Search Results for : Digital

Imad Jomaa, Founder and President of Lebanon-based holding company JGroup, explains how he sees programmatic in light of JGroup’s recent investment in FoxPush, a Dubai-based full-stack solution for publishers and digital advertisers. How fast is the programmatic ad market growing in the region and what is driving this growth? Programmatic advertising is growing rapidly across […]

On October 15, Dubai-based mobility online platform Careem launched a new campaign highlighting its transition from ride-hailing company to Super App. Communicate had questions, so we asked Noha Zeid, Director of Marketing, and Haya Kalbouneh, Senior Brand Manager at Careem. What exactly is a Super App? Careem is the region’s everyday Super App: the first […]

New guide aims to provide organizations with insights on how to manage a communications crisis when under a cyber-attack in a region especially at threat. Following the MENA Information Security Conference held in Riyadh on October 5 and 6, independent marketing communications consultancy and the event’s communications partner W7Worldwide, along with organizer VirtuPort, have released […]

Marwa Kaabour, Head of Marketing & Corporate Communication at Al Masaood Group, on how digital innovations are driving auto dealership forward. The state of global affairs is changing, probably at a faster speed than what a speedometer could track. The future is uncertain, and many businesses are worried about where the road ahead leads. To […]

Last August, integrated advertising platform Adform announced the launch of its first-party ID solution, aimed at providing a way around the recent restrictions planned around third-party cookies. CTO Jakob Bak explains how it will work and why the industry needs to pay attention.  For some industry players, Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies (and […]

While marketeers understand their target market holds the key to business success, they sometimes miss the mark when it comes to engaging them. If a brand fails to add value through personalized touchpoints, then, in the words of Arianna Grande, it’s “Thank you, next!” With today’s digital economy characterized by disruption, customized communication is not […]

French online music streaming service Deezer, launched in 2007, has carved itself a major place in the industry, globally and in the Middle East. Mazen Abdallah, Director of Ad Sales MENAT at Deezer, explains what Deezer can bring to the region’s advertisers. What is the current shape of the audio marketing industry in MENA? Digital […]

Khaled AlShehhi, Executive Director – Marketing and Communications for the Public Diplomacy Office at the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and the Future, on why Fortnite is taking on Apple and why it matters. It seems that people at Apple have a memory problem and have forgotten their classics. They don’t go as far back as […]

Last month, Dubai launched the New Media Academy as part of its mission to prepare a future workforce, capable of leading the rapidly growing field of digital marketing. The academy aims to train media professionals in the public and private sector in everything related to digital, in order to nurture social media content creators. Communicate […]

New report marks the launch of Gameloft for brands. A couple of weeks ago, Paris-based videogame publisher Gameloft, owned by media conglomerate Vivendi, unveiled Gameloft for brands, a new identity that unifies all of its Gameloft Advertising Solutions services. The launch was marked with the release of an in-depth report on gamers and what they […]

Launching an app is great. Getting people to use it again and again is a different story altogether. Ayat Mohammed, Media Planning Manager at Hearts & Science, explains how to overcome this challenge. According to former product leader at Facebook, SC Moatti, “to build products that people love, you have to build products that are […]

New Lebanese online marketplace Mawsam aims to connect local producers to a larger audience. More often than not, and especially for the past year, news from Lebanon have not been good, if not outright bad. The country’s economic, social and security turmoil is getting worse by the day, amidst concerns of violence and even civil […]

Majd Alaily, Data & Audiences Lead – MENA, and Huda Serhan, DMT Project Manager, explain how Google’s new framework for CPG brands in MENA, developed in partnership with MCN Mediabrands and announced last week, can facilitate digital marketing transformation.    Like many industries, the fast-moving consumer goods vertical (CPG) experienced rapid pressure in a dynamic environment due to […]

Communicate‘s latest issue is out. This quarter, we explore the intricacies of programmatic advertising. Deep-diving into this complex world, we look into the various stakeholders and how they interact, the issues that this growing industry faces – from ad fraud to the phasing out of the third-party cookie – and what the future has in […]

Nadim Karam, Senior Director – Planning at Hearts & Science, explains how blockchain brings scalable trust to the digital marketing industry. It is no secret that the digital marketing ecosystem is riddled with complexities and inefficiencies. In fact, fraud and waste within digital marketing have been doubling every two years on average, and there are […]

Social Media has turned into a cultural phenomenon this past decade, with many unique platforms entering the space in hopes to become the most popular one among the lot. While there were many that succeeded, there were others that dropped the hat. Communicate lists the platforms that called it quits. MySpace Once regarded as the most popular […]

With only 14 days left until the end of the decade, Communicate decides to go back in time and look at all the marvelous innovations in tech that transformed the way we connect, commute and communicate. Sorry, couldn’t help it. Instagram What started in 2010 as a simple application for sharing photographs of your favorite moments […]

