The development of advertising in the Arab region is deeply rooted in its history of colonialism; it is tightly linked to politics and the political economy, as political and economic transitions are always in the making. Advertising is targeted to complex and fragmented audiences marked by sophisticated identity patterns and sociocultural markers.
Other than its roots in the historical Arab land and in the modern standard Arabic language, little unifies the āArab worldā. Arabs originate from tribes of the Arabian Peninsula, which is the birthplace of Islam and a significant identifier for the majority of the regionās population. The Arab countries are neighbors from North Africa to the Arabian Gulf, a region geopolitically referred to as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The region includes a population of nearly 400 million, but many issues divide them. Political, economic and social conditions vary from country to country, and even cultures, which are often considered unique to the region, have been highly contrasting at times, as I discuss through the chapters of this book.
This chapter delves into the roots of advertising in the Arab region. It informs about the development of this industry, grounded in the political economy of media and that is determinant of the growth of the marketing communication business. From the Arab media cities described here, creative talents grew that helped shape the business of advertising. Through a review of awards and recognition, this chapter presents an overview and findings on creativity in MENA and concludes with a discussion of a shift to the digital advertising world.
From the Pyramids to Media Cities: The Structure of an Industry
Since the early days of humanity, humans have communicated with others about survival needs and desires through transactions of various kinds. From signs and symbols carved on the pyramid walls, from hawking loud governorās instructions in the streets to geo-fence messaging, advertising has evolved from oral and written to electronic and digital forms.
In ancient Egypt, early advertisements were used as public service announcements (PSAs) as evidenced by advertisements printed on papyrus. Al-Hadidi (1999) reports that one story of an early advertisement tells of an Emir (prince) who announced that he would give a prize to whoever returned his slave. The practice of hawking extended to the announcement of births, deaths and other major events. Additionally, historical literature has viewed imprints left on Pharaoh tomb walls as early forms of advertising, as they inform, communicate and document messages. This renders Egyptians the forefathers of advertising of the region, who had a talent for design and other forms of artistic expression that evolved into advertising as we know it today (Al-Hadidi, 1999).
It goes without saying that Gutenbergās invention was a major development of modern advertising in the world. In the Arab region, French colonialism brought printing machines to Egypt, at first to communicate messages from occupants to citizens through posters and outdoor banners until the first newspapers appeared and with them, print advertisements. Le Courrier de lāEgypte first printed in 1798 was the first newspaper that contained advertisements, which mainly listed property and land announcement offers or social events and other services (Al-Hadidi, 1999). The arrival of the independent press toward the mid-19th century in Egypt occurred with the rise of an intellectual and cultural renaissance that attracted Lebanese and Levantine people to Egypt by the end of the 19th Century, which had a pivotal impact on the development of the press and on advertising (AbuKahf & TahAhmed, 2016). With Egyptās independence and adoption of the constitution, advertising was officially structured in 1923 and became regularised as a profession.
According to Al-Hadidi (1999), commercial advertising was first officially delivered on Egyptian radio in March 1960. Before this point, radio advertising had only been delivered through family radio commercials (1924ā1934) that advertised for family businesses and retailers prior to the banning of family radios in 1934 and their replacement with public radios. These early adverts used playful exaggerations and dramatisations to grab the audienceās attention. One reads, āHello, hello, listen everyone. A bomb just went off on AlMoski Street. The bomb has released amazing prices at the AlDhabo toy storeā1 (Al-Hadidi, 1999, p. 90). A very similar advertisement for an alcohol retailer uses the metaphor of fire, which is relatable given the geopolitical context of the time. The commercial describes a large fire set off on Chebra Street, which is used as a metaphor for low prices for specific kinds of alcohol (Al-Hadidi, 1999). Especially during the interwar period (1922ā1952), these commercial advertisements were run alongside nationalist advertisements asking people to consume Egyptian goods and to be mindful of purchasing local goods to support local manufacturers (Shechter, 2008).
