Guests gather to listen to Paulo Coelho. And the rest of us get heard as well
Originally published in Communicate, January 2008
We wanted people to come to a debate on the power of personal image last month, where we discussed how celebrity status could be harnessed to drive the public toward brands, products, messages and causes.
So we invited Paulo Coelho to speak at it, and the people we invited turned up to listen. Read the rest of this entry »
In the UAE, where every business wants to appear the biggest and best, firms are turning to event marketers to make their functions stand out
Originally published in Communicate, December 2007
In Dubai, everyone has something to say. Even when they don’t. Press conferences promising “important announcements” or “pioneering developments” are a daily occurrence. Showing off, it seems, is an important part of business culture here.
Companies, then, need to do something special to make their announcements and corporate events stand out. Read the rest of this entry »
Sultan of spin Alastair Campbell was in Dubai last month for the PR congress
Originally published in Communicate, December 2007
One PR recently shared the refreshing confidence with Communicate that the reason she went into the business was that, “Whatever I do, it won’t harm anyone.” This is not true for all practitioners of the dark arts, though, and Alastair Campbell, described by one UK tabloid as “the most powerful man in Britain,” is – some would have it – proof that a well-spun story can be a lethal weapon. Read the rest of this entry »
JWT’s regional boss talks about stepping down. And agency biology
Originally published in Communicate, November 2007
In the training gym of regional advertising, Roy Haddad is a gruff, experienced sparring partner – the sort of adversary younger pugilists can learn from. He sways and bobs and weaves as he talks, rolling back in his chair, fidgeting with energy.
Haddad delivers his answers, insights and analysis in sharp jabs. He says what he has to, then stops. Asked what agencies he worked for before he founded Tihama Al Mona International, which eventually became JWT, in 1981, he parries the question. “You want me to promote the competition? Forget it.” Read the rest of this entry »
The UAE’s latest film fest needs to fit in with other regional events, not ignore them
Originally published in Communicate, November 2007
If the Oscars is a fine five-course meal cooked with the best ingredients from around the world in a professional kitchen by accomplished master chefs, the awards ceremony for the inaugural Middle East International Film Festival was an attempt to create the same effect with supermarket own-brand tins, a two-burner hob and a stained Jamie Oliver book. It was an admirable try, and thoroughly enjoyable, but a little singed around the edges. Read the rest of this entry »
It pays to be superlative as Guinness World Records prepares to publish the second edition of its trivia trove book in Arabic. Can brands cash in?
Originally published in Communicate, October 2007
The region in general, and the UAE in particular, claims a lot – the world’s tallest building, the fanciest hotel, the largest man-made marina, the biggest inflatable bottle. So it is perhaps surprising that of the 48,000 official records set since 1954, only around 120 belong to the Middle East and North Africa.
Now companies in the region are working with Guinness World Records to give themselves something to shout about. It seems being No. 1 is good business, whether a brand has sponsored more football teams than any other or unwrapped the biggest box of chocolates.
“Arab people are proud people,” says Myriam Hoballah, regional project director for Guinness World Records. “And I believe they are the right people to enhance Guinness’s brand. Why? Because they are so positive about these ideas. They like the fun part and the showing off.”
MANY CLAIMS
Al Waseet International, a Kuwaiti company best known for its weekly free classifieds publication, represents Guinness World Records in the region and is ready to help companies looking for a record to break.
The company also plans to launch the 2008 Arabic version of the Guinness World Records book at the end of this month in Abu Dhabi, the world’s richest city.
Many of the claims made by Dubai businesses of being the biggest, the best and the first are never validated. “Most of [the region’s claimed records], I am sure, are not listed as Guinness World Records,” says Hoballah. “This makes a big difference. Guinness World Records is the records institution to validate a record that you set. If you don’t go through Guinness World Records guidelines and are not certified as a Guinness World Record holder, it is not a record.”
She explains how the relationship with marketers often works. “A lot of companies have understood the importance of breaking records,” says Hoballah. “For example, I might have a company that wants to do something for a new product launch in order to grab more attention in the market, and they want to link into breaking a record. Or when a company wants to rebrand, again it makes sense.”
AMBITIOUS SPIRIT
Al Waseet advises companies free of charge on which records can most easily be broken, and it can lobby for a company to appear in the book, provided it actually breaks a record or sets a new one deemed worthy of inclusion by the book’s editors in London. Customers can also order special branded editions of the tome, which can be printed – with a special cover and dedicated pages – before the next public edition is even out.
The company charges fees for organizing branded events based around record-breaking feats. Further income comes from book sales, merchandise and the special editions (though no companies from the Middle East have ordered any of those yet).
