TELEVISION: Caroline Seif, head of TV, Leo Burnett Dubai
Why should people set a budget aside for TV during a credit crisis?
We know, of course, that budget cuts will be affecting TV and we can already see that our production budgets are shrinking. But it’s a very good opportunity for clients who advertise in TV to do it now, because the euro is down, the South African rand is down, and people from all over the world are dying to work. So we have access to a great pool of talent that wants to come and explore job opportunities in the region, something you couldn’t do six months ago because if they were “too big,” they weren’t interested in the region.
Even from a creative standpoint, we’re trying to maximize what we get for the money. We’re using 3D options a lot now, and we’re creating some very cool spots for very affordable budgets.
What you would get today for your dollar compared to last year is a much bigger production value because everyone is fighting for a piece of the pie now. Clients have never been in such a good position; it is the time to shoot a commercial if they can possibly do so. They’ll get more bang for their buck.
Who should advertise using TV?
I’m a production person and not a marketing guru, but I believe that if you advertise today, you’ll get more market reach and more market share, versus if you do it when your competition is being quiet. So across all clients, I think whoever tries to push that extra mile this year will come out on top.
What changes do you expect to see in the TV industry during the crisis?
From a production perspective, I hope that prices of freelancers and professionals in the field will go down a bit, so a day of shoot in Dubai becomes more affordable and competitive. I do hope it’s a good thing for us in this field because the prices were rising very high and the price for a day of shooting in Dubai was becoming crazy compared to other countries, so this might be a positive thing for the industry.
EVENTS: Lucy d’Abo, managing director, D’events
Why should people set a budget aside for marketing and events during a credit crisis?
John F. Kennedy said, “When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters – one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”
There is definite value in keeping marketing budgets in challenging times – there are often unprecedented opportunities to market in an environment of relatively less noise, and to gain market share from rivals.
Events are especially important for marketing programs during financially difficult times, when customers are increasingly careful about how, when and where they spend their hard-earned dirhams. Even with a limited marketing budget, the staging of an event is a strategy that typically generates a high return on investment, primarily because of the opportunity for face-to-face interaction and the ability to reach a highly targeted audience. Events bring exposure and value to a business brand, differentiating it from the competition and positioning it as a leader in its industry. In fact, the strategic power of events is changing the way brands decide to market themselves both here and worldwide.
Who should use events as a marketing tool?
Any company that wishes to make the most efficient use of their marketing budgets, and who understands that maintaining brand presence and visibility during challenging times will benefit their business in the long term. It is worth remembering that building brands is a long-term process, not a short-term tactic.
What changes do you expect to see in the events industry during the crisis?
We are likely to see changes in the types of events that are staged, becoming much more targeted in terms of measurable deliverables – direct contact with potential and existing clients, relevant and consistent brand communication, post-event sales/perception tracking.
Reputation in the market will become increasingly critical to event management agencies – just as word-of-mouth and direct engagement are key factors achieved for companies and brands through events, so are these the key factors for businesses in our industry. Being established in the market and delivering premium, and relevant, events for clients will be the key to ensuring ongoing success for event management companies, not whether they are big, small or independent.
DIGITAL: Dimitri Metaxas, group director, OMD Digital
Why should people set a budget aside for digital during a credit crisis?
This is a really strong opportunity for us to be able to reinforce some key messages about what digital brings to the table. During the last recession, digital was hit like everybody; it was like a spring cleaning, and then we were much stronger for it. And a lot of the growth came from the innovations that were put in place at the time, to help prove that digital is not just some sort of fad that will go away.
This next hit is certainly happening. The funny thing is that here in the Middle East ¬– and I can’t speak on behalf of other agencies or media owners–we as an agency are most definitely still going for growth next year. We are not considering any recessionary issues to be affecting us. The reason for that is we will be seeing a shift of budgets from traditional media to digital media, at least across OMD Group clients.