As part of the organization’s new strategic endeavors, Ian Fairey, former international business director at Yazzle Media joins Future Tech as the new general manager. He will oversee all managerial responsibilities and lead the sales, technology and product operations for the Dubai branch. With over 18 years of industry experience, Fairey joins with a wealth of […]

Taghreed Oraibi, business director at BPG Orange, shares tips on how to address the issue of influencers lying about their real Instagram following. Influencers play a significant role in driving consumer attention to marketing campaigns, especially millennials. According to research conducted by BPG Group in 2017, 94 percent of in-house marketeers in the UAE believe […]

Patrimony Media signed an exclusive partnership with ELLE International to license all print, digital and event extensions of ELLE Arabia in the Middle East. “We are very happy to strengthen our cooperation with Patrimony Media for the publication of the ELLE brand in the Middle East with this new multi-year partnership with Patrimony Media. Since […]

The brand has begun to roll out fresh, youth-centric digital programming across popular social media platforms. The initiative is part of its commitment towards engaging its growing tech-savvy audiences across popular social media platforms in the MENA region. As part of the programming’s innovative content, Sky News Arabia has partnered with Facebook to use the […]

By Ed Barnfield, the winner of Communicate’s creative fiction competition! I wrote a novel last week,” says Fatima. “It took me three hours.”We are meeting in the virtual café at Morningside. Fatima has chosen a cartoon elephant as her avatar, although she insists on keeping her trademark sunglasses and earpiece, which is disconcerting. I’ve gone […]

Hamish McPharlin, head of Insights at BBC Global News, says that, understood and used the right way, data can fuel creativity. If there is something that media companies are not lacking in, it is data about their consumers. With the rise in connectivity and an ever-increasing connected user base, we know about our audiences more than […]

Twitter has issued a statement apologizing for unintentionally using contact of users, emails and phone numbers, to enable target advertising. The company said that they are unable to say how many people have been affected. The company added in the statement that a third-party marketers might have reached Twitter users based on contact details. They added […]

Twitter announced today it has appointed Samantha Billingham as Head of Video Solutions for the Middle East and North Africa region. The move is another step, the company said, to provide video content solutions to advertisers.   In recent news, Twitter has  allowed advertisers to pay only for completed views. “The client gets charged for only […]

Facebook Inc. just completed a massive fine of $5 billion settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission following the probe on its privacy practices. However, the social networking giant came under scrutiny over its privacy concerns as another violation by the company has been reported a few hours ago.  According to a report by Bloomberg […]

It’s every company’s dream to know the real-time location of its audience, deeply understand them and know exactly how, when and where to speak to them. Data mining companies specialize in providing brands with such information, ensuring campaigns’ cost-effectiveness by harvesting and analyzing data. However, these firms and how they operate are still not well […]

By Ethan Jakob Craft After a trial run in Canada that’s been ongoing since May, Instagram announced on July 17 that it would be hiding publicly visible likes from users in six additional countries—Australia, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand—in the name of shifting away from the app’s emphasis on popularity. And while its […]

By Sharvari Alape  Technological advancements through digital innovations are driving companies to transform their workforce. According to a report by Research and Markets, the global market is set to reach USD 24 billion by 2023, proving a strong growth in workforce transformation.  Praj Calthorpe, Deputy General Manager, Condo Protego, told Communicate  that the workforce transformation […]

Van Gogh is unique. No other human being could mimic his work to perfection – but an AI could. A quick search on the Internet, and multiple images of art created by algorithms appear. In 2016, Ross Goodwin, creative technologist at Google Arts & Culture, pioneered a “creative AI” that decided to name itself Benjamin […]

By Garett Sloane Amazon has struck a deal with The Trade Desk and Dataxu, two sources of online advertising, to deliver commercials to Fire TV. On Friday, Amazon announced the new arrangement developed for media companies that stream video on Fire TV. The video publishers can now set up what are known as private marketplaces to […]

By Adam Kleinberg Direct-to-consumer (DTC) business models have been heralded as the antidote to disruption. From the moment Unilever wrote a billion-dollar check to a unicorn, virtually every brand that sells a product in a store has been tripping over themselves to figure out their DTC strategy before they get Dollar-Shave-Clubbed upside the head. The […]

Google is testing a carousel format for text-based search ads on mobile, as the tech giant considers adding more inventory on tiny screens without disrupting user experiences. Presently Google allows a maximum of four ads displayed vertically on mobile search results, and marketers only pay when someone clicks. The carousel format would allow Google to present […]

