In This Month's Issue

Cover

A sporting chance
Sports sponsorship and marketing in the region was slow to get off the ground, and for a long time it centered only on football. But, as other sports come into the mix and brands develop more sophisticated approaches, the game is changing
Marathon as Standard
Regional bank Standard Chartered stays close to home with local event sponsorship, but has ambitious plans for its brand with the newly announced Liverpool FC tie up
The Olympic champion
Coca-Cola is one of the key players in global sports sponsorship, and is also active across the region
Net gains
Lacoste keeps the ball firmly in its court when it comes to tennis sponsorship
A wing and a player
Red Bull plumps for extreme sports to emphasize its "body and mind" branding
Wheels of fortune
Active PR ties up with up and coming racer to make unusual PR partnership
Flight club
Emirates and Etihad have a lot in common, not least a sports-centered marketing strategy

Shorts

Tall order
The great Burj Dubai is now the great Burj Khalifa. Communicate finds the tower's branding is up in the air
The show boat
Communicate’s epic tour of the Dubai Motor Show turns out to be the complete guide to press relations, from what you should be doing, to what you should definitely not be doing

Public Relations

Saudi goes public
Saudi Arabian PR is booming, but Communicate finds it still has a way to go before it has the full respect of the marketing world

Branding

Brands get personal
Many of the world’s biggest brands are helmed by charismatic and high profile leaders. But what does a company really gain from this kind of personal association, and why are regional examples so thin on the ground?

Q&A

Iran's user generation
Former head of BBC Persian Rob Beynon tells Communicate that social networks may have been pivotal in the Iranian elections, but they don’t mean news is dead