Eissa Al Awadhi, Executive Creative Director, Ma'an Art Production.When I started Ma’an, it wasn’t as a company, it was as a community. A group of volunteers creating content that felt true to us. Within a year, it became a business, but the essence remained: an agency that looks like its people, speaks their language, and carries their values. Running a homegrown Emirati creative agency has been a masterclass in lessons no MBA can teach.
Culture is not decoration – it’s direction
In too many campaigns, culture is treated like an afterthought: a token element added to make the work appear ‘local.’
But true cultural relevance cannot be designed last – it must shape the direction from the start.
As a homegrown Emirati agency, we see culture as our compass. It guides not just visuals, but tone, storytelling, and even strategy. When campaigns reflect identity authentically, they stop being advertisements and become shared experiences. This is why our rebrand proudly emphasises our Emirati majority team, because culture isn’t an accessory for us, it’s our foundation.
People are the real assets
Software, AI, and global trends all play their part, but in the end, creativity is human. The most valuable resource in Ma’an is not our tech stack or processes, but our people.
Having a majority-Emirati team allows us to create work that feels lived-in, not imported. Each campaign carries the nuance of someone who grew up here, who understands the subtleties of language, tradition, and emotion.
Investing in people means more than hiring; it means building an environment where talent thrives, feels valued, and is encouraged to express itself. That’s the real creative advantage.
Resilience beats resources
When we started, we didn’t have big offices or massive budgets. What we had was resilience, the willingness to show up, adapt, and create under pressure.
That resilience has become our DNA. It allowed us to produce government campaigns on impossibly tight timelines, often within days, without compromising quality. Resilience teaches you to innovate with less, to stretch ideas beyond constraints, and to find solutions where others see roadblocks.
In a world where resources fluctuate, resilience is the skill that sustains you. It’s what turns a group of volunteers into one of the UAE’s most promising agencies.
Relationships are everything
In this industry, growth doesn’t come from cold emails, it comes from trust. Our strongest projects happened because of the relationships we nurtured with clients, collaborators, and the wider community.
We treat relationships as long-term investments, built on transparency and respect. For example, our ability to deliver high-impact campaigns within impossible deadlines has only been possible because our clients trust us completely, knowing we’ll deliver without excuses.
Relationships extend beyond transactions; they create a community of partners who believe in your mission. And in the UAE, where personal trust is everything, relationships are our greatest asset.
Running a homegrown Emirati agency has taught us that creativity is not just about making something new, it’s about making something meaningful.
Culture, people, resilience, and relationships are the pillars of our journey. As the UAE pushes forward its creative economy, I believe these lessons will shape not just Ma’an’s future, but the future of the industry itself.
By Eissa Al Awadhi, Executive Creative Director, Ma’an Art Production
