Many entrepreneurs and business owners in Saudi Arabia don't have the intellectual ability to differentiate between “marketing” and “advertising”. In other words, those who own firms and the CEOs, whenever marketing is mentioned, would probably think of advertising and they at the same time overlook the most important elements of marketing in their business activities and the organizations' strategies. This factual observation was raised by a prominent and well-known brand marketing strategy consultant Said Aghil Baaghil in an interview with the Saudi Gazette. Baaghil who is half Saudi-half Yemeni has spent around 20 years in studying the Saudi markets and has been a marketing consultant for more than seven years. He also is an author of two published books “Eccentric Marketing” and “The Power of Belonging” aside from being a very active blogger and lecturer focusing on the enlightening of the public about the new strategies and approaches of modern brand marketing. Following are the excerpts from the interview: Q: How can business in Saudi Arabia benefit from the brand marketing consulting? A: The Kingdom is undergoing fast dynamic changes in terms of new generation of young entrepreneurship comprises many Saudi young business owners who have a modern and more developed image of successful businesses and who are also well-educated about the required aspects of thriving marketing. So, I think those who can really benefit from such a field of marketing to develop their businesses are the new generation of youth entrepreneurs. Q: Can you give an example of those young businesses? A: The Jeddah Young Business Committee (JYBC) with its active members is a very vivid example of a new promising business based on scientific marketing rules. We have some young promising business endeavors and calibers that have small yet more developed firms with a full perspective of modern marketing strategies. I think those young businessmen will be the new turning point of more successful and international Saudi businesses and franchises. Let's take a Crunchy Square experience which was launched earlier in 2009 by a Saudi young entrepreneur. It is a Saudi franchise of traditional Saudi and Hejaz foods like Motabbag and Ma'asoob served in modern forms and more international platters at a very cozy and contemporary ambiance. Q: How important is the role of marketing and brand marketing consultancy in the successful firms and businesses? Do Saudi businessmen appreciate such a role? A: Understanding the role of marketing and not to be confused between marketing process and advertising as a tool of marketing is a very important key of success for many local firms and businesses. Unfortunately, many old-fashioned business owners and old CEOs in many local companies don't have the least knowledge to differentiate the process of marketing and advertising. Many of those “ego-driven” CEOs when I introduce myself as a brand consultant to them would instantly refer their “already-programmed minds” toward advertising. They, as a result would say why do we need a marketing or brand marketing consultant as long as many advertising agencies mushroom around the city. Many of those conventional or let's say “dogmatic” CEOs don't know that advertising is under the umbrella of marketing and advertising and public relations are complementing each other. Q: How do you see the Saudi costumers as part of the entire marketing process? Are they fully aware of the international markets? A: The Saudi audience nowadays is more vigilant and well- acquainted with the international brands and cannot be deceived easily by any PR or advertising campaigns. Q: How do traditional business owners evaluate new paradigms of marketing? A: Traditional entrepreneurs in the region think that the link between expanding their customers and increasing their sales is only advertising. Many traditional and family businesses owners would prefer to allocate a big amount of their expenditures on advertising without spending a penny on the developing of their businesses ideas and the brand strategies. Q: How can the Saudi markets be changed from rather dogmatic businesses to more pragmatic and international markets? A: The first key is to educate the big CEOs and old family businesses owners about the importance of adopting marketing strategies and brand marketing platforms and make them more appealing to marketing than just PR and advertising campaigns in order to develop their brands and make them more international. Secondly, we should support and encourage young businesses especially those which follow the modern strategies of marketing. A: Is marketing confined only to forms of businesses and companies? B: It is noteworthy to mention here that marketing is not only about businesses and brands, it is about thoughts as well. One can markets his thoughts using the most modern scientific marketing strategies as they are used in business marketing. Take the successful series programs of Khawater introduced by Ahmad Al Shoqairi. It is a real translation of thoughts or “emotional” marketing where Al Shoqairi tries to have his thoughts passed to more audience in a very modern media mould. __
