Featured Opinion PR

posted on Mar. 20, 2025 at 1:00 pmMar 20, 2025

Middle East PR demands specialists, not generalists

posted on Mar. 20, 2025 at 1:00 pmMar 20, 2025

Capital Gate Advisors' Ajith Henry calls for the industry to shift from generalist PR to specialist-driven strategic comms, senior advisory and execution, and empowered clients rather than fostering dependency.

Ajith Henry, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Capital Gate Advisors on PR

Ajith Henry, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Capital Gate Advisors

The Middle East is launching giga-projects, welcoming global investors, and reshaping economies – yet its PR industry is still grounded in a commodity-mindset, based on a transactional approach viewing the number of press releases versus coverage.

While the global behemoths continue tried and tested formula – throwing in AI and data to camouflage lack of depth – many upstarts rely on the digital bandwagon bringing little subject matter expertise and a lot of empty noise.

So where does the problem lie?

At the international firm I was working a few years ago, two of our largest clients were large B2B entities. I urged the team to follow the market, become acquainted with macroeconomic

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Tags:Ajith Henry behavioural influence Capital Gate Advisors Clients data scientists Empowerment execution financial analysts financial communications generalists Governance institutional knowledge knowledge transfer PR public relations senior advisory specialists

the authorAnup Oommen

Anup Oommen is the Editor of Campaign Middle East at Motivate Media Group, a well-reputed moderator, and a multiple award-winning journalist with more than 15 years of experience at some of the most reputable and credible global news organisations, including Reuters, CNN, and Motivate Media Group. As the Editor of Campaign Middle East, Anup heads market-leading coverage of advertising, media, marketing, PR, events and experiential, digital, the wider creative industries, and more, through the brand’s digital, print, events, directories, podcast and video verticals. As such he’s a key stakeholder in the Campaign Global brand, the world’s leading authority for the advertising, marketing and media industries, which was first published in the UK in 1968.