By Alexander Jutkowitz It’s 8 a.m., and you step on to the subway [metro] to get to work. You automatically look down at your phone, and your scrolling thumb takes over, zooming through Instagram and going down the proverbial rabbit hole of everything from videos of your best friend’s Miami vacation to soul-shaking quotes about […]

He turned an average-sized plastic manufacturing company into a marketing services giant with a market value of $20 billion. After 33 years of service, he left WPP in the midst of controversy, and within a month formed S4 Capital, providing digital marketing solutions to a broad array of clients. At age 74, executive chairman Sir […]

By I-Hsien Sherwood Global ad sales growth will continue to slow this year, according to a new report from ad forecaster Magna. Ad revenue will grow 5 percent in 2019, nearing $600 billion worldwide—a drop from last year’s growth rate of 8 percent, but a slight uptick from Magna’s most recent forecast in December, when […]

By Mohamed Itani Let’s face it, some of you must have thought of or desired at some stage to manage your media in-house. Well, if you go by the saying “if you want something done right, do it yourself” then you must have actually gone beyond the simple thought of in-housing. Well, it also appears […]

The fifth edition of the Media Consumption Forecasts by Zenith sheds light on the rise of mobile internet usage globally, along with the popularity of television and radio. According to the survey conducted across 57 countries, the amount of time people use on mobile internet is a collective of 3.8 trillion hours this year, which […]

By George P. Slefo A new study suggests that Fortnite has more in common with Facebook than Call of Duty, with the massively popular game emerging as a new kind of social network for a key demographic of younger consumers that brands covet. “Unlike other platforms and services, Fortnite uniquely combines benefits from gaming, social […]

Following the launch of Amazon.ae at the beginning of May, the brand has experienced a significant rise in its ad awareness within the UAE during the same month, said YouGov spokesperson in an e-mail. In a survey conducted by YouGov BrandIndex, the results show an uplift in the brand’s ad awareness increasing by +13.9 points, […]

A Research conducted by the World Advertising Research Center or WARC on Global Advertisement Trends for the year 2019 uncovered that online advertisement has indeed experienced growth and will continuously keep growing, thereby becoming the most frequented advertisement format for Global Media by 2020.  The expected rise in spend on internet ad formats is charted […]

By Alex Maalouf Let’s forget all of the buzz words. Instead, let me ask you this. How much do you rely on the internet? Would you rather forget your wallet or your phone? Or are they one and the same today? It may feel like we’ve lived in a digital world for years, but we’re […]

GroupM, WPP’s named, Ravi Rao, CEO at GroupM Middle East North Africa (MENA), the group said in a statement. He replaces Filip Jabbour, who was appointed in 2015 when GroupM launched in the region and has taken the decision to step down. “Clients increasingly require services beyond media planning and buying, and I’m looking forward […]

Future government and digital transformation are driving Bahrain’s IT market, said the newly appointed Country Manager of SAP Bahrain. This transformation is with at an aim is to reach a record-high of  $186 million by 2021. Bahrain Economic Vision 2030 aims to foster economic diversification, which is why according to SAP, organizations are increasingly digitally transforming, […]

APCO Worldwide expanded its presence in the MENA region with the opening of a new office in Manama, Bahrain, Brad Staples, CEO of APCO Worldwide, said in a statement. APCO’s office in Bahrain comes during a banner year for the company with 2019 representing the 35th anniversary year of the firm’s founding. Founded by Margery Kraus as […]

By Justin Choi The world wide web celebrated its 30th birthday this past spring. That’s three decades’ worth of growth and evolution for an experiment whose entire purpose was to encourage freedom and decentralization of information and communication. Unfortunately, this open, free global information network has never worn heavier shackles than it does today. Today’s web […]

New exponential technologies, has led to the digital disruption and transformation of industries, organizations, and governments. Whether Cloud Computing (CC), or Robotic Process Automation (RPA), or Artificial Intelligence (AI), these technologies are taking hold in the Outsourcing and Shared Services (OSS) industry in the region.   Outsourcing was once focused only on the goal of […]

WARC, the international marketing intelligence service, forecasts podcasts to account for 4.5 per cent($1.6bn) of global audio advertising spend by 2022, which his the double the expected investment of this year. The company said in a statement  that this forecast is almost double the $885m in expected investment this year. This expectation comes at the […]

Our second episode takes us into Real-time bidding (RTB), which means the advertising inventory that is bought and sold on a per-impression basis via programmatic auction. This takes places while the page is loading. The bidding begins as soon as the user visits the webpage. The bid request is triggered from the publisher’s end that may include […]

By Kelly Ehlers It’s the new “synergy.” It seems that in every pitch meeting and thought leadership piece (including this one!), we’re talking about an omnichannel approach to communications. This often leads to the question, “What does omnichannel even mean?” Let’s dig into what’s behind this trend: Omni-what? Sharing a prefix with popular words such as omnipresent […]