With the establishment of public radio, Radio al-Shaab (tr. Peopleās Radio), the Egyptian advertising business, was structured. Advertising not only became recognised as a revenue generator for radio channels but also became subjected to regulations in terms of its form and content. When Radio Middle East was formed in 1964 under a commercial license, advertising expanded with the broader geographic coverage of radio stations. In roughly the same period, television advertising emerged with the launch of the television in the early 1960s.
The 1952 Egyptian revolution caused numerous businesses and multinational companies to leave the country in protest of the new regime (Tayie, 1988). Many moved to Beirut, enabling Beirut to become the capital of business in the Arab Middle East from 1952 to the civil war of 1975, with long-standing cultural influence as is discussed below. Not only business, banking and tourism industries flourished in Lebanon during this period but also the media and cultural industries, and consequently, advertising enjoyed levels of dynamism never seen before, allowing it to be organised as an industry from the late 1940s. From mid-1940s to the 1960s, advertising used newspapers, magazines, posters and cinema screens as media platforms to promote imported food products of necessity and accessories (Halawi, 2016).
Prior to the 1975 Lebanese civil war, which spurred further migration and business relocation, political changes in Egypt initiated by President Sadat from 1970 started a wave of international business flows into the region with long-term effects. Sadatās 1973 infitah (tr. Open Door) policy attracted multinational companies and global and regional capital to Egypt and introduced consumer culture (Shechter, 2008). More products delivered were made available to upper-class citizens who were introduced to consumption styles of the US and who, along with this, were exposed to all kinds of commercials (for cars, cigarettes, food, cosmetics, perfume, soft drinks, etc.) (Boyd, 1999). All of these factors set conditions for advertising to grow and attract both multinational groups and local advertisers, such as Tarek Nour Telecommunications Company. Tarek Nour is an Egyptian advertising pioneer who discovered the American culture and became impressed with its artistic environment at a time when Egypt was still under the socialist regime. He worked in Al-Ahram newspaper for about five years, then started his own advertising agency at a time when there was very little competition in the market, he notes in an interview with Ricardo Karam. Speaking about the 1970s, he says, āwe had no idea how advertising works back then; we know how to produce, but not how to promoteā (Hadisson Akhar, 2009).
While these changes occurred in Egypt, Lebanon entered a civil war in 1975, which triggered business and local talent migration from Beirut to Paris, Athens, London, Bahrain and other cities (Badran, 2014; Harb, 2015; Khalil, 2015). This migration enabled the initial shaping of the pan-Arab media market and also prepared the forefathers of Arab advertising. For instance, media mogul Choueiri, who had migrated to Paris, envisioned an expansive Arab advertisement market that would connect businesses with media platforms (Harb, 2015). After representing pan-Arab offshore political magazines, he introduced advertising not only to films on video tapes (mainly Egyptian films, popular at the time in GCC countries) but also outdoor advertising in Saudi Arabia. Then, by the time satellite television had begun to develop, and due to his connections and the political influence of his friends, Choueiri had built an empire and a monopoly by linking brands to media outlets across nearly all of the GCC countries, Lebanon and later Egypt (Harb, 2015). To a large extent, this effective form of channel integration and the ongoing development of the media market (satellite technologies have been popularised among Arab governments and capitalists) have facilitated the development of the pan-Arab media market. The pan-Arab market is thus a media construct based on synergy gained from a selection of channels and cost efficiency rather than on geographic expansion. In fact, the geographic spread and development of a number of agencies through certain Arab countries had already been in place even before the 1975 Lebanese war. The prospect of an economic boom in the GCC was a major factor that attracted global and regional companies alike. For instance, Intermarkets, agency founded in 1961, moved in 1969 from Beirut to Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia before expanding further. Fortune Promoseven (FP7) opened in 1968 in Beirut and moved to Dubai in 1975. Impact BBDO, established in Beirut in 1971, also moved to Kuwait in 1975 and to Saudi Arabia in 1986 prior to expanding further in the region (Badran, 2014).
