Aurelien Fonteneau
For centuries, influence in the GCC has been shaped inside the Majlis: a trusted circle where information is filtered, debated, and validated before it spreads.
In 2026, the Majlis is no longer just physical, it has gone digital. The Digital Majlis is where attention has moved: private group chats, Close Friends lists, and invite-only servers. As public feeds become saturated and algorithmic perfection floods timelines, influence isn’t disappearing: it’s retreating to spaces built on trust, not visibility.
Private attention is the real power
The Majlis isn’t just a private space: it’s a highly selective network where The Intimacy Economy (a key trend from our Think Forward 2026 report) plays out in everyday life. In the GCC, the more public something is, the less it’s trusted.
Real value travels through messages, screenshots, private threads, and niche groups where people know each other.
Our latest We Are Social Global Digital Report confirms this behavior. In the UAE, WhatsApp is the nation’s favorite platform, used by 89% of the population.
In Saudi Arabia, Snapchat isn’t just an app; it’s woven into daily life, with over 70% of people actively using it.
But it’s not the platform itself that matters: it’s how people use it. Attention is private, selective, and highly curated.
From billboard brands to contributing brands
In the GCC, audiences are moving away from the “Billboard Influencer” (the polished, broadcast-focused persona shaped by the “Dubai Filter”) toward the “Maverick Expert”: niche, unvarnished, and trusted for deep knowledge.
This reflects a broader trend of Cringe Confidence: the willingness to be authentic, imperfect, and deeply informed, even if it risks looking awkward in public.
We see it in action on Discord, where regional users aren’t just passing through; they open the app an average of 5.6 times a day. They’re after deep, nerdy, un-curated insights shared among peers who actually know what they’re talking about.
In these digital circles, brands that try to interrupt are immediately ejected. Brands that contribute raw insights, tools, or knowledge are invited to stay.
Fandom Architects, not Media Orchestrators
Our industry is obsessed with efficiency right now: smarter media, faster production, better automation. Useful? Absolutely. Sufficient? Not even close. Efficiency helps brands reach people but it does not make them advocates in private networks.
To win in 2026, brands need to think like Fandom Architects: building depth that communities can use, remix, and share. This is where concepts like Reference Maxxing matter: creating content designed to be referenced, forwarded, and embedded in conversations, not just admired on public feeds.
And what we call the Cultural Power Loop: prestige no longer comes from withholding knowledge. It comes from sharing it.
Luxury in the GCC has long been about access. The next evolution is about expertise. Don’t just show the product: show the craft, show the process, give people material that makes them more interesting when they talk about you. That’s how brands travel inside the Digital Majlis.
What this means for brands in 2026
Stop measuring awareness alone. Start measuring how often your brand enters private conversation. Optimise less for algorithmic smoothness and more for human texture. Build tools, frameworks, explainers, experiments: assets communities can use to express identity, not just consume.
The GCC has never been a pure broadcast market. We just applied broadcast logic to it. In 2026, that shortcut stops working.
This region runs on invitation – and brands that understand how to contribute (not interrupt) will be the ones still being talked about when the feed inevitably becomes background noise.