Why is that? It comes down to two key points: the accountability and the accuracy of digital media. You have instant measurability, real data, agility of the medium to be able to make changes as the campaign is running, and to manage contingencies and optimize.
It’s also about the cheapness of media, as it’s more accessible to smaller ad budgets.
Who should use digital as an advertising medium?
We’re still such a small percentage of the media spend, compared to the amount of time being spent on digital media, also taking into account the young demographic of this region, and the fact that the communication properties of digital are far more powerful to them at the moment than other media is.
Historically, banking, finance, and travel are the bigger spenders in digital media, and they are being hit very hard. Therefore their dollars have to work a lot harder for them. It becomes more important for that marketing manager to know that his dollar spent there is achieving X amount of business value and brand value. On that end of spectrum, those sorts of advertisers should definitely be focusing more on digital.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are companies that are not able to translate their business models to the Internet; you’re never going to buy a Pepsi can or Snickers bar on the Internet. But they are starting to really harness digital for building brands and building engagement with consumers. It’s a great opportunity for them to grow their business.
What changes do you expect to see in the digital industry during the crisis?
We have a golden opportunity now. But it could be a golden opportunity we let slip through our fingers, if we’re not able to convince on a number of key levels; it’s not enough just to go out there and say digital is great and accountable and measurable. That conversation’s already happened. It’s now about results and sophistication, based on robust findings, and key understanding of audiences’ digital habits.
MAGAZINES: Ian Fairservice, managing partner and group editor, Motivate Publishing
Why should people set a budget aside for magazine advertising during a credit crisis?
When the chips are down, advertisers need to ensure they’re using their money wisely, and magazines – specifically established or well-branded magazines – are very much a known quantity in this region. With radio and TV, it’s very much anyone’s guess what the reach is, especially with smaller channels.
There’s no doubt that some titles, especially niche titles selling into struggling sectors, will be hit. But established titles, and big name franchises, will prove resilient. From our point of view, we’re cautiously optimistic about the year ahead.
What changes do you expect to see in the publishing industry during the crisis?
There may well be less ad spend to go round, but what is out there will go to titles that can prove they have the right circulations and the right readerships. Motivate has always set great store in auditing – all of our titles are registered with the BPA for audit. We’ve been doing this for years, even when we were told it was a waste of money, that advertisers here don’t really care one way or another. I think 2009 will be the year in which auditing comes into its own in the region. Basically, if you’re not audited, you’re not going to get the adverts. It’s as simple as that.
PUBLIC RELATIONS: Louay Al-Samarrai, managing director, Active PR & Marketing Communications Consultancy
Why should people set a budget aside for PR during a credit crisis?
I think that the simple fact is that PR has proven time and again that it is a very cost-effective medium, especially when companies, organizations and departments are looking to maximize the shrinking or frozen sums they have for 2009 and 2010.
If you take the example of a full-page ad in one of the daily papers, take it as being around 70,000 dirhams on average, and take the fact that people were taking six or seven of these ads during the course of a month. You’re looking at that being the total cost of around six to eight months of a PR company’s retainer fee.
So in our view, and where we have case studies to prove this, our clients have been consistently getting in the region of between 7:1 to 12:1 ratios on the ROI for the PR dollars they’re spending with us as an agency.
Who should use PR as an advertising medium?
Everyone should be looking at a menu of items from the marketing mix. I don’t believe that you should use purely advertising or purely PR. We recommend to our clients that they need to look at the varying degrees of what they need depending on their sector. For example, we think the IT sector – in general – should use 70 percent PR and 30 percent advertising. For the FMCG market, it could be the other way round.
That’s just talking about outward relations. I think internal PR will become a key area for a lot of companies next year, explaining where they’re going, their mission, communicating to their staff how things are developing and keeping people calm; it will be very important, but it tends to be neglected in this part of the world.
What changes do you expect to see in the PR industry during the crisis?
I don’t think anybody knows right now how far, how deep or how wide this thing will go.