In a region with an ambitious spirit, the most mundane record can draw admiration and emulation. Gargash Enterprises, a UAE-based car dealership, for example, set a record for the largest procession of Mercedes-Benz cars in April, when the owners of 153 C-Class Mercs turned out for a parade around Dubai.
Now Mercedes in Syria are interested, says Hoballah. “They heard about what they did [in the UAE] and they might go for it. So it might become a competition.”
Another one in competition is the world record for creating the biggest football. In November, Doha Bank took the prize with a diameter of 9.07 meters.
But, when they took their eye off the ball, telecom company MTN Sudan overtook them, showing off a 10.5 meter inflatable on August 26.
Regional records: a marketing tool?
World’s largest box of chocolate bars: A giant carton of Kit Kats weighed in at 1,700 kilograms during Dubai Summer Surprises 2005.
World’s tallest unsupported flagpole: 126.8 meters, in Amman.
World’s most expensive phone number: The identity of the Qatari bidder who paid $2.75 million at a charity auction in May 2006 was kept secret, but he can presumably be contacted at +974-666-6666.
World’s largest same name gathering: 1,096 Mohammeds gathered in a Dubai park, also during Summer Surprises 2005.
World’s largest kite: 25.47 by 40 meters, flown by Abdul Rahman and Faris Al Farsi in Kuwait.
Communicate takes the pulse of regional creativity at the International Design Forum
Originally published in Communicate, July 2007
Last month at Communicate we trimmed our goatees, donned our post-ironic retro T-shirts and big glasses and slung our man-bags over our shoulders to head to Dubai’s first International Design Forum and check out the state of creativity in the region.
The event was hosted by conference organizer Moutamarat, a joint venture between Tatweer and Saudi Research and Publishing Company.
While participants tossed around predictably unpredictable ideas, such as enigmatic Dutch product designer Marcel Wanders’s vases modeled by sneezing through a 3D scanner, much of the talk on the stage and on the sidelines was about the state of design and creativity in the region. And it wasn’t all favorable.
Sheikh Majed Al Sabah, the man behind Alef magazine and the ultra-trendy Villa Moda stores, bemoans the lack of visible talent in the Gulf. Much of this lies in the way designers are perceived, he says. “Not every Arab likes to be seen as a designer or an architect,” he tells Communicate, “because they think this job is not a macho job, is not a job that brings money.”
“There are a lot of graphic designers everywhere,” he says. “Mostly in the northern part of the Middle East, Lebanon, Jordan. You see a lot of talented people coming from that part of the world as graphic designers. Yet there are many more talented people in this part of the world. But because they come from the Gulf, many of them are shy to say they want to become graphic designers.”
Rodney Fitch, CEO of design company Fitch, says the forum highlighted that fact that most regional creativity is “architecture-driven.” Local press coverage of the forum, he says, “has nothing to speak of about all those other parts of design which are of such importance, whether it’s communication design, television design, film, fashion, interior or industrial. All it speaks of is the five tallest buildings in the world. I think that’s a great shame, and I think that’s a sign of a needed maturity in the market here.”
Timid new world
The most controversial speaker at the forum agreed that the Middle East’s design industry needs to grow up. Oliviero Toscani is the photographer behind United Colors of Benetton’s divisive ads, which have included a white baby suckling from a black woman’s breast and a Christ-like figure dying of AIDS in a hospital bed. His work, he says, has never been displayed in Dubai. “Everything is so tacky, golden, unlikeable,” he told the forum. “I have never been in a place so anti-design as this place.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the forum, he elaborates that the problems with design in the region stem from politics and passiveness. “No one’s got the courage to tell the truth,” he says. “No one’s got the courage to talk about politics and design, politics and architecture, politics and taste and politics and creativity. Nobody.”
In advertising, he says, “There is a monoculture that is going through everything. Everyone does the same thing. Everybody is trying to attract consensus, and looking for consensus attracts mediocrity. There is not enough personality, not enough courage.”
He says local architecture, in particular, is over-indulgent. “Nobody has the courage to say this is ridiculous. Las Vegas or Disneyland, even they’re not like this. … Creativity and taste are like salt or sugar. You have to be careful not to put too much or too little salt in what you cook. If you add too much salt, it doesn’t taste good. … So creativity is something to be put in the right dose. [Here] it is overdone. And I think being rich didn’t help.”
First steps
The cynicism lingering in the air was tempered by some of the idealism voiced on stage. When asked what changes he’d like to see in the region, one young local designer told his audience, “I had a vision of a street where I could walk and there would be people making frescoes and playing instruments. But there’s nothing like that here now.”
And the presence of design-heavy magazines such as Brown Book and newly-launched Desert Fish showed there is young creativity out there.