The 1975 Lebanese civil war had an additional impact on the spread of advertising across the region, as businesses first chose Bahrain as a home base. Major banks and multinational companies chose to open shop in the Middle East and consequently their advertising agencies chose to operate nearby. However, their establishment in Bahrain did not last, as Dubai had a plan to restructure and position itself as the new business capital of the region. To attract global investors, Dubai implemented a free market policy (in the finance and banking industries among others) and in the year 2000, set up a media city free zone that offered transnational organisations two advantages: It allowed them to, first, work outside of local regulations and policies and, second, to benefit from tax incentives. Global advertising and communication agencies established in the media city free zone enjoyed full ownership and control of their businesses, which was not possible elsewhere and outside of this policy framework (typically, in the majority of the GCC countries, the provision of co-ownership requires that a national detains the majority of any co-owned business).
Egypt and Jordan have implemented similar free zones for media industries as well as Lebanon and Morocco to some extent, but the advanced technological infrastructure afforded by the UAE combined with the easing of policies and regulations facilitated the establishment of Dubai as the hub of media and communication agencies for the MENA region and as the headquarters of global media, advertising and publishing networks. For instance, the global network Publicis Group is structured around four hubs, with headquarters in Dubai: Publicis Health, Publicis Sapient (for digital solutions), Publicis Media (includes Starcom, Zenith and Digitas among others) and Publicis Communications (includes Publicis Worldwide, Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi among others). In 2018, Publicis created Publicis Groupe Middle East headed by Chairman2 Raja Trad, whose partnership with Publicis extends back to 2002 when Publicis bought Leo Burnett Group of Companies Middle East and North Africa. The latter first opened its doors in 1981 as the first multinational agency based in the region (Hiorns, 2014). Beirut was the first home base to Leo Burnett in the region (1981); then additional offices opened in Cairo and Jeddah before it expanded to Dubai, which became home to its headquarters and to Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Kuwait, Doha, Riyadh, Beirut, Amman, Sulaymaniah, Erbil, Algeria and Casablanca. When one goes further back in history, one finds that Publicis had operated in Beirut since 1973ā19743 under the name Publi-graphics (Badran, 2014). Similar examples and patterns of restructuring materialised in other global networks including WPP, Young & Rubicam, JWT and Omnicom. WPP operates branches in MENA through Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide and manages 15 MEMAC Ogilvy (joint venture signed in 1986 between MEMAC, Middle East Marketing and Advertising Company, founded in 1984 in Bahrain and Ogilvy & Mather) offices in MENA with headquarters since 1987 in Dubai. Young & Rubicam counts more than 10 branches in MENA with a main office in Dubai. J. Walter Thomson operates 27 offices and also houses its headquarters in Dubai. Under the Omnicom group, TBWA signed a joint venture with RAAD group in 2010 (founded in 2000), and TBWA/RAAD manages 12 offices through the MENA region with headquarters in Dubai and serves global brands such as Apple, Nissan, Pepsi and many others throughout the region.
Aside from business promotional needs, the international political context and security environment of the early 2000s equally contributed to the growth of business in the region. First, the September 11 New York attacks, which tightened Western control on Arab capital in the US and Europe, drove the repatriation of Arab funds to the Middle East. Equally important was a burst in oil revenues that contributed to the growth of new projects employed in a variety of industries across the region (e.g., real estate and hospitality). It is worth noting that this development was reserved to resourceful countries of the GCC and to a less extent to Egypt and the Levant. Rough estimates made by industry professionals I spoke with confirm that the GCC countries absorb roughly two-thirds of MENA advertising spending, followed by the western countries of North Africa (i.e., Morocco being a major player followed by Tunisia), while eastern North Africa (i.e., dominated by Egypt) comes in third before the Levantine countries. A lack of natural resources in countries other than those of the GCC and late market liberalisation adoption have been major factors that have shaped unequal development across the region. The advertising...
