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..and say bye-bye, Dubai

Shahar Peer, Doha 2008

Shahar Peer is causing quite a bit of controversy over her visa denial to enter the UAE for the Women’s tennis tournament. NY Times, ubiased as always, ended a piece by Harvey Araton with,

Tennis should finish its business in the gulf this month, and say bye-bye, Dubai.

Sports are mixed with politics. Sporting contests are an alternative to war. I am not sure how one can imagine the two to all of a sudden not mix. They mix. They mix all the time.

Larry Scott, the chairman and chief executive of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, gambled on Dubai. I find it hard to believe that he would have thought the Emirati’s would grant a visa to an Israeli on an Israeli passport for a sporting event. High level diplomatic mission.. sure. As long as these visas are not high-profile and not reported in the media, it will happen. So, either Scott is demonstrating incredible naivity or is lying. The UAE is not Qatar. Doha carved a niche out for itself as the political rebel in the GCC. A good by-produt of this is Al Jazeera. The UAE has consistently maintained a conservative political outlook.

Dubai has been getting a lot of bad press in international media lately. Unlike in the past, there don’t appear to be a plethora of positive news to offset the bad stuff. While it is understandable in such times, I can’t help but feel that whoever is handling the Dubai Inc. communications brief is dropping the ball somewhere. A lot of them.

The Clean-up Begins?

As the days go by, the picture gets clearer. Forecasts are not predicting any sunshine in the near future. This is going to be one hell of a tough year to get through.

Once can already feel the results in the amount of advertising in newspapers and magazines. You can look at how McNabb fondly provides Gulf News’ weight with every reference. Property Weekly used to look like a phone book, now reduced to what I can only call ‘normal’.

We are already finding out about magazines shutting down. We have had an excess of those, so it is time for the small and ineffective to be gone. Not to be mean, but most will not be missed. Editorials now will make or break a magazine. You can see how brave editorials have become when compared with last year’s. It’s almost like you’re looking at a completely different market. You have to take risks. It’s no longer optional.

Another scary sign is the rise of advertorials. You’ve seen those. You take up a full page ad, followed by an editorial piece by the advertiser. It’s almost like magazines are running out of content and/or people that they are simply selling space on their pages, offering little to no content of their own. Desperate? You betcha! Will it work? I seriously doubt it. I would put 0 weight on any advertorial. Readers are not looking to buy anything. So, unless you are offering advice on how they can cut costs, you’re wasting your time.

We are going to be seeing a lot of people go, a lot of titles vanish. A few will be missed, but for most, I say, it’s about time. We need to have a cleaner and leaner industry to work with.

UAE Government in the media – 2008 review

Now that 2008 is behind us, we had a look at how UAE government organizations and departments faired in the media, GCC-wide. While the bulk of the content came from local publications, there was a sizable regional interest in covering UAE governmental activities.

UAE Topics of Interest of 2008

Topics were broken down as follows:

• Education
• Environment
• Economy
• Transportation
• Tourism
• Social Services
• Infrastructure
• Judicial and Legal
• Municipalities
• General

Education took the lead with 24% share of voice. Economy trailed closely behind. It is also interesting to see that while dailies covered a lot of topics on education, magazines appeared to be more interested in tourism.

Other Terms Apply

 

Air Arabia

Air Arabia is my favorite thing out of Sharjah. However, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed when I visited their site and ran into their Refer and Win promotion. Everything is fine until you get to the terms and conditions.

 

This is a limited period contest. Only forms completed with valid email addresses will be entered into the prize draw. Air Arabia reserves the right to cancel or withdraw this contest at any time without prior notice. The winners will be chosen by a draw of lots and the decison on the winners shall be final. By participating in this contest and filling in this form you unconditionally agree that any information including your personal information can be disclosed and used by Air Arabia and/or any of its nominees to provide offers, promotions and service benefits. The taxes and surcharge on the winning tickets shall be payable by the winner. Other terms apply.

Right. So, what are those other terms (emphasis added)? Come on guys! This is just not right. I’m tired of feeling like I’m constantly having to watch out for someone trying to con me. 

2009: The PR Year, NOT

I like reading Alex McNabb’s column in Campaign.  I enjoyed his regular column in Campaign (back when it was with ITP and now with Motivate). His column this time talks about how he strongly disagrees about PR being naturally in growth mode in 2009 since it is a cheaper marketing alternative to advertising.

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I am not sure who in their right mind would say something so uninformed. As I have said before and continue to say, as long as PR is not measured, it will be the first to go. The fact that PR costs less than advertising does not make it more likely to be on the 2009 budget. In fact, it is most likely to shrink before they even start looking at the advertising budget.