Launched during SXSW in April 2016, The Tempest is a media company by women, for women, with a focus on media presentation of various groups across the world. Not only content wise, but also on employees level, and other levels of stallholders. Communicate spoke with  Mashal Waqar, the co-founder of The Tempest, a media company […]

According to Accenture Technology Vision 2019, an annual report from Accenture, the enterprise is entering a new “post-digital” era, where success will be based on an organization’s ability to master a set of new technologies that can deliver personalized realities and experiences for customers, employees and business partners. This year’s report, under the title  “The […]

Programmatic advertisement is a term that describes a range of platforms, tools and services that have made digital advertising more automated and data-driven. Through this concept, advertisers can obtain digital media without pricing, so they can pay only for the relevant impressions they will distribute on the right audience. Programmatic allows real time flexibility and […]

YouTube will soon be available on Amazon’s Fire TV while Amazon Prime Video will show up on Google’s Chromecast and Android TV devices. The frosty relationship between Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. thawed a little further Thursday when the two tech giants said in a statement that they would begin letting each other’s video services […]

Whether there is an appetite or not they [brands] have to face the changes said Imad Lahad, Head of APCO’s AI Comms Lab, during an interview with Communicate . He spoke to us about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is moving at a pace that is 10 times faster than digital transformation. “Companies that won’t be […]

Google announced it will launch the first Google News Initiative (GNI) Innovation Challenge in Middle East and Africa (MEA) June 2019. The aim of the challenge as described by Google is to empower news innovators by showing newer ways of thinking in online journalism through development of new tools to elevate the industry. This initiative was announced […]

Trio students at Middlesex University achieved winnings in both the Masar Student Creative Award for Print Competition, and the Student Integrated Award Competition at the annual Dubai Lynx Festival. Communicate will be publishing a three parts interview with them. The Third and final interview is with Melina Serrao, who designed a campaign to inspire personal growth and development. […]

By Jack Neff Marc Pritchard has asked a lot from digital media the past two years, but his latest ask may be the hardest to get — civility. In a speech to the Association of National Advertisers Media Conference in Orlando on Thursday, Procter & Gamble Co.’s chief brand officer called for a “New Media Supply […]

Trio students at Middlesex University achieved winnings in both the Masar Student Creative Award for Print Competition, and the Student Integrated Award Competition at the annual Dubai Lynx Festival. Communicate will be publishing a three parts interview with them. The Second interview is with Divya Ariga, who designed a campaign to empower blue-collar labour in the UAE. […]

By Puja Panuum It is safe to say that the relationship between consumers, content and brands has undergone seismic change in the last 10 years. Understanding the needs of the consumer has become much simpler because of the increasing availability of real-time data, which allows brands to target their messages in a way that marketers […]

Trio students at Middlesex University achieved winnings in both the Masar Student Creative Award for Print Competition, and the Student Integrated Award Competition at the annual Dubai Lynx Festival. Communicate will be publishing a three parts interview with them. The first interview is with Rym Farran, who designed a campaign to promote adopting dogs. Rym Farran, created […]

Amazon is trying a new way to take its Alexa digital assistant mobile by developing wireless earbuds that mirror Apple’s popular AirPods. The Seattle-based e-commerce giant is readying earbuds with built-in Alexa access for as early as the second half of this year, according to people with knowledge of the plans. The headphones will look and act […]

MENA-based online advertising company, Buzzeff, has been acquired by Teads, a Global media platform, to bolster online advertising services for regional advertisers while expanding their reach to international audiences. This is one of the first such acquisitions to take place in the advertising technology industry in recent years, specifically in the UAE, signifying the importance […]

This media agency, for lack of a better term, has neither the word ‘media’ nor ‘agency’ in its name. Instead, it is a “data-driven marketing company,” says its MENA general manager Fadi Maktabi. We’re talking about Omnicom’s Hearts & Science that was first launched in North America in 2016 to handle the P&G business. A few […]

Active user minutes increase by 12% – video active user minutes increase by 18% in Saudi 60% Saudi Twitter users have shopping plans specifically for November White Friday (or Black Friday depending which part of the world you are from) is a big opportunity: 21% of the 5.9 million tweets about shopping in MENA were about Black/White […]

By Nathen Mazri The 2007 Revolution What happened in the year of 2007? It has changed human beings’ course of thinking, action, behavior, and communication. Facebook, Twitter, AirBnB, GitHub, and Kindle all came to life creating a world revolution. The easy access and flow of information and knowledge at an accelerating rate has A new […]

Three million marketers around the world use SEMrush as their trusted data provider and all-in-one marketing suite with built-in competitor intelligence.

