Driving a mature discussion
Asda’a Burson- Marsteller released their annual Arab Youth Survey, now in its 10th year, last week. On our news pages you can find what the region’s youth feel about politics, terror and job opportunities, and the survey is cited a fair bit in the MENA Report that is bound in to this issue.
One thing that jumps out is how capable those surveyed are at making the distinction between state and people, between government and country. Under Donald Trump, the US is being seen by more and more Arab youth as an adversary, as Russia cements its position as the top non- Arab ally in the Middle East. But at the same time, the US ranks second among the countries young people would like their own nations to emulate, and the second most popular country they would like to live in. In both cases, the UAE was number one and Canada was number three.
This demonstrates youth’s ability to realise that Trump is temporary but values live longer than people. Which must come as a relief to many Americans in the region embarrassed by how their political leadership is currently making them look.
If the region’s youth is mature for its age, there are two calls elsewhere in the magazine for the industry to grown- up as well.
Actually, Banali Malhotra’s plea is almost for it to be less mature. Why can’t we have more comparative advertising, asks the Rakbank marketing head in an interview on page 14? If the region’s advertisers were only prepared to take more risks then their work would be more memorable. And don’t be so stuffy when people poke fun at you. She cites a recent campaign her bank did that took on exchange houses as a way to send money abroad. The exchange houses complained and the ad had to be modified. Wouldn’t it have been more fun if they had hit back? They would have got their message across and people might have remembered it better.
Raja Trad, CEO of Publicis Communications, on page 12 worries that the advertising industry is damaging itself by agreeing to smaller and smaller margins with clients. Double-figure margins should be the norm for a healthy industry, he says. But agencies are panicking and offering rates in the low single digits. Sometimes they even take on clients at break- even or a loss. That’s bad for their business, as they cannot retain the talent they need to service those clients, and bad for the industry as well, as it propels it towards the bargain bin.
It might be a little embarrassing if we as an industry are childishly trying to undercut one another and get each other’s ads pulled while the youth of today are acting like adults and worrying about war, jobs and social liberties.