“What is this? Press release? No no.. have the secretary draft it, I’ll sign it and send it off to the journalists we know.. fire the agency..”

“But, it means we will not be able to influence public perception to position our..”

“What are you talking about? All I see is press releases.. we can do it in 10 minutes, I am not sure why we’re paying $10k a month for this. Let’s not waste any more money, these are trying times..”

And so goes the conversation in a lot of offices. If you think someone is saying, let’s spend more on something we can’t quantify, you must be out of your mind.

I do agree with McNabb in that brands who have the courage to try new approaches will prosper and grow better than those who will opt to play it safe. I just don’t think it’s an issue of new as in experimental. Companies who measure their marketing activities scientifically are the ones will do better. 

My father has a theory about weight loss fads: If it really works, how come there are so many fat people out there? The answer is simple: there are too many fads out there and people like shortcuts. The PR industry is not so different today. The truth of the matter is, if you don’t invest in research you are continuing to shoot in the dark. If you are not going to lead an active life and eat healthy, you will gain weight. In a global meltdown, I think it’s best if people stopped trusting their gut completely and back it up with facts and figures.

Disclaimer: I have never met Alex, nor have I done business with him.

Clearly, this mailbox is illy – Part I

Every now and then, I have a look at my junk folder to see what I may have missed. It sometimes makes for a good read. I will be sharing some of what I find from time to time. The winner of this first installment is Change Media Solutions who sent an email telling me:

We are delighted to introduce ourselves as the fastly growing Digital Media Solutions Provider in the Middle East.

The bad English and nonsensical introduction is not what caught my interest. The email ends with this:

BUSINESS IS MARKETING MARKETING IS ADVERTISING

I kid you not!

Dollar-a-year Men

The Big 3 CEO's

The big 3 were turned back with a scolding from Congress. They were told how irresponsible they were for coming to DC in their private jets. Nobody questioned if the very scolding itself was a PR stunt.

They came back again, promising to sell their private jets and to take a substantial cut in their salaries. $1 a year. The CEO’s of Ford, GM and Chrysler all decided that they are willing to make such a ’sacrifice’, should congress grant them their bail out fund.

This is not a new concept in the US. In fact, it dates back to the first world war in the US. Dollar-a-year men were businessmen who wanted to serve their country and did not care for the financial reward. Due to US law forbidding the government receiving services without paying for it, the symbolic dollar-a-year concept was born.

A prominent example of this is New York’s mayor, Bloomberg. This doesn’t work when you are talking about CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies. Incentives, stock options, etc. add up to make the official salary insignificant.

Someone decided that it would be a good idea to pull this stunt. It is still unclear if it worked, but it certainly did generate a bit of media buzz.

Campaign Middle East vs. MediaWeek Middle East

Yes, we finally have Campaign ME back. We no longer have to wait for Communicate’s monthly run to read about our own industry. Don’t get me wrong, Communiate is not necessarily a bad magazine, but it is stale. Come to think of it, it is more like an afterthought.

Campaign ME was great when it was with ITP. Most of us in the media industry missed it and were happy to see it back. Then came along MediaWeek. I was surprised to see Ashley Rees as publisher, but if anyone could pull it off, Ashley would be it.

We continue to give Campaign our UAE Press Coverage Index, as we have done with Campaign when they were an ITP publication.

So, you can imagine the disappointment I had when I tried to see what Motivate’s website had to say about Campaign (and other publications for that matter). Nothing. The Motivate website is simply a webmail interface. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, ITP understand the power of the web and have been ahead of everyone else when it comes to putting content online. Why is Motivate not taking this seriously?

I wish I could say that MediaWeek is doing better. They are not. While ENG have a nice website where you can at the very least get the rates and subscribe to MediaWeek (among other publications), they still fail to put any published (or unpublished) content online. Shame. Even Communicate has a half-hearted attempt at that.

Looking at the actual magazines, I have to admit that MediaWeek is more entertaining to read. Campaign feels a bit bland and this is primarily due to their cycle. Two weeks is too long a period to have news and too short to have features. It feels as though Campaign has an identity crisis. I don’t think you can continue to be a read magazine if you don’t go weekly (or do something completely radical with the content).

The bottom line is this: If Campaign are to survive a fortnightly frequency, they have better start putting some online content.

We won our first award for best use of integrated media research

We would have loved to have attended the 2008 AMEC Awards in London on the 19th this past Wednesday. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to, but when we finally learned of our award, we were all very excited.

This award (Bronze) tells us that we are doing something right. We are not talking about it. We are doing it. It is also a reminder that we are only as good as our clients are. Finding a client who will put their faith in you is half the challenge. Aldar did not just have faith in us, they had a deep understanding of what they wanted to achieve.