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GMR RSS FEEDS — Provided by Gulf Marketing Review TBWARAAD announced today the appointment of Ghassan Kassabji as Managing Director of its Dubai agency after completing a transition period. Previously, Ghassan was Managing Director of TBWARAADSaudi Arabia for 5 years. "Ghassan has been around great work his entire career. He is a true believer in the power of what great ideas can do for a brand and understands what it takes to achieve greatness," said Reda Raad, COO, TBWARAAD. “He is also no stranger to Dubai and has been a part of the TBWARAAD family for many years.” Prior to his Saudi assignment, Ghassan worked for 4 years as Client Services Director and Regional Director for the Nissan Middle East business for TBWARAADin Dubai.In 2006, Ghassan was promoted to Managing Director of TBWA's operations in Saudi Arabia, and has since developed the business aggressively across a wide range of sectors. Today, TBWARAAD is one of the leading agencies in Saudi Arabia with offices in Jeddah & Riyadh. “I am very excited to return to Dubai and work with a great team. My challenge is to build on a very successful track record and lead the agency in the midst of interesting times in our industry." Said Ghassan. Ghassan achieved solid success in his advertising career due to a strong and widely respected multicultural background resulting from more than 20 years in business development, marketing and advertising experience in the US, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Lebanon.
GMR RSS FEEDS — Provided by Gulf Marketing Review Dubai, UAE, 19th October 2011: Leo Burnett announced that Kamal Dimachkie has been promoted to Executive Regional Managing Director, in charge of the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and the Lower Gulf region. Taking over the agency reins in the position of Managing Director of the UAE is Jean Traboulsi. Jean will continue to report to Kamal. In his new capacity, Kamal will have a wider role to play as he works to replicate the success he has created in the UAE, while expanding the influence of the Leo Burnett Group across the region. Since 2001, Kamal has been Managing Director of the Dubai office, and, with the backing of a great team, has steered the company to many achievements – which, in turn, has led to the agency quadrupling in size. “We have a strong belief in nurturing talent within Leo Burnett and rewarding excellent performance with the possibility for growth and development,” commented Raja Trad, CEO, Leo Burnett Group MENA. “Both Kamal and Jean have demonstrated that they are capable, driven individuals and key components to the successful advancement of the Leo Burnett Group in the Middle East and beyond. I am confident that, in their new positions, they will realize further accomplishments for Leo Burnett, and I wish them the best of luck and every success.” Kamal’s strengths lie in his leadership abilities, his commitment, passion, and dedication to meeting the varied requirements of the Group’s many clients. His efforts over the years have created enduring business relationships with many key players. “Leo Burnett is now firmly established in the UAE, giving us the ability to demonstrate that the communications game can be played at a whole new level,” commented Kamal. “Jean is a person who I have worked closely with for many years, and I am confident that he will take the agency to new heights. I will be focusing my attentions on the specific areas in which we can bring even greater value to our clients, creating regional opportunities for not only Leo Burnett, but for our clients and their brands to grow as well.” Having worked within the Leo Burnett Group for the past 22 years, Jean Traboulsi is ideally placed to step into the role of Managing Director of the Dubai office. In addition to working closely with Kamal for the past several years as Deputy Managing Director, he has previously held several key roles within the agency, including running operations in Cairo and looking after New Business development in the UAE. “Leo Burnett already enjoys a position as a top tier agency, and is a name that is looked up to for both clients and employment. As Managing Director, it is my intention to take the Group in the UAE to the next level,” said Jean. “We have to take into consideration that this is a new age of communications, in which we must constantly drive results to the requirements of clients and to think in a manner that is triggered by continual changes that affect our industry. I am confident that we have both the ability and the talent to continue to affect the advertising world in the most meaningful way.” The change is effective immediately, with a handover currently in progress to ensure a smooth transition for all involved.
