By Adham Abdullah, Senior Creative Copywriter, Wunderman Thompson Dubai
With all its offerings as a business hub for the MENA region and beyond, Dubai is a magnet for the top minds in the world. The same thing applies in the advertising industry.
In Dubai, you’ll find talent from across the globe, from different continents, cultures and backgrounds, and with these talents come unique insights—the basis of creativity in any form.
Considering it’s the United ARAB Emirates, the official language is Arabic. However, Dubai’s diverse populace and global ties mean English dominates in many ways, and makes it easier for talent from around the world to work seamlessly—so long as they can communicate in English.
Tracking back to my original point: we’re an Arabic country. Advertisers should be aware of what is acceptable and what’s is not. Like any other country, UAE has its own culture and its own unique way of doing things. These are essential to know to be able to do your work right.
Agencies can’t ensure an Arabic or local talent on every brief they put out, and sometimes, people from very different backgrounds sit down to crack a brief based on their own insights and ideas.
But, often, just before they execute, they’ll need to validate it with an expert and make sure it’s “culture friendly.” This is totally normal and acceptable.
What’s not acceptable though, is to approach the first Arabic speaker you can find and ask them this question: “Does this line work in Arabic?” without context, rationale or even a decent explanation of the idea behind the concept, line, or execution. That’s not happening only on the agency’s side but also on the client’s side too.
I’m sure many great ideas never saw the light of day because of this question or this approach.
The Arabic language might be difficult, heavy, harsh on some ears and complex, but on the other hand, it’s super flexible. It’s a rich language, with multi-label options to say the same thing in English, especially now that we’re more open to using slang.
Ultimately, ideas are universal, yes, but it’s up to us to execute universal ideas in a relevant way for the market with which we are communicating.
If you’re creative and full of ideas, make sure you validate them with local creatives, and explain it properly, you might be surprised how it can be much better and award worthy with just a small local twist.
I’m not talking about UAE market only; if you’re a foreigner working abroad, ensure you always have a local expert partner to validate your ideas and shape them into an acceptable form for the market you’re in.
So, to answer the question I opened the topic with: Yes, absolutely, it works in Arabic. It always does.
Remember: Ideas are universal. But executions are localised.
