JEDDAH — The advertising industry i has witnessed an improvement across the region over the past five years, with a number of local advertising agencies set up by talented Saudi professionals in KSA. This has contributed in some ways to the Kingdom's improved macroeconomic stability, and has the potential to lead the advertising industry. Despite that, the United Arab Emirates, ranked 12th globally by the World Economic Forum for its competitive economic landscape, takes the lead when it comes to communications industry growth. UAE's institutional framework, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability and Information & Communication Technology (ICT) managed to attract multinational companies to establish their regional headquarters. The global advertising market witnessed a growth of approx. 5% in 2014 and is expected to remain at 5% in 2015. However, the geopolitical conflict and turbulence in the MENA region has left many advertisers cautious. Confidence and activity began to recover in 2013, when media investments grew with the same global trend. According to the Ipsos media monitoring report, the offline media investments in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman decreased by 8%, 3% and 10% respectively in 2014 compared to 2013, while UAE, Qatar and Bahrain witnessed an increase by 8%, 28% and 4% respectively. January/May 2015 show a similar trend for KSA, UAE and Oman, but a drop in media investment in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, has been recorded. The drop in offline media investments has been compensated by a substantial increase in online media investment. “However, the escalating conflict in Iraq, Syria and Yemen has made advertisers more cautious about investing in the region. Media investment grew slightly in 2014. This growth is expected to remain shy in the coming few years as a result of the continuing political unrest in the region,” said Tony Rouhana, Vice-President Saudi Arabia & Levant Horizon FCB. Over the past decade, Saudi talents have been behind the success of many advertising agencies. During the past few years, many of them started their own agencies, whereas the remaining preferred to play an integral role within the international agencies and gain global experience. “With more Saudi talents entering advertising and producing original (online) content over the years, it has become noticeable that no one can advertise better to Saudis than the Saudis themselves.” “The future of the Saudi advertising landscape will be more reliant on social media -traditional media will become less of a spearhead for brands,” said Shahd Fathaddin, a Saudi talent in the market. Saudi talents have been extremely active on YouTube and have been able to establish extremely successful channels that attracted millions of viewers and subscribers. Social media is primarily dominated by local talents because no one else knows the culture as much as they do. Creativity has never been better. Saudis have developed successful campaigns that defied all perceived boundaries. In a nutshell, the advertising industry in Saudi Arabia will continue to grow and flourish, thanks to the Saudi talents. “Over the years, I've seen more and more young Saudis searching for a career in advertising, especially graphic design, where most applicants are Saudi females.” Moutaz Jad, another Saudi talent, noted that while the international agencies are waiting for the market to become stable, it would be an opportunity for the local agencies to establish their awareness and grab a fair market share. On the other hand, most of the local advertising agencies are more focused on selling their brands today, than on building brand equity which can help sustain a brands' success and increase its value over a long period of time. The challenge in this case would be to educate these companies and help them build their brand value overtime while selling today. “Since joining the industry, I have a better understanding of how advertising works in Saudi Arabia. And unfortunately, many clients rely on quantity of artwork, rather than the quality and thought process that goes into each campaign,” he said. “There is a sense of Saudi culture in our advertising now. You can see it and hear it. Not all advertising is in formal Arabic, we now hear causal Arabic and slang words. This can definitely be attributed to more Saudis working in advertising,” Khaled Fal, another Saudi talent added.
