDO as an intern and has progressed to a senior account manager in under four years.

May Madi has more than four years’ experience in campaign management, graphic design, sales, and marketing analytics. She holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the American University in Dubai and graduated with honours.

J Walter Thompson Cairo, Leo Burnett Cairo, DDB Dubai and BBDO UAE, on brands such as Nokia, Nestle, Orange, PepsiCo, Henkel, Glad, Etisalat and Lipton Ice Tea. He played a major role in charting DDB’s success and has won numerous awards for the agency.