MIDDLE EAST
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Advertising/Markarketing/Media/Publicetineting/Media/Public Relationsg/Media/Public RRelationsele ations
www.mediaweekme.com Issue 0046suesue 00460046 18 October 20091818 OOctoberctober 22009009
REAL BRAND AND TOP TACTICS DUBAI DOES S
AMBITION N FOR GUERILLAS DALLAS DUMB PEOPLE DRINK LATTE
The Brand Union’ion’s Free sweets and How the Oil Baronsns
Hermann Behrens on rens on friendship can help Ball marketed itself toelf to
why family businesses sinesses small brands compete attract bling, bigwigswigs
are the next ‘big thing’big thing’ with the big boys and benevolence
p12 p14 p22
Al Ittihad plans
Yahoo! to
run Arabic
TOO
$1.6m relaunch
ad campaign
‘WIRED’ TYPES do my head in. You probably know the people I mean.
The UAE’s oldest paper celebrates 40 years with full redesign and marketing drive
By PAUL McLENNAN old but is becoming more modern—it
UAE Al Ittihad, the oldest newspaper in will now appeal more to younger read- They all live in San Francisco, have iPhones and netbooks, and drink
the country, is being treated to a Dhs6 ers, without alienating existing readers.
million ($1.6m) makeover and marketing In terms of content it’s institutional—the
campaign to mark its 40th anniversary. paper of record.” He adds, “It was crucial
A redesigned, full-colour version of to get the balance right between a new
the Arabic daily, which is owned by Abu contemporary look for Al Ittihad while re-
Dhabi Media Company (ADMC), will be specting its rich, 40-year heritage.” endless lattes from Starbucks. They’re fond of evangelising about how
unveiled at a lavish ceremony at Emirates Lacava Design, the team involved with MIDDLE EAST The new Ara-
Palace on Tuesday. designing ADMC’s English language bic-language Yahoo! Maktoob
Under the guidance of editor-in-chief daily The National, also redesigned Al website is to be launched with
Rashid Saleh Al Orimi, the paper will Ittihad. a regional version of Yahoo!’s
boast a fresh editorial layout with new Karim Saeed, marketing director for $100 million “It’s You” global the internet will save the world. And I really, really want to be one of
masthead and typography. Its style will be publishing at ADMC, says the company TVC campaign.
more photo-led than the old design. The is launching a country-wide outdoor Maktoob general manager
tagline ‘Al Ittihad lekol al Watan’ (or ‘The advertising campaign. He adds, “There Ahmed Nassef (pictured) says,
Union: for all the nation’) will remain. will be three TVCs, we are going heavy “We’ll go heavy [on advertis-
Alittihad.ae, has also been refreshed. with PR and there will be a huge launch ing] when the homepage and them. There were a few of these people at the TEDx Dubai event earlier
Al Ittihad, which translates to ‘The Un- event on Tuesday for 600 VIPs. The re- email are ready in Arabic. The
ion’ in English, was launched on October design and marketing spend is around “It’s You” advert will definitely
20, 1969—even before the UAE was offi- Dhs6 million.” be in Arabic, with recognisa-
cially formed in 1971. In order to achieve faster distribution ble pictures of Arabs.” The ads
Gavin Dickinson (pictured), executive throughout the UAE, Al Ittihad will be won’t appear soon though,
director of ADMC’s publishing division, published at the new ADMC-owned UPP as work on the website isn’t this month.
tells Media Week, “Al Ittihad is 40 years facility in Shahama, north of Abu Dhabi. expected to be finished until
“the first half of 2010”.
Meanwhile,
Maktoob.com
Clients ‘misled’ by ad agencies’ branding claims
can now officially state is has
16.2 million unique users, af- One was tech guru Leo Laporte, who lives in a remote hut in
MIDDLE EAST Advertising Hermann Behrens, CEO “Unfortunately, clients are Ashish Banerjee, du’s vice ter its first BPA audit figures
agencies are misleading their of The Brand Union Middle often very easily misled into president for brand and com- were made public last week.
clients by making exagger- East, says that in the midst of thinking that they’re receiv- munications, last week gave an
ated claims about additional the recession ad agencies are ing the same level of delivery address at the IAA in Dubai on
‘branding’ services, according pressured to offer more serv- from an advertising agency as this subject. “I don’t think ad
to the regional head of a glo- ices like branding—leading to a branding consultancy,” says agencies are equipped to design California,where he operates netcast network
TWiT.tv.
bal brand agency. “confusion” among clients. Behrens. a brand experience,” he said.
BECAUSE THERE’S
BUSINESS IN
Part of Laporte’s address was about the influence of marketers,
BEAUTY
bhwsales@engworldwide.com
referencing Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays, who “brought Freudian
psychology into advertising with devastating effect”.
Laporte’s point was that previously, mass media like TV and radio
Editorial
“completely dominated the psyche”, and advertising was “aimed
Editor Ben Flanagan
at the lowest common denominator”. Now, with the rise of the web,
ben.flanagan@engworldwide.com consumers are smarter and no longer receive media passively: “We’ve
Deputy editor Adam Grundey
been trained for our entire lifetime to sit down and shut up,” said
adam.grundey@engworldwide.com
Laporte. “Unfortunately, we’re smart... Tricking people has stopped
News editor Paul McLennan
paul.mclennan@engworldwide.com
working.” Of course, the communications industry is on to this.
News writer Charlie Neyra The way marketers have embraced new media is well documented
charlie.neyra@engworldwide.com
(how many ‘Twitter is the future’-type articles have you read, in this
Senior sub-editor Sarah Harvey
sarah.harvey@engworldwide.com
magazine and every other?). Advertising is now more about direct,
Sub-editor Chloe Barrow targeted, niche messages. Even Coca-Cola has changed its marketing
chloe.barrow@engworldwide.com
strategy to focus on precision marketing (see news, p.9).
Creative
But I’d still question the assertion “tricking people has stopped
Head of design Roy Cruz
working”. Freudian psychology is now seen as clunky and outdated,
roy.cruz@engworldwide.com so perhaps there’s some more refined manipulation of public opinion
Senior designer Freddie Colinares
going on in cyberspace? I don’t know. But here’s a thought: About all
freddie.colinares@engworldwide.com
Senior designer
those iPhones and netbooks, and all those lattes... It could be that it’s
Sherwin Darilag
sherwin.darilag@engworldwide.com
really not that ‘new’ media, after all.
Head of photography Mosh Lafuente
Production
Production manager Maher Mahbouby
maher.mahbouby@engworldwide.com
Senior production executive Issam Ghanem
issam.ghanem@engworldwide.com
p04 p06 p09
Production executive Sadish Kottodi
sadish.kottodi@engworldwide.com
Circulation
Circulation manager John Jose
john.jose@engworldwide.com
Marketing
Marketing manager Shaik Shibli
shaik.shibli@engworldwide.com
Management
Operations director Waleed Magazachi
Editorial director Graham Stacey
Publishing director Mike Orlov
Managing director Neil Petch
p20
Group CEO Rehan Merchant
Chairman Hanif Merchant
p18
p23
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The only exemption to this is for extracts used for the
purpose of fair review.
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THE NINE 14 SHOWCASE 25
MEDIA WEEK 18 THE BLOTTER 30
18 OCTOBER 2009 / 03
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