Communicate casts an eye over Cairo’s advertisers to see who’s spending, what they are spending on, and what’s changing
Originally published in Communicate, June 2010
Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but there’s been a financial crisis in the Gulf. Marketing money has been pouring out through a real estate-sized hole, along with other perforations, and some of that money has been flowing towards Egypt. Clients there have been competing in a much more established market in ways that the free-falling GCC can only envy. Following on from April’s look at Egyptian agencies and media, Communicate takes a look at the country’s advertisers themselves. Read the rest of this entry »
As TBWA/Raad launches Integer, the region’s latest shopper marketing agency, the discipline’s big challenge will not be shifting product but keeping clients focused on their brands
Originally published in Communicate, May 2010
Everyone’s getting into shopper marketing these days. OgilvyAction has been around for a while, and Saatchi launched its shopper marketing arm, Saatchi & Saatchi X, in October 2009. Last month, TBWA/Raad joined the fray, with the launch of a MENA office for Omnicom shopper marketing agency Integer.
More shopper marketing agencies mean more buzzwords from the discipline that brought us wobblers and danglers. At March’s Dubai International Advertising Festival, Simon Hathaway, the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi X in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, waxed lyrical about “storeback thinking,” “the shopping cycle,” “destripping the store,” and “return on involvement,” before getting to the crucial question: “How will it play on-shelf?” Read the rest of this entry »
Newspapers are gaining traction in Egypt, but Communicate finds that television is still number one for both the marketing industry and the audience
Originally covered in Communicate, April 2010
Dubai Press Club’s Middle East Media Outlook report cites Zenith Optimedia/Value Partners data saying that advertising spend in Egypt is focused on print, with 55 percent of the country’s advertising money going to newspapers. But those on the ground beg to differ. Read the rest of this entry »
Communicate takes cover as the public lays siege to the Idex defense exhibition
Originally published in Communicate, April 2009
People like guns apparently. And bullets. And armor to protect them from guns and bullets. And Tasers for when their guns run out of bullets. The scary part of Abu Dhabi’s Idex defense exhibition was ultimately not the hardware on display, but the sheer appetite of visitors for all things deadly or free. Read the rest of this entry »
P&G vaccinates 100 newborns for everyone who attends campaign launch
Originally published in Communicate, July 2008
Communicate (and some other journos) saved some babies yesterday. By going to a press conference.
We were intrigued by a press release from IPN, on behalf of P&G’s Pampers diaper brand, inviting us to attend the launch of their “1 large pack = 1 tetanus vaccine” campaign, run in partnership with UNICEF. It promised that, “P&G has pledged to donate 100 additional vaccines towards the campaign for every person who attends the press conference.” Journalists were encouraged to bring family and friends to further boost numbers at the presser. Read the rest of this entry »
Dubai is full of bored middle-class kids with a thirst for rebellion and Mountain Dew. The X Games brings both, with branding to boot
Originally published in Communicate, January 2008
Not content with importing replicas of the pyramids, faux Taj Mahals and inoffensive clones of famous art galleries, the UAE has been striving to import subculture in the form of the X Games.
After being dropped off in 4x4s, thousands of surly youths last month trudged to a makeshift skate park at the back of Festival City. Checking their bikes, boards and inlines at the gate, the nobody-understands-mes of Dubai scowled from beneath Korn hoodies at the likes of Garrett Reynolds in the BMX freestyle street event (who was “psyched to have won”), Tyler Hendry (skateboard street, “It was very close and I’m so stoked”), and Greg Hartman, who – according to a press release – pulled a switchblade no-footed can flip to win his Moto X best trick medal. Awesome. Read the rest of this entry »
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 »
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