WARC has taken a closer look at the region’s most effective marketing trends, based on insights from the inaugural WARC Prize for MENA Strategy, in its MENA Strategy Report 2017.
“We’ve analyzed all the submissions to establish unrivaled insights into how the region’s communication strategies are responding to a competitive market and ever-evolving consumer needs. Our report shows that MENA is a highly resourceful and youthful region where building brand equity and raising awareness are the main objectives,” said Lucy Aitken, Case Study Editor, WARC.
“Increased competitiveness, complex external environments, demanding consumers and technological developments have made the job of planners increasingly complex. However, the MENA region is ripe and ready for some serious strategy work,” added Asad Rehman, Director, Media, MENA, Unilever and Jury Chair.
WARC’s MENA Strategy Report 2017 highlights the following key insights and marketing trends in the region:
Genuinely Local: Rather than adapting global communications to suit a MENA audience, many case studies that performed well understood the importance of communicating with local people in a relevant way.
Departing From Category Norms: Communications that make a fresh point in an original way unsurprisingly stand out in cluttered categories such as telecom operators or household products.
Changing Perceptions: A number of winning case studies entered into this year’s WARC Prize for MENA Strategy were geared towards changing perceptions.
Targeting Youth In A Fresh Way: As 28 percent of the MENA population is aged between 15 and 29, much of the successful work in this year’s Prize targeted this group in an appealing way.
On November 14, WARC will also be holding ‘MENA Strategy Works’, a free-to-attend event in Dubai.
