Mennah Ibrahim,

entrusted to companies and services, and lax engineering and security practices. Consumers will start to react.”

According to Global Web Index, GWI, 27 percent of people in the MEA already deploy ad-blocking tools. As a result, says Phillips, brands will have to work much harder, and be more transparent, to earn consumer trust.

MENA Director of the Innovation Group, and author of the report commented, “Across all sectors, consumers are differentiating between brands based on their concern for their communities, and will look to brands that supercharge that mission. When you consider that Arabs are living centrally digital lives, and that 55% of the Middle East’s population is below the age of 30, brands need to be asking themselves if they are missing a trick?”

So what’s next? Innovation Group MENA has identified the 100 trends and changes-- some big, some small, all worth noting-- to watch in the region this coming year. Some are inherently local; others converge with larger global trends. In the following, Arabad publishes 20 trends of the Tech and Innovation and Brands and Marketing sector.