In an effort to be more sustainable, Ikea is taking new steps. It’s cutting a big part of its marketing to apply the financial resources to a new US campaign. Beginning Wednesday, the 75-year-old Swedish retailer is doing its first national out-of-home push in the US, where it operates 48 stores, and hosting live catalog […]

Spending on the technologies and digital transformation that enable Smart City initiatives is expected to accelerate over the 2016-2021 forecast period, reaching $2.30 billion in 2021, according to research firm International Data Corporation. In light of this, digital outdoor company Elevision has signed a 10-year contract with DIFC that will see the installation of more […]

There has always been a general sense of dissatisfaction in the regional ad industry with regards to digital ad measurement and monitoring. That is now set to change with Nielsen’s launch of Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) in the UAE. DAR was launched in 2011 and is already used in more than 33 countries for campaign […]

  Online learning platform offers 100 lessons across 26 core topics, all in Arabic and free of charge Total of 200,000 people to be trained by INJAZ Al-Arab and MISK Foundation, with a target of 50% female participation 1 in 5 jobs in the Arab world will require digital skills that aren’t widely available today, […]

YouTube is launching a new skippable offering, called TrueView for Reach, that prioritizes reaching large audiences over completed views of a commercial. YouTube’s new ad product will cost advertisers even if the viewer presses skip. Kind of like TV. It is a variation of YouTube’s five-second skippable ads, and is designed for brands that are […]

Car search website CarInsight.com has appointed The MediaVantage as its exclusive media sales representatives for the Middle East. The contract, awarded after a competitive pitch, enables The MediaVantage to sell advertising and manage all related commercial opportunities for CarInsight.com. Rahul Kulshreshtha, the founder of CarInsight.Com, says in a statement, “With this partnership, we are looking […]

Sport360 recently announced a new agreement with Moat, the renowned attention-analytics specialists based in New York that was acquired by Oracle earlier this year. Accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC) for desktop display, mobile and video, Moat, a part of the Oracle Data Cloud, provides actionable analytics in real time on multiple screens, formats […]

Regional digital advertising agency, Hug Digital has launched what it claims to be the UAE’s first digital-only banking service, CBD NOW, for CBD. The new service aims to target millennials and digitally connected users. The mobile service combines smart notifications, mobile tools and ‘NOW’ themed rewards and offers around gaming, tech, food, music and sport. […]

Our life is a social book. But, that’s a stale fact. What’s hot? We post #InstaUpdates on our social platforms – “Feeling blessed”, “Having lunch”, “Watching movie”, “Checked in at the airport”, “Admitted in hospital”, and so on. There’s nothing new about it. What’s next? This social frenzy has been taking a toll on us […]

Global marketing and communications group Publicis announced the signing of a strategic partnership with internet giant Tencent earlier this week at the Viva Technology Paris, a leading event devoted to start-ups and innovation.   Tencent, operates popular social and media platforms in China, and this partnership is claimed to be the first of its kind […]

A year after first mooting a subscription model for users wanting to avoid ads, Google announced the launch of YouTube Red on October 21. Costing $9.99 per month, YouTube Red provides subscribers with access to all YouTube videos without ads, as well as original content featuring prominent vloggers such as PewDiePie, Lilly Singh and Joey […]

Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) in many organizations have become bigger IT spenders than any other business function, including the CIO. This is because the role of the CMO has effectively moved to that of being the ‘chief digital officer’. Customer engagement and lifetime value expansion have become integral in the entire business process, whereas customer […]

Whether an agency calls its work environment its “culture”, “dynamic”, or “DNA”, creative industries have tried to set the bar high when it comes to adding incentives beyond salary and generic benefits packages. As Sasan Saeidi, FP7 UAE’s managing director, says, “This industry is very demanding, especially in this part of the world where things […]

Visa Inc. introduces a new specification to enable palm, voice, iris, or facial biometrics for chip card transactions. The framework is designed for the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) chip industry standard. This type of biometric verification aims to provide easier and more secure payment options. Biometrics are never exposed or stored on central databases, as the specification supports […]

Exponential Interactive announces a 100 percent viewability guarantee for its proprietary, scalable video ad formats: VDX. To bolster its efforts, Exponential has partnered with the Media Ratings Council (MRC) accredited independent SaaS analytics firm MOAT to measure viewability for brands and advertisers using its VDX ad formats. The new VDX formats, launched in April, guarantee viewability when bought on […]

Everywhere we look, anything we see or use – watches, coffee shops, desks, courier services, computers, televisions, mobile phones, pens, clothes, cars and shoes – belongs to a brand today. Beyond the normal concept of goods and services that are necessary in an individual’s life, brands have become a “must-have” quotient to match today’s mindsets. […]