GMR RSS FEEDS — Provided by Gulf Marketing ReviewLondon, October 18th, 2011 - - David Patton, President and CEO of Grey Group Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), today announced that Eric Hanna has been appointed CEO of Grey Group Middle East and Africa (MENA), effective mid-November.Hanna will be headquartered in Dubai, UAE. He succeeds Philippe Skaff who has decided to leave the company.Eric Hanna has served for the past two years as CEO of Mediacom MENA, a GroupM company, where he was the architect of the current Mediacom network in the region. His return to Grey marks a homecoming for Hanna who previously spent a decade at the agency serving in a number of key Middle East management roles."I want to thank Philippe Skaff for his leadership over the past 20 years in helping Grey establish a strong agency network across the Middle East and I’m delighted that Eric Hanna is now taking over Philippe’s responsibilities. Eric has deep roots in this vital region and brings a tremendous track record of accomplishment to his new role," David Patton said. "In his first stint, Eric made major strides in building Grey MENA by recruiting world-class talent, elevating our creative product, winning new business and delivering outstanding client service across the communications spectrum. As he begins a new chapter at Grey, I am confident he will take our operations to the next level in their growth and development."Hanna will lead Grey Group MENA, a network with a growing blue-chip client roster that includes P&G, GSK, BAT and Jotun Paints among others. “Leading Grey is a challenge, one I am really excited to take on," Eric Hanna said. "I look forward to reintegrating a team that consistently delivered differentiating solutions that helped build clients’ brands in the region and as a result, business.”
GMR RSS FEEDS — Provided by Gulf Marketing ReviewInnovations Digital, the online and digital agency of MCN/Interpublic Group in Dubai, have successfully completed a Ramadan special campaign online for Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank using an online app based Financial Health Check for consumers using the latest HTML5 platform. As ADIB's digital agency, Innovations_Digital was briefed to create and launch a campaign for Ramadan and after successful rounds of brainstorming, the Financial Health Check was green-lighted for the holy month. This is part of a broad, long-term initiative by ADIB that aims to deliver on the promise of ‘banking as it should be’ by helping people make the right financial choices. The challenge for the agency was to create a framework that would work natively across all of the touch-screens in ADIB branches, online on desktops and laptops and be truly multi-platform with its support for tablets. “Ramadan is a special time of the year when people change their habits. As a bank we believe our role is to provide them with the right information and education that help them live a more balanced financial life. Our financial health check application will help them to see where they are now and give them simple tips on how to manage their finances,” said Tirad Mahmoud, CEO of ADIB.Tom Roychoudhury, CEO at Innovations commented on the program “It was a first in many ways. We worked closely with our client ADIB to create the content. We pushed the program through very quickly, developing it in cutting edge HTML5 and ensured genuine multi-platform compatibility. We achieved positive numbers, in spite of a sluggish start, and we had a lot of participation without huge media spends.” The program was launched on August 1, 2011. Minesh Mistry, Account Director on ADIB for Innovations said “We achieved very positive results – over 4000 visitors went through the site, and over 1800 completed the ‘Health Check’ – with around 55% taking the test in Arabic. Most of the visitors were from the UAE.”
GMR RSS FEEDS — Provided by Gulf Marketing ReviewAMRB has launched a “Stakeholder Research Practice” unit to provide a range of consulting products and services to manage external customer and employee loyalty.The division’s focus is Stakeholder loyalty measurement which, it says, will help organisations integrate stakeholder measurement and management efforts into company’s decision-making processes at all levels.The practice gives research based consultancy in the stakeholder loyalty domain, which includes customer loyalty, employee engagement, vendor/channel/trade partner loyalty, corporate reputation assessment etc.According to Gagan Bhalla, general manager, AMRB “Markets in the MENA region are evolving and becoming more competitive and hence there is a clear need for stakeholder research, which incorporates customers, trade and most importantly employees. Our offering, which is based on best in class products from Walker Information, comprises of a variety of products such as Customer Relationship Assessment, Lost Customer Assessment Customer Transaction Assessment, Employee Relationship Assessment and Mystery Shopping studies”.
GMR RSS FEEDS — Provided by Gulf Marketing ReviewOgilvyAction Dubai has expanded its current Unilever Arabia brand portfolio with the addition of the Homecare category business. Household names including Omo, Jif, Comfort and Lux Sunlight will complement OgilvyAction’s existing portfolio of Unilever brands, which include Pond’s, Dove and Sunsilk. Richard Woodward, OgilvyAction's Business Director for UAE (pictured) said: "We believe the shopping journey starts way before the journey itself, therefore modern brand activation campaigns must leverage multiple touch points, including not only the retailer but also out-of-home, sampling, digital, mobile, ambient and experiential events. We must design communication that actively engages our consumers with a relevant message at a relevant time to ultimately affect their behaviour at the point of purchase”. OgilvyAction is the global brand activation network of the Ogilvy Group delivering a broad range of services including experiential marketing, shopper marketing, trade marketing and promotional services.
