Oscar Scolding, Founder of Eclypseo SEO AgencyNot long ago, businesses were scrambling to figure out how to market through a crisis none of us had seen coming. Shops were shut, travel stopped overnight, and consumer confidence fell through the floor. The Covid-19 pandemic forced every marketer in the world to either adapt or disappear. Most of the ones who adapted are still here.
Now, with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East creating a fresh wave of economic uncertainty, nervous consumers, and disrupted markets, it is worth asking: did we actually learn anything from Covid, and are we applying it?
The honest answer is that some businesses did. And some are already repeating the same mistakes.
Going quiet is the worst thing you can do
The businesses that pulled their marketing spend and went dark during Covid paid for it in the long run. Not just financially, but in terms of brand equity and customer loyalty. Customers do not forget who was present during difficult times, and they do not forget who disappeared either.
We are seeing the same instinct play out right now. The IAB’s chief economist Daniel Knapp, reflecting on how brands navigated the Ukraine war, summed it up well: “A state of war doesn’t suddenly stop the advertising machine or consumer markets. Brands wanted to inform consumers that they were still there, still available.”
He added that ad spend climbed again in the second year of that conflict, particularly on performance channels, because the brands that stayed visible were the ones consumers returned to.
The lesson is simple. Stay in the conversation. Just change how you show up in it.
Empathy is not a tactic; it is the whole strategy for businesses
The brands that performed best during Covid were not the ones with the biggest budgets. They were the ones that communicated with the most humanity. Nike’s “Play inside, play for the world” campaign cost nothing in terms of concept. It simply met people where they were. It worked because it was genuine.
Consumers across the region are anxious right now. Many are watching news feeds that are genuinely distressing. Marketing that barges in with a hard sell, or pretends nothing is happening, reads as either ignorant or callous.
What people respond to during a crisis is the same thing they always respond to: feeling like the brand they are dealing with actually sees them. The tone, the timing, and the message all need to reflect an awareness that people are carrying more than usual right now.
Digital is no longer the future; it is the present
One of the most significant shifts Covid triggered was the mass migration of consumer behaviour online. Those behaviours stuck. The acceleration of digital adoption that happened in 2020 did not reverse when restrictions were lifted. It became the new baseline.
Goldman Sachs estimates that Qatar’s and Kuwait’s GDP could fall by as much as 14 per cent if the conflict extends into Q2, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia facing contractions of 5 per cent and 3 per cent respectively. Physical retail is taking a direct hit. People are spending more time at home, more time on their phones, and more time online.
According to eMarketer, when budgets tighten, marketers consistently shift toward channels with measurable returns – paid search and retail media gain share because they reach consumers at high-intent moments closer to purchase.
Your digital presence is not a support act for your real-world business. Right now, it is the main stage.
Online channels that cannot afford to hit ‘pause’
This is where businesses need to be clear-eyed. The instinct during a crisis is to cut spending and protect margins.
But pulling back on SEO, paid search, and content marketing during a downturn is one of the most damaging things a business can do to its long-term position.
Search doesn’t take a day off because the world is nervous. Your customers are still out there looking – the only question is whether they find you or your competitor.
Search does not pause because the news is bad. People are still searching – for what is open, what is available, which businesses are still operating and how. Brands that maintain their Google presence through consistent SEO work, that keep their Google Ads running on relevant terms, and that continue producing useful content are the ones capturing that traffic.
The brands that go dark hand that ground to competitors for free, and rebuilding lost search rankings after the fact is far harder than holding them through a period of disruption.
Community building and email list growth follow the same logic. These are not activities that pay out immediately. They pay out when confidence returns and the market picks back up, and that moment will come sooner than most people expect.
Some businesses are already getting it right
The ENTERTAINER, the Dubai-founded platform known for its buy-one-get-one-free offers across dining, leisure, and hospitality, launched its “Our Home. Our Heart.” campaign on 12 March 2026 in direct response to the impact of the conflict on GCC residents. The company offered free memberships to UAE residents to drive footfall back to local businesses.
All memberships were claimed within four hours, and nearly 20,000 offers were redeemed at participating venues within the first 24 hours alone.
Giving away memberships looks like a cost. In reality it is one of the most effective brand-building moves available when consumer confidence needs a nudge and goodwill is in short supply.
Hotel groups across the region have taken a similar approach, repackaging offers specifically for local and regional residents. Skift reported in March 2026 that the Middle East is losing an estimated $600 million every day in visitor spending, with inbound tourism having stalled sharply.
International travel is down, but people still want a break from the weight of the news cycle. Position yourself as the answer to that need and you capture a market that would not normally look at you, and those guests remember the experience when things pick back up.
Online communities are where the real work happens now
If there is one place where brands can build the most durable equity right now, it is inside communities – not through advertising into them, but by genuinely becoming part of them.
People across the Middle East are spending more time in WhatsApp groups, Facebook communities, and niche forums than at almost any point in recent memory. The businesses that show up in these spaces with something genuinely useful, whether that is practical information, access to services, or simply a human voice, are building a level of trust that a paid media campaign cannot replicate.
It does not have to mean a massive operation. A restaurant answering questions in a neighbourhood Facebook group. A fitness brand running free live sessions. The scale is less important than the consistency. People can tell the difference between a brand that has shown up to sell and one that has shown up to contribute.
The bounce-back is not a question of if, but when
The people on the other side of the screen are not gone. They are still there, still forming opinions about every brand they interact with, still deciding who they will return to when things settle. The question is simply whether you are in their minds when that moment arrives.
The Middle East and the UAE have one of the most resilient commercial environments in the world. The fundamentals, the population, the purchasing power, the appetite for experience and quality, have not changed. What changes is who captures the recovery, and that is almost always the businesses that stayed present and stayed human during the hard period.
What businesses can do, starting today
Audit everything currently in the market. Any campaign that reads as tone-deaf given what your audience is living through needs to be reworked.
Find a way to give something. Whether it is access, a discount, free content, or simply useful information, the act of giving during a difficult period is the most effective brand-building tool available. It does not need to be expensive. It needs to be real.
Keep your digital channels running. Maintain your SEO. Keep your Google Ads live on the terms that matter. Show up in communities. Build your email list. These assets take time to build, and the time to build them is not when everyone else is also trying.
Be transparent. Customers forgive operational problems far more readily than they forgive silence.
The conflict is causing real hardship for real people, and nothing here is meant to minimise that. But for businesses navigating this period, the path forward is clearer than the noise makes it feel. Stay visible, give generously, build your community, and trust that the region will come back. Because it will. The only variable is whether you will be part of it when it does.
By Oscar Scolding, Founder of Eclypseo SEO Agency