Emirates NBD is now offering customers the option of conducting select banking enquiries and transactions via Twitter. The first-to-market banking service will allow Emirates NBD customers to simply tweet for enquiries about their current or savings account or credit card, or perform transactions such as balance enquiry, view last five transactions or request for previous […]

The power of Apple is rarely in the new technology it brings to the market, but the new behaviors it popularizes. From mobile payments to near-field communication, MP3 players to smartphones, Apple is rarely first to market — but with its brand, vast market share, swelling coffers and ability to make the complex seem simple, […]

As marketers turn their attention to the youngest generation of consumers — those just on the cusp of hitting adulthood — the ubiquitous millennial headlines are quickly being replaced by “Five Things You Need To Know” about Generation Z, centennials, digital natives, the iGeneration or the latest generational jargon. This generation is so new that […]

Clique Communications Group, now Clique, has recently announced its new brand  identity and new integral members. “We wanted to create an identity that truly represented who we are,” says Ashwin Salian, Clique’s managing partner & co-founder, in a press statement. “After six years in the region, we have changed and grown a lot. The rebranding process was […]

Visa Inc. and mobile and online payment provider, Stripe, announce a strategic partnership in support of net technologies and online payment experiences for global merchants, developers and consumers. Stripe will continue it’s international expansion in emerging markets, specifically. To support this growth and joint long-term initiatives, Visa has also made a strategic investment in Stripe. The […]

E-commerce in the MENA region has grown and continues to grow at a rapid pace. In May 2013, Go-Gulf estimated that the value of e-commerce in the Middle East would reach 4.9 billion US dollars by 2015. Half-way through 2015, UAE based online retail specialist Awok.com aims for 25 percent of the retail space. The UAE is […]

National airline of the UAE, Etihad Airways, has announced the appointment of Cheil Network to assume global and social marketing duties. The network’s new responsibilities will include driving creative and strategy across all digital and social channels, in addition to support with performance-based marketing, analytics and reporting. Digital specialists, The Barbarian Group, that work within […]

Media experts have a way of predicting or at least forecasting what’s to come. Inevitably, this leads to the question: “What  will change in the next five years?” My answer is, “Not much.” And this is received with a mix of curiosity and some suspicion. Allow me to explain: we will not witness a massive […]

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been referred to as the land of many things: traditions, dichotomies, misconceptions. Regionally, advertisers are constantly grappling with the challenge of reaching this particular group of consumers. As the largest and most youthful population in the GCC by far, the need to tap into its potential is growing and […]

Communicate’s parent company, Mediaquest, has recently announced a partnership with motion public relations agency, emblem. With this new agreement, emblem will provide its  ‘Cinematic PR’ service, which will benefit Mediaquest by enhancing digital video coverage of its editorial division and range of media-related events, to include Arab Luxury World, the Effies and Top CEO. As they say, […]

Havas Media has been named media agency for Ubisoft, a leading creator, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and services. The contract spanning across 17 countries in Europe and Australia will incorporate Havas Media’s full range of media, digital and specialist services. It will also involve the management and central coordination of all of Ubisoft’s central and local […]

PacSis, promotional and digital marketing solutions company, has recently launched a tech platform in the UAE, providing brands a solution that allows consumer engagement for everyday goods. The platform aims to help consumer brands to create relationships with customers through a series of digital activations that ultimately focus on increasing sales.  Pedro Guimarães, managing partner at PacSis, provided us with […]

All expats living in the U.A.E have been through similar journeys. Getting off the Emirates flight not knowing what the next few weeks hold in store. Walking into the new work place bright eyed, looking around and seeing people from all over the world. Sitting with your new colleagues and finding out where they are form and how […]

Vuclip, the mobile video on demand service for emerging markets, announces a landmark partnership with Mazzika Group, a music production house in the Middle East. Mazzika Group will work with Vuclip to extend their premium music library to growing mobile audiences across the Middle East region. Vuclip subscribers to have access to a selection of […]

  Everyone’s favorite go-to website when they want to pass time and/or fuel an unhealthy addiction to pop culture listicles and quizzes, is BuzzFeed. Recently, the website has found itself embroiled in controversy over its editorial standards. BuzzFeed’s only kind of advertising is native advertising and so far – though some may argue this – […]

Yes, JC or Jonathan Oliver, is every bit as crazy as he looks in the picture and as we got to witness up close during his talk at the first ever Festival of Media MENA held in Dubai this April. It’s the good kind of crazy; the kind that is good for a company like […]

Online journal trendingbytes.com shares the latest digital, web and user insights, as well as social media news, with Communicate Levant. Nintendo finally aims for mobile games Nintendo is bringing its games to smartphones, tablets and personal computers after it announced a joint collaboration with Japanese mobile game company DeNa. So far, Nintendo characters such as […]

