An Open Exam
Saudi Electricity's rebrand as Saudi Energy was a strategic move, and Saudi marketers spent days debating the logo. With marketing jobs heading to 60% localization, it was an open exam, and most of us answered the cover.
Marketing, Brands & Media
Real marketing builds a trust that outlives a single deal, earned by keeping many promises, which is why a marketer cannot be a con man even if he wanted to. A brand is not just a logo; it is clarity, authenticity and consistency, and there are no shortcuts. Every word or image is a message that usually serves the one who sent it.
Leadership & People Saudi Society & Public Life AI & the Future of Work
Writing
The Ice King
Frederic Tudor went to prison twice trying to sell ice, then made a fortune by creating demand and fixing his supply chain. The difference between sales and marketing, told as a story.
Uniting Forces: Redefining the Marketing Market
How Martin Sorrell built WPP out of a shopping-trolley maker, and what the launch of a large Saudi marketing alliance could mean for the region's industry.
Does Our Media's Voice Stop at the Border?
Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the psychology of panic frame a reply to a podcast guest's fiery attack on Saudi government media: impressions are not evidence, and timing is part of the message.
Is Marketing a Democracy?
Pepsi offered a Harrier jet as a joke and a young man nearly collected, because one meeting cut the zeros and the punchline. Democracy in marketing is a very expensive naivety.
It Wasn't the Logos That Stole My Heart
From two herdsmen branding cattle to national flags: every new emblem dilutes the one before it, and a growing family of national logos risks weakening the mother emblem.
Is the Marketer a Con Man?
From Homer's sirens to a Saudi talk show: why we fear whoever gets inside our heads, and why a marketer who builds trust over generations could not be a con man even if he wanted to.
Only 2% of Women Are Beautiful
English version of the Dove essay: a soap brand that refused to sell women their flaws, and the question whether brands can change the world.
فقط 2% من نساء العالم جميلات · Maaal · 2018
Does Innovation Need a Compass?
English version of «والربع الخالي وتمره»: Saudization, Febreze and the six ingredients of virality, and the compass a new generation of marketers needs.
والربع الخالي وتمره · Maaal · 2018
The Empty Quarter and Its Dates
A friend preaches Saudization until it costs him; Febreze shows what understanding customers means; Jonah Berger lists why things spread. A case for patience with a new generation of Saudi marketers.
The Dark Side of Marketing
The diamond on his wife's wrist owes its magic to a 1938 meeting between De Beers and an ad agency, and a tobacco company's anti-smoking ads made teenagers likelier to smoke. Every message usually serves its sender.
Katyusha
A wartime love song Russians still sing on Victory Day, and the less romantic history behind it, open a short lesson in nation branding: how countries market themselves to their own people and to the world.
The Best Ramadan Ad of 2018
A viewer's review of the season's Ramadan ads, with a simple test: swap the company's name at the end. If the ad still works, you watched the agency's talent, not the brand's value.
Hero Content in Ramadan
Chasing one blockbuster ad every Ramadan is like proposing in Ramadan because her father prays taraweeh. A brand is built on clear goals and steady content, as STC's Ramadan film showed.
How to Spot Nonsense in the Information Age
Borrowing a famous University of Washington course, eight tests for nonsense, aimed at the fashionista economy that sells young Saudi women products and, sometimes, surgery.
Blue Monday and the Future of PR in Saudi Arabia
The "saddest day of the year" was invented for a travel company, and a much-quoted study of Saudi PR rested on sixty respondents and a firm selling the cure. Read the study, not the headline.
When State Security Texted Me
A text that triggers fight-or-flight turns out to be a festival invitation. Then Corning, the glass giant you have never heard of because you are not its audience: choose the audience before the message.
Only 2% of the World's Women Are Beautiful
Research found only 2% of women would call themselves beautiful, and a soap brand built a campaign on it. Can brands change the world? With creativity and courage, he argues, yes.
A Citizen's Account for Newspapers? (2 of 2)
How newspapers abroad survived the screen with memberships, services and data, and why the future of Saudi journalism lies in adapting to a connected society, not in a government bailout.
A Citizen's Account for Newspapers? (1 of 2)
Saudi print newspapers cry for rescue, yet the market for information and the advertising market are both still growing. So where exactly is the problem?
The Worst Ad of 2017 (and Possibly Ever)
Pepsi turned a protest photograph into a soda commercial and pulled it within a day. The lesson for marketers who ride a social wave with in-house creative.
The Gulf Beaches Brand
A humble Eastern Province restaurant with no logo, no ads and a poor location has kept King Fahd University students coming back for thirty years. Clarity, authenticity and consistency are the whole of branding, and there are no shortcuts.
Terrorism, Kebab, Bread and Drugs
His mother feared a drugged teapot; research shows "just say no" campaigns can spread what they fight, through social proof. A warning for anyone publishing every detail of terror arrests: give the bread to the baker.
The Best Job in the World
English version of «أفضل وظيفة في العالم»: Queensland's dream-job campaign, and a question for whoever markets Vision 2030.
أفضل وظيفة في العالم · Al-Hayat · 2017
The Best Job in the World
Queensland sold its forgotten islands by advertising a dream job instead of a beach, at a fraction of a normal campaign's cost. The piece ends with a question about marketing Vision 2030.
Why I Broke Up With My Business Partner After Riding a BMW in Saudi Arabia
A used BMW and a cash-hungry partner teach one lesson: a business built to extract cash fast turns its product into a one-night stand. The Toyota dealer's service network shows the other way.