As a PR agency, business has dropped from about five months ago. Has it stopped completely? No it hasn’t. Where am I seeing new business coming from? The US and Europe primarily, where you wouldn’t expect to see it coming from. Are they making decisions quickly? No they’re not. Are they holding off until the first quarter of next year? Yes they are. Are they seeing value of PR as a cost-effective marketing tool? Yes they are definitely seeing it as most cost effective at this stage. I am quietly confident.
OUTDOOR: Salim Barkett, director, Kassab Media Marketing
Why should people set a budget aside for outdoor during a credit crisis?
It’s the most effective mass media available today, with the lowest CPM (cost per thousand), despite the perception that outdoor is becoming very expensive, specifically in Dubai. But overall in the UAE and across the region, I think it continues to be a very effective medium with the lowest CPM.
While accountability in the Middle East continues to be at a very low level, except maybe for digital media, I think outdoor continues to be the most powerful mass media available, because TV is no longer a mass media in my opinion. It became an outcast with the big number of TV stations and channels available.
The only remaining mass media is outdoor, and I’m a big believer in a mixed media strategy for most brands. Outdoor today cannot just work as a support media, but can also be a major backbone of a media schedule in terms of delivering high-reach figures and keeping CPMs down, so it plays a vital role in a cash crunch situation or for people with little budget.
Who should use outdoor as an advertising medium?
I’m not saying this applies for every brand and every advertiser, but it could be a very good solution in order to maximize your reach and keep your effectiveness at a reasonable level.
Most major brands are using outdoor: real estate developers to FMCGs, to cars, to banks and retail banking, even luxury. I think the business we used to enjoy with real estate developers will definitely be affected. I don’t think the category will disappear, but maybe some of the advertisers will cut their budgets, and will not be advertising for a year or more. I’m not going to say that we will not be affected by this – we definitely will be – but that category will not disappear.
What changes do you expect to see in the outdoor industry during the crisis?
We definitely have to look at our numbers and we have to plan for a reduction in expenditure.
I think there are new opportunities in Dubai now with the Metro and the buses (both of which Kassab has recently won).
[If there is] a reduction of clutter, it will have nothing to do with the level of spend of clients. The reduction of clutter will take place when authorities like the RTA put forward the right proposals for out-of-home companies to bid for. We are witnessing major changes in the business, towards more long-term and better quality.
NEWSPAPERS: Bander Asiri, managing director, Al-Khaleejiah Advertising & Public Relations Co. (advertising representative of Asharq Alawasat among other publications)
Why should people set a budget aside for print advertising during a credit crisis?
There are two main points that make spending on print more logical in 2009. The first is that with ad budgets being cut, mass/carpet and experimental advertising will be hugely reduced or even disappear. Clients will be looking for “dependable” media that they can justify spending on, and there is no media as proven as print media.
The other point is brand association. There is no doubt that banks and investments companies’ credibility and reputation has taken a huge pounding in recent months. On the other hand, readers are flocking to business titles to know what is going on, what is going to happen, and what to do about it. Business titles have become havens for seekers of business know-how, and have increased brand loyalty. (We have noticed a double digit increase in our business daily’s circulation during the last few months.) Banks and investment companies can tap into the increase of brand loyalty to business titles by increasing their ad spending with them.
What changes do you expect to see in the print industry during the crisis?
I’m not certain that there will be a drop in ad spend in 2009.What I’m certain of is that there will be no growth. Real estate, banking, and car sectors will be hit hard by what’s happening. I think 2009 will be a golden year for companies to build a substantial lead on their competitors.
The ad clutter will be less of an issue next year, and that will make these companies’ return on investment much higher, with their advertising standing out. Some of our international clients have already increased their ad spend for 2009 by 30 percent, and I believe they see the chance to make 2009 a turning point.
Looking at the bigger picture, I’m a firm believer that communication activities and ad spending drive economies, simply because they drive consumer spending. Advertisers would be hammering the last nail in the coffin of the economy by cutting advertising. And eventually hammering the last nail in their own coffins.