Criteo, the performance marketing technology company, released its Q1 2015 State of Mobile Commerce Report, highlighting that mobile devices are now responsible for more than one third of e-commerce globally. Smartphones are becoming the dominant mobile device replacing tablets. As a result, advertisers’ future success now depends on their ability to offer a compelling mobile […]

Lebanese media planners crawl towards the multiscreen world of brand building Since the revolutionary invention of the Internet, media channels have been changing year after year, urging agencies to optimize their clients’ media plans in order to adjust to the new realities. Global numbers show that today’s consumers spend seven hours a day watching a […]

Joe Maari, director of digital strategy at OMD, on how ad blockers affect digital media and the advertising industry. I’ve been using the Adblock Plus plugin on my Firefox browser (yes, I don’t use Chrome) since it released version one, years ago. I do have a few excluded websites like Facebook and popular news and […]

The new digital trends 2015 research conducted in UAE from Microsoft has revealed that the modern consumer is putting pressure on brands to use personal information collected online to tailor services and help them get more done. The research – taken from Microsoft Advertising’s bi-annual Digital Trends report – found that 74.2 percent in the […]

In late 2014, business intelligence company Cloudfish was born out of the merger between digital agency Fetch and the data analysis division of DNY group. Founded by Michael Chaftari, with the idea to help communication agencies monitor and analyze social media activities for their clients and campaigns, Cloudfish helps its clients make use of their […]

The Oxford Dictionary defines a ‘mobile phone’ as “a telephone with access to a cellular radio system so it can be used over a wide area, without a physical connection to a network” and the word ‘mobile’ as “able to move or be moved freely or easily”. However, with the introduction of phablets, tablets and […]

A new content production solution, Zeentree.com will provide a new way for brands to communicate with their audiences. It’s an online platform that helps brands become publishers of quality and compelling content. Available in four languages, Zeentree.com produces digital magazines, packaged in subscriptions, on multiple topics. “Zeentree.com helps brands craft compelling great stories, engage audiences, […]

Online journal trendingbytes.com shares the latest digital, web and user insights, as well as social media news, with Communicate Levant. Twitter fights “revenge porn” with new policy The social network is now prohibiting the posting of explicit photos or videos without the subject’s consent, in a list of new rules published in the private information […]

Facebook announces the Creative Accelerator, a program intending to help brands target audiences in high-growth countries. For this accelerator, Facebook Creative Shop is currently working with clients and agency partners in India, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya and Turkey.  The goal is to develop campaigns tailored to the people and the devices they use to access […]

Xaxis, a global programmatic media and technology platform, announces the official launch of operations at their new MENA branch. With the regional headquarters in Dubai, Xaxis MENA will help advertisers with multi-channel, programmatic campaigns. The debut of Xaxis introduces the MENA region to a second-screen solution, Xaxis Sync, through which advertisers can sync their TV […]

Digital and social media agency AccelerateME Online launches a new campaign titled “Nothing is created, everything is transformed.” The agency, based in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, featured the campaign on its newly created website, acceleratemeonline.com. The campaign emphasizes the transformational power of social media in our days and reflects how social media has created a […]

Online journal trendingbytes.com shares the latest digital, web and user insights, as well as social media news, with Communicate Levant. Twitter introduces new updates Following the footsteps of Facebook, WhatsApp and WeChat, Twitter is now allowing group direct messages, enabling users to communicate with more than one person at a time. The group DMs can […]

Today, Ubisoft® announced that Tom Clancy’s The Division™, an online, open-world RPG, for the Xbox One from Microsoft, the PlayStation® 4 from Sony, and PC, is to be fully supported with Arabic localization. The game will feature full voice dubbing and UI customization. The Division takes place in New York three weeks after a lethal virus, […]

Online journal trendingbytes.com shares the latest digital, web and user insights, as well as social media news, with Communicate Levant. Meet Instagram’s five new filters Hey selfie-obsessed Instagramers, you’ve been stuck on X-PRO II for a while haven’t you? You probably haven’t heard this before but you will soon get acquainted with the newest filters […]

Bank Audi opened its latest Novo branch in Beirut Central District on December 16 to cater to the various banking needs of customers in an ultra-modern space. The new branch gives clients an easy and interactive access to banking services from 10:00am to 10:00pm, 365 days a year. In addition to Smart ATMs, which allow […]

Following Active PR  and Hotwire PR’s  launch of their first Digital Trends Report 2014 for the Middle East, Communicate sat down with Active PR’s managing director, Sawasan Ghanem to glean some more insight into the changing landscape of digital in the Middle East. Can you tell us about the methodology, duration and location of the research? We […]

  Active PR and Hotwire PR announced the launch of their first Digital Trends Report 2014 for the Middle East. Titled: “The Year of Reflection”, the report identifies eight key trends within the region in digital communication. The first dedicated Digital Trends report 2014 for the Middle East comprises of 8 key trends for the […]

