The latest edition of Campaign Middle East—The Production House Guide 2024—is now available both in print and online. This issue takes an in-depth look at key topics driving the industry forward, focusing on the region’s production landscape, e-commerce trends, and digital transformation.
Opening the issue is a feature from Campaign Middle East’s On the Record podcast, where SMC’s CEO, Khalid AlKhudair, shares his insights on the latest advertising and marketing trends in Saudi Arabia and how SMC is helping to shape the landscape. You can listen to the full podcast here for more in-depth analysis.
The Saudi Focus section offers more perspectives from the Kingdom. Petromin’s Hussein Dajani discusses how foreign agencies often struggle to effectively communicate in the Saudi market, while Alex Maalouf delivers a crash course on communications best practices for brands in Saudi Arabia. To gain more insights, don’t miss the Campaign Saudi Briefing: Media and Marketing, taking place next week.
On a global note, Manchester United’s Director of Marketing, Matt Mackie, sits down with Campaign Middle East to discuss the evolution of sports marketing strategies. Mackie provides an in-depth look at consumer behaviour trends and the effectiveness of current marketing tactics in the sports world.
Coming back to the heart of this issue, several key voices in industry weigh in on e-commerce and digital transformation. Representing major brands, Al Masood’s Marwa Kaabour, Aramex’s Shahir Sirry, KFC MENA’s Sony Nagpal, IFZA’s Adam Taylor, Chalhoub Group’s Marilena Hadgianni, and Cars24 Arabia’s Utkarsh Verma share their takes on the current e-commerce landscape and digital transformation.
From the agency side, Girish Nathaney of Cheval Group, Sameer Poonja from Merkle MENA, and Boopin’s Prasad Sawant discuss their perspectives on the topics.
And like most conversations about digital trends, none are complete without the rising star of the industry, AI.
Hypermedia’s Philip Matta leads the conversation, sharing more about the transformation driven by AI in the out-of-home industry. While Sputnik Floyd’s Patrick Honein reveals AICO, a new AI-generated image and video content service and Ombori’s Andreas Hassellof explains how machine learning is changing customer understanding.
While AI and new tech are causing changes in production, the industry itself is calling for a different kind of transformation. A future of bold and innovative thinking, going beyond advertising to create quality productions, and content that resonates with local experiences are some demands from the production heads.
One of the main key focus of all these conversations is tighter budgets and how it affects creativity. We also asked a cross-section of industry experts for their take on the topic as part of our Industry Forum for this month.
Apart from expert takes from the industry, the production guide is also a one-stop guide for production houses in the region, covering the houses, their services and capabilities alongside some key projects.
The Production House Guide is also accompanied by The MENA Power List 2024 supplement that features key leaders across the media, marketing, advertising and PR industry for this year.
Read the full issue and the MENA Power List 2024 supplement below, or click here for online access.
