Ramzy Haddad speaks to Mariam Ali Baig about the emerging creative talent and why agencies have to go back to their roots.

MARIAM ALI BAIG: Is there anything specific that characterises advertising across the MENA region?
RAMZY HADDAD: This is a very diverse region; cross the border from the UAE to Saudi Arabia or from Saudi to Bahrain or Qatar and you will encounter different mindsets – and we are talking only about the GCC countries – let alone moving to North Africa, Egypt, Morocco and then the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan). This is the reason why you don’t experience one type of communication, but a bundle of different ones. There is no one characteristic which defines the advertising coming out of the region.

In the GCC you are addressing local citizens as well as a large population of expats, so the tonality is a bit more refined and spoken in an accent that everyone will understand. It is more reserved in expression, although there is still room to be witty, sharp and smart, but perhaps with less of the familiar. The communication is characterised by a sense of refinement; there is a sense of Arabian luxury to it even if you are talking about an FMCG product you can buy for two cents. In Egypt or North Africa the tone is more candid and light hearted, and there is more humour. Egypt has its own film industry and they have a wealth of comedians, actors and directors. In the Levant there is a bit more freedom so the communication has a bit more panache; it is more ballsy and has a play on words.

MAB: To what extent is creative communication in Saudi Arabia hampered due to limitations in terms of what can be shown or expressed?
RH: There are limitations everywhere. I think of Saudi Arabia as an exercise in creativity; it puts your creativity to the test and you either win or you fail. The more bumps you encounter the better you become at funnelling an idea until you get there. We have seen a lot of amazing work lately in Saudi Arabia. Recently, a Saudi OOH agency recreated the work of Saudi artists as billboard installations; the idea was to turn Riyadh into a big art gallery. People tend to think there is no art in Saudi Arabia, so they came out and said ‘not only do we have art, we have turned the whole city into one big gallery’. I expect surprises from Saudi Arabia because every now and then something really good comes out from there.

MAB: Is it true that there is a sudden emergence of talent in Saudi Arabia?
RH: The young are making it their mission to show Saudi Arabia as they see it, not as the world wants to see it. This is their homeland; where they grew up, had their fun moments and where their community and society is based and they want to portray this in their communication. Lately there has been an influx of content developers popping up everywhere, putting up stuff on YouTube and suddenly becoming celebrities – they went from being amateurs to becoming sensations. Now even the big brands want to team up with them to create branded content. Until recently, the norm was to open an office in Saudi Arabia and import creative people from different countries to work on the market there. This has changed and multinational agencies are employing talented creative Saudis.

"To move forward to the next phase, agencies need to go back to what made them successful in the first place. At one point they too were start-ups and they need to bring back that mindset and start to acquire business by using all means, be it creativity, media or technology."

MAB: To what extent do you think technology is forcing agencies to rethink their operational models?
RH: It is not about the new technology or the new ways of communicating; it has always been so and advertising thrives on it. The issue is that like Darwin’s theory, it is not the strongest or biggest animal that survives; it is the one that is more adaptive to a situation. In my view, the fixation of advertising agencies on a model rather than on changing the environment is what is killing them and keeping them one step back from what is happening around them. Their existing structure came about when they became advertising firms owned by larger groups, and the idea then was that each entity would be a separate company with their own team, because this made sense from a billing and a client expansion point of view, as it avoided conflicts of interest – and this model did work for some time. Now they have spread themselves too thin; it is like trying to move a flotilla of ships and in the process they have lost their agility and manoeuvreability. On the other hand, the boutique agencies and small start-ups, although they have more or less the same components agencies used to have in the past, are agile and are able to respond quickly to market changes. To move forward to the next phase, agencies need to go back to what made them successful in the first place. At one point they too were start-ups and they need to bring back that mindset and start to acquire business by using all means, be it creativity, media or technology. They need to buy into the idea that there is nothing they cannot accomplish and not set limitations about where a function begins or ends. Campaigns today use technology, social media, PR, activation, etc., in tandem; there is nothing that says the creative finishes here, the media starts there and then in comes PR. Nothing of the sort – you need a single creative team that creates the idea and sees it through. It’s not you do this function and I do the other. It is about unbound creativity; it is about going out there and deploying any means to create amazing ideas. The idea is to put people to work on the same project at the same time under the same roof. It cannot be achieved by segments; you work on the idea, someone else sells the idea and yet someone else develops the media plan. In the last three years we have put everyone in one room to create campaigns and amazing stuff has emerged. When you put together a unit of people who come from different disciplines they are bound to come up with different ideas, add different components and come up with a more cohesive campaign compared to what can be achieved by creatives trapped in one room thinking from just one angle.

MAB: What are the major trends in this region today?
RH: Two main trends. The first is that agencies are now associating themselves with the local talent that is emerging throughout the MENA region. There is this wealth of talented young people who are creating amazing stuff and all communication agencies are looking for these people, not to hire them but to let them do what they do best and then find a way to make this work in tandem with their creative concepts. The second is that the communication is becoming much more personal and localised. Big brands are going down to ‘street level’; they are communicating not only in Arabic but in the local dialects as well. Another trend within the industry is to integrate technology in the idea. Recently we held a workshop about what should come first. Technology? Media? The idea? There used to be a trend of putting the technology ahead of the idea and most of the time it didn’t work because most of the technologies that work today will be obsolete within a couple of months or a year maximum, so the excitement you created about a new technology fades away. However, if you root technology in an idea then you have something that can go far.

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