Global online food ordering platform Hellofood, active in more than 45 countries, has officially launched its mobile application in Lebanon. The launch event was held at the Golden Tulip hotel on November 13, and was intended to officially announce the emergence of Hellofood from the soft launch phase after encouraging results in the Lebanese market […]

The Conde Nast of old aimed to sign star scribes like Christopher Hitchens and photographers like Annie Lebowitz. The Conde Nast of now has its sights set on YouTube stars. To meet the content demands of its growing millennial audience, the magazine publisher’s digital-video division, Conde Nast Entertainment, has begun signing YouTube stars to wide-reaching agreements […]

  Regional digital publisher and media group Diwanee Media Group has launched Mashaheeri.com, a specialized Arabic celebrity and entertainment portal. The portal will feature celebrity stories from the world of television, music and film, as well as breaking news and trending entertainment topics in the Middle East. Founded in 2009, Diwanee – operating in Beirut, Belgrade, and […]

Using can become abusing in the world of hashtags – today’s trendiest self-expression too After regional director at Memac Ogilvy’s digi­tal consultancy [email protected], Emma Linaker, visited Beirut back in March 2014 as part of her regional roadshow tour, she came back home excited about the possibilities of the market. “The social media scene [in Lebanon] […]

Uber launched its ridesharing service in Beirut on September 1, making it the sixth Middle Eastern city to embrace the smartphone application. Uber allows users to connect to licensed private drivers in the neighborhood at the touch of a button, using the smartphone’s GPS to detect both parties’ locations. This means that Beirut residents can […]

  Last year, Pepsi’s three-minute “Let’s Come Together” film for Ramadan was not only among the longest ads released in the Middle East for the Holy Month – with, presumably, a budget to match – but also the most watched video on YouTube outside of and in the MENA region, having clocked up close to […]

BuzzFeed, the news and entertainment website best known for its pictures of cats, wants to expand into the Middle East with the launch of an Arabic website. Launched in 2006, the United States website, which is steadily increasing its hard news content, has already launched UK, Australia, France, Brazil and Español (Spanish) editions. Since November […]

  Dubai-based pan-Arab broadcaster Al Aan TV has revamped its website to coincide with the onset of Ramadan. The newly released site features tighter integration with social media, an expanded network of regional reporters, and a new user interface. According to the channel’s chief editor Samer Hamza, the new site coherently fuses two of Al […]

  The World Cup 2014 in Brazil and the run-in to the tournament have shed a new light on our industry, and the creative and executional challenges it now faces. A few years ago, the focus would have been on big budget TV executions that blew you away. Not anymore. Take Nike, which ignored all […]

  Elevision Media, which owns and operates the LED screen at the DIFC, will be supporting the launch of the new BMW i8 with a campaign tailored to the recently launched digital screen that targets an audience of affluent professionals. The LED screen was installed in May and is the longest Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) space […]

  Digital Media Services (DMS), which serves as the digital arm of Choueiri Group recently announced its exclusive partnership with Screen-it By Strategies, a Dubai-based rich media and digital brand experience specialist. The tie-up focuses on offering DMS’ clients creative and executive expertise in crafting rich media campaigns. Screen-it By Strategies offers a distinct approach […]

  You recently moved to Yahoo after a 30-year stint in television. What will your previous experience in broadcasting bring to Yahoo? A number of things: I have an understanding of business-to-user experiences, an appreciation of audiences – which I think is critical – but also a deep understanding of and contacts within the advertising […]

While the economic crisis pulls Jordan’s advertising industry underwater, digital is saving it from drowning Back in June 2011, Communicate Levant’s cover story about Jordan was predicting a bright online future for the kingdom. To a certain extent, it has been proven right: the Internet penetration rate that was hovering at 27 percent then, reached […]

  Elevision, a digital-screen media company that owns and manages a network of real-time screens inside premium properties, has launched a new outdoor LED screen for the DIFC. The digital signage will report the price for listed companies on the Nasdaq Dubai, updated continuously throughout the day’s trading session. The market-data will be supplemented by […]

  Digital Media Services (DMS), the digital arm of Choueiri Group, recently announced that it has been appointed as the Exclusive Media Representative for Kooora.com, the Middle East-based online destination for global and regional sports. Kooora.com is a digital platform aimed at sports fans and enthusiasts with a focus on football, as well as a […]

Ad units in magazines’ iPad editions climbed 16 percent in 2013, according to a report out on December 23 by MPA-The Association of Magazine Media-  and Kantar Media. The report, which looked at 69 magazines with monitored print and iPad editions, is a hopeful sign for traditional publishers stymied by secular headwinds affecting print media. […]