After a 17-year stint at OMD MENA – which involved rising through the ranks from a junior planning executive to a manager before becoming OMD MENA’s Business Unit Director – Jessica Machalani has now taken the helm as the Head of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions (LMS) for the MENA region at LinkedIn and shares her take on what’s keeping marketers up at night.
No stranger to Campaign Middle East, having previously nurtured and nominated young talent for our annual Campaign Faces to Watch, Machalani’s journey has been shaped by working with large teams and a lifetime drive in competitive sports.
Two months into her new role, Campaign Middle East picked Machalani’s brains about challenges facing the marketing landscape from ad effectiveness to localised content strategies, trust and transparency, as well as untapped innovation.
Setting the tone of the conversation, Machalani said, “The B2B marketing industry is going through monumental shifts in the region and worldwide. B2B buying has become more complex, and our region is no exception. To influence a purchase decision, you must build consensus among approximately 20 stakeholders including core decision-makers and hidden allies. In this new B2B landscape, the content used to influence the buying committee, who are out of market, is rapidly evolving.”
She added, “Building B2B influence now means harnessing the power of real people and their networks to create authentic and credible storytelling. Building a humanised brand and engaging with the buyer group in multiple ways, including video, thought leadership, expert-led influencer marketing, and events, is on the rise in B2B.”
… and, to think, we were just getting the discussion started.
“With 81 per cent of ads failing to drive recall, marketers need to find compelling ways to engage buyers.”
Increased engagement, better ad effectiveness with localised strategies
Diving a bit deeper into the concept of ‘humanised brands’ and ‘authentic storytelling’, we discussed the need for marketers in the Middle East to focus on the localisation of content and campaigns, as well as the need for brands to connect more honestly with not just ‘transactional consumers’ but communities of real people in the Middle East.
“With 81 per cent of ads failing to drive recall, marketers need to find compelling ways to engage buyers. Brands must build an emotional connection through the use of creative, credible content that humanises the brand,” Machalani reiterated.
“One simple way to do that: meet the audience where they are,” she explained. “This translates to more tailored content that caters to their various preferences, including language.”
Recent research released by LinkedIn indicates that local language content leads to a 30 per cent increase in engagement. The platform has seen a clear uptick in Arabic language profiles, currently hosting more than 16 million Arabic profiles in the Middle East out of more than 19 million globally.
“Our decision to launch Arabic Ads was a strategic move to help unlock greater opportunities for our customers. Companies that traditionally advertise in Arabic, like The Saudi Investment Bank, are using Arabic Ads to target regional audiences and are seeing an uptick in engagement due to this improved targeting,” Machalani added.
Recognising the importance and ensuing effectiveness of localising solutions to the needs of the Middle East audiences, LinkedIn also featured New Murabba, the upcoming real estate development in Riyadh, in its first ever Saudi Inspire event in Riyadh.
New Murabba was one of the first advertisers in the region to test out the platform’s new CTV solution to impressive results: more than 2.5 million impressions, more than 1.5 unique devices reached, and 98 per cent video completion rate.
Commenting on the impact of its collaboration with LinkedIn, New Murabba’s Executive Director of Marketing Ryan O’Donnell said in a statement, “Together, we’ve effectively utilised the platform to enhance our brand visibility in both regional and global markets, cultivate a dynamic community, and innovate new offerings such as Connected TV.”
“Only 5 per cent of buyers are actively in the market to make a purchase at any given time. To succeed, marketers should find creative ways to reach the right buyers with the right message at the right time across multiple touchpoints to influence their purchase decisions.”
Tripling in-stream video completion rate and helping brands build influence with buyers
As the conversation segued into the benefits of CTV, Campaign Middle East and Machalani considered whether marketers need to pull the lever of available tech innovations more consciously to ensure better ad results.
“In today’s competitive landscape, only 5 per cent of buyers are actively in the market to make a purchase at any given time. To succeed, marketers should find creative ways to reach the right buyers with the right message at the right time across multiple touchpoints to influence their purchase decisions,” Machalani said.
When asked how LinkedIn is helping advertisers reach the right audiences through the right touchpoints, especially in an age where consumers are spending hours watching videos, Machalani responded saying, “It’s true. Video uploads on LinkedIn are up 34 per cent year-over-year. Video is the most effective and trusted format to build B2B influence, and buyers are consuming more and more digital video.”
She added, “We have introduced new ad solutions to help target and engage with the right audiences both on and off LinkedIn with LinkedIn CTV Ads. This product builds on the success of In-stream Video Ads, which are helping customers nearly triple their in-stream video completion rate by creating engaging video content that establishes a lasting connection with buyers that can influence purchase decisions now and in the future.”
LinkedIn has also recently launched the Wire Program, an initiative that allows brands to promote in-stream video ads alongside trusted publisher content on LinkedIn.
Sharing a ‘scoop’ with Campaign Middle East, Machalani revealed, “We’re testing the Wire Program with a limited number of publishers, including Barron’s, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Forbes, LinkedIn News, MarketWatch, NBCUniversal, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and Yahoo Finance. And to help brands connect and build influence with the buyer group in multiple ways, we’ve also introduced new capabilities for Live Event Ads, and Accelerate, our AI campaign creation experience, which is now generally available in beta.”
“In addition to the changes in the industry in recent years, including the growing focus on creativity and proving ROI, AI integration is transforming the way marketers work, with a promise of boundless opportunity. Already, 58 per cent of marketers in MENA say that they are using AI, which we at LinkedIn are taking as a signal to continue innovating to help marketers focus on the things that matter,” she said.
“We are seeing record levels of engagement on the platform, underpinned by new Gen AI experiences for our members.”
The bottom line: Outcomes that benefit the brand and the bottom line
Building on the mention of ‘ROI’ and the move from ‘creativity’ to creative effectiveness, Campaign Middle East questioned Machalani about how B2B brands can better unlock business outcomes that benefit the business’ bottom line as much as it does the brand.
“Demonstrating long-term ROI will be a game-changer in B2B. We have seen first-hand how brand building and storytelling are now just as integral to B2B brands as they are to B2C. With 95 per cent of buyers not in the market to buy today, staying top of mind is key. This is top of mind for us at LinkedIn: in the past fiscal year, ROI that we’re driving for customers has improved 12 per cent year-over-year.”
She concluded, “In the MENA region, we continue to see strong growth in ad spend, in a trend that is reflecting global direction as well. In fiscal year 2023, our global B2B marketing revenue growth exceeded $5bn for the first time. And this is not a surprise: with over 1 billion members on LinkedIn, no one knows B2B professionals and how to reach them better than we do. We are seeing record levels of engagement on the platform, underpinned by new Gen AI experiences for our members.”
