MIDDLE EAST
THE BLOTTER
CLARITY BEGINS AT HOME
Dubai residents, having spent weeks reading conflicting and
confusing reports in local media, finally had the new rental law
clarified by the good people at WAM. “The decree number (1) for
2009 stipulates that the rental value must be equal to, or less
than 25 percent of the corresponding rent in the average annual
rent index,” the clarification began. “It was not clear whether that
those who were already mid-way through paying for their annual
tenancy, will suddenly be asked to pay more for the latter part of
the year.”
Alright then.
Kudos to Mall of the Emirates, who recently commissioned this public service announcement
highlighting the challenges faced by people suffering from ‘idiot shopper syndrome’.
I-CARAMBA
All does not bode well for the English-language website
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planned by the Abu Dhabi-based i-Media. Consider an email
According to a Gulf Daily News
sent out by an editor working at the company’s new 40-page
report last week, point-of-sale
broadsheet, Alroya Altiqtissadiya.
marketing is alive and kicking
“The paper will be sponsored by i-media (integrated media)
in Manama.
group, the first economic hard in the United Arab Emirates-
“A pimp who allegedly
based Arabic natural size, and covers various areas of the
distributed flyers advertising
United Arab Emirates,” the email informed us. “Accordingly,
his prostitution racket has
we seem to news your companies events and various confer-
been arrested. The 31-year-old
ences to be published in our newspaper, the eradication of Our
Bahraini is said to have left The Dubai rental law, yesterday
various news and reports on economic affairs, whether local
pieces of paper advertising the
or global, or Arab.”
service and his phone number
Remember, Google Translate is your friend.
on cars.”
NAME THAT GOON
One of the perils of press release writing is when
you come across a name that simply begs to be
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
misspelled, in multiple ways—like, say, Bernd
Some pitches are better received than
Pfaffenbach, Germany’s deputy minister of econ-
others, as an unfortunate Dubai creative
omy and technology. Our friends at Asda’a, faced
discovered at a recent client meeting. Her
with the daunting task of announcing the recent
ideas, she said after a gruelling couple of
visit of Dr. Pfaffenbach, came up with a novel
hours, “went down like a cup of cold sick”.
solution to the problem: make up a new name!
So, welcome to the UAE, “Dr Bernd Bifafnbah”.
Bifafnbah, yesterday
TWO RIGHT!
Word reaches us that a journalist on a prominent
English-language Abu Dhabi newspaper is moonlight-
ing for an altogether less prominent Dubai-based title.
Apparently, the hack writes under a nom de plume for
the Dubai title, with full knowledge of the paper’s own-
ers. No wonder jobs are under threat: some people are
doing two at once.
THE FINAL WHISTLE
As Media Week went to press, rumours of
the imminent closure of the Media Factory’s
football glossy FourFourTwo rang around
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Dubai. And, while publisher Chris Kelly denied
Media Week can reveal this exclusive photo of Andrew Blair, the
the rumours in a half-second telephone
former Dubai construction manager who scrawled an impromptu
conversation—“I’ll be happy to talk to you on
classified on his Porsche after losing his job. Thankfully, the
Sunday”—several sources from within and
unemployed hunk has no intention of leaving the emirate. “There are
outside the company insist it’s true. And so,
still prospects here,” he told the Telegraph, “and it’s a thriving city
without further ado: REGIONAL FOOTBALL
packed with bars and clubs.”
TITLE GETS BOOT.
34 / 25 JANUARY 2009
www.mediaweekme.com
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