“Look at Alef,” says Al Sabah. “Look at Brown Book, look at Canvas. There are lots of improvements coming, you know: typography, graphics, layout, creativity. You look at the other titles and they are horrible. So there is a lot of improvement happening. At least it’s a start.”
And Fitch agrees regional creativity is now starting to move in the right direction. “Historically you’d have to look very hard to find a wide embrace for design here,” he says. “You’d be hard pushed to find good advertising, good copywriting, good packaging, good industrial design. It’s not hard to find any number of world-class buildings, but there aren’t those other manifestations of design. … I think joining those dots begins with a meeting of the minds like this forum. It begins to focus people’s minds and create priorities.”
“It’s an alarm,” says Al Sabah. “Just to make everyone wake up and say there should be a [regional] influence on design.”
When marketing to kids takes off in the Middle East, parents won’t hear the end of it
First published in Communicate, June 2007
Real kids are never as sweet as the ones in adverts. When they want something they can be nagging, pestering, whining brats until they get it. And savvy marketers know how to tap into this pester power to sell products to pre-teens. The more spoiled the kid, the better for the advertiser.
Gaurav Sinha, who owns Think, a UAE magazine marketed to teenagers, says that, as consumers, children are unique. “Which adult do you know,” he asks, “who would pester another person to make a purchase on their behalf the way kids do?”
Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson, list seven types of pester in their 2006 book Chew on This: From the pleading pester, when kids repeat words like “please” and “Mom,” through the tantrums of the demonstrative pester, to the pity pester, where the child emphasizes how heartbroken and humiliated he will be without the purchase. Advertisers who know their audience know how to make kids nag until their parents crack.
Supermarkets, for example, have long cashed in on the manipulative efforts of children. The displays at checkouts usually have sweets and treats at children’s eye level, and within reach of tiny, grasping hands.
In a tacit acknowledgement of this, Spinneys supermarket recently introduced special check-out lines at some of its stores. “We’ve kept one aisle which is specifically for those parents who want to ensure their kids don’t end up picking up something inappropriate,” says a Spinneys spokesperson. “At point of sale it is mainly low value, impulse lines that are displayed. At this particular checkout there is more of the health range. There are some cereal bars, and mostly stuff that is not bad in a health-related way.”
In the Middle East overall, though, children are yet to be exploited with the ruthless efficiency shown in the West, claims Moneer Barakat, creative director at Memac Ogilvy. “Funnily enough, marketers here don’t play on pester power. Marketing to kids here is very limited. The use of pester power is still a bit naïve. And it’s not being used widely enough. If we are not using it enough, it will not be sophisticated.”
But the market is ripe for the picking, says Barakat. “Kids in this region, they grow up very spoiled,” he says. “Every whim and every wish is catered for. So the power they have over parents is amazing. It’s much more than when you compare it to the West, where there is a sense of discipline. There’s pester power too, of course, but there is a certain discipline. Here, the kid has a lot of power. The kid can command.”
NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
And pester power does not just apply to products specifically for children. Take buying a television, says Sinha: “They will influence you from going with the cheapest one to maybe something which meets their values, that’s maybe the same as the one the guy next door has. It helps to maintain the whole ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ philosophy. They play an important role.”
Marketing to pre-teens is often frowned upon, though. In the UK, the Committee for Advertising Practice, the industry’s self-regulatory body, issued guidelines that ban the advertising of any food or drink to under-16s except fresh fruit and vegetables. This currently applies only to television, but will be extended to the Internet, newspapers, billboards and cinema on July 1.
The UAE, however, has no such restrictions. A statement from the GCC Advertisers Association says: “Currently, the GCCAA has not worked on enforcing global advertising standards with regards to advertising to children. Most of the big multinationals follow internal standards in line with industry guidelines. However, there is no collective effort at a regional level.”
Questions about marketing to children tend to raise an icy and defensive response, like the eventual reply from Kellogg’s to questions about their youth marketing strategies: “As a responsible company, Kellogg’s ensures that our messages to children will accurately portray our products in a way that is in keeping with their ability to understand our intent and using language that is appropriate for this audience.”
The reason for the mind-numbingly corporate response, says Moneer Barakat, is that when you use pester power, “somehow the tune of the campaign becomes a bit politically incorrect, because you’re using the kid to manipulate the situation.”
But there is a place for these strategies in the Gulf, he maintains. “The market is experimenting with new ways of putting across a message,” says Barakat. “Brands are becoming very brave, very lateral, very fresh in their thinking. So when an agency handling a brand focuses a full campaign on pester power, gets the kid to initiate the request for the brand, once everyone sees it works, everyone will follow.”
Until then, kids in ads will remain sickly sweet. And the real ones will continue to pester, whether they’ve been told to or not.
AustynAllison.com 