GMR RSS FEEDS — Provided by Gulf Marketing ReviewSTAR has launched STAR Jalsha, the first Bengali general entertainment channel in the Middle East with Arab Digital Distribution (ADD) Pay TV platform. STAR Jalsha, will be exclusively available on the Pehla bouquet that caters to the expatriate South Asian population in the region and will be available to subscribers on PEHLA in addition to the other leader channels -STAR Plus, STAR One, STAR Gold, Star News and Channel [V] India.The general interest and entertainment channel launched in 2008 and today claims “a loyal viewership across West Bengal.”“This re-enforces our commitment to driving innovation and production quality in Bengali programming for more than 3 million Bangla viewers who are present in the Middle East. Looking ahead, we look forward to working more closely with ADD to bring subscribers even more TV choice from our highly rated bouquet of South Asian channels” said Sumo Dutta, STAR’s Country Head - Middle East, Africa & Pakistan.
GMR RSS FEEDS — Provided by Gulf Marketing ReviewJaguar Land Rover MENAP (JLR) has become what it is the first auto maker in the MENA region to create a dedicated social media 'suite'.JLR will provide content-rich blogs for each individual nameplate under the Jaguar and Land Rover brands. All sites will provide news, model updates, developments and marketing campaigns, as well as regional brand exclusives, behind the scenes footage/images and live streaming of video content from regional and global events.One of the first stories revolves around the new Range Rover Evoque during its time in the Middle East region. InteractiveEvoque.me published a behind-the-scenes look at the car in the Global Test Facilities & Planning centre at a top secret location in the UAE.With the region now boasting over 40 million internet users* - 15 million of them using Facebook - in the GCC alone, JLR MENAP marketing director, Hannah Naji, is confident that this is an important step forward for the brands, with a strong presence on platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Flickr ."Internet penetration in the GCC is estimated to be over a quarter of its population, which is higher than the global average by close to 3 per cent, a clear indicator that auto manufacturers need to take social media very seriously," says Naji.Initially, content will be delivered in English, however JLR will look into extending this to Arabic and French if there is a strong demand from MENAP markets.
GMR RSS FEEDS — Provided by Gulf Marketing ReviewMark Hamilton, head of strategy and development for SMG MENA, has been appointed onto the Starcom Global Product Committee."It's a great honour and a privilege for me to represent not only the MENA region but also take up the global role of Deputy Chair on our Global Product Committee. I see this both as a personal and professional opportunity whereby I get the scope to help steer our product globally and get to work with the best talent we have from around the world at SMG,” saidHamilton in a press release.SMG’s GPC is an internal body of 24 members across the international network that aims to maintain and enhance the highest standard of work across SMG’s 110 global offices. This group will contribute expert guidance on SMG’s product for both client-facing work and internal talent as part of a two-year term lasting until the end of 2012. The GPC has a three-fold purpose: to benchmark and optimise product performance, provide inspiration and training to the worldwide network and recognise and reward people for their successes.Australian chief executive, John Sintras, has been named chairman of its Global Product Committee (GPC).
GMR RSS FEEDS — Provided by Gulf Marketing ReviewOMD Arabia been appointed by Saudi packaged food giant Goody to manage its media communications following of a four-way review. The company, which has more than 25 product lines, markets its products in GCC and Levant. OMD Arabia will also be tasked in launching new product lines. The multi-million dollar account is a very sizeable win for the Saudi agency said OMD. It see it managing the brand’s communications across the whole portfolio, including the Goody range, Velor and Cofique as well as future launches, and a range of communications channels. “As we expand our business across the GCC and the wider Middle East, we need a partner who has the required regional footprint and right expertise in the field to help us optimize our campaigns,” said Khalid Temairik, GM Goody Saudi Arabia. “This pitch was designed to help the company improve on its previous set-up, with the choice of partner being articulated on both qualitative and quantitative factors,” added Choucrallah Abou Samra, MD, OMD Arabia. “We’re thrilled to have been able to demonstrate the full value of our way of working and service offering. As a 40-year old brand, we have plenty of opportunities to capitalize on Goody’s rich history and deepen the brand’s relationships with its consumers across the region.”
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