L to R: Steffen Thiel, associate director; Joumana Salem, partner; Dani Richa – CEO and Chairman MEAP; Oussama Gholmieh, director and Udo Klein-Bölting, CEO and managing partner
Started in Germany in 2000, Batten & Company is the marketing and sales consultancy of the BBDO Network that is now setting up its Dubai office to cater to the MENA region. Dani Richa, chairman and CEO of Impact BBDO Group MENAP, said the launch of the new company is a response to some fundamental questions from clients, such as: “How can I assess the value of my brand? Do I have the right CSR strategy and how will it impact my business? How digitally ready is my marketing structure? E-commerce is a must for my business, but how should I approach it without cannibalizing other sales points and even making sense out of product bundles and optimization?”
Batten & Company’s core values are combining the analytical intelligence of a consultancy with the intuitive and creative intelligence of an agency by offering the best of four worlds: customer centricity, brand management, marketing management and sales excellence.
In the current relationship between agencies and clients, agencies have grown to become more of business partners and consultants, aiming to deliver against business objectives and solve business problems, rather than just managing communications. In this ecosystem, where does the new consultancy offering by BBDO fit in? Firstly, the consultancy brings together talent from different backgrounds – agency, client and consultancies.
Secondly, “we have consultant methods. Whether you make a cost-cutting or supply-chain project, or customers in market, you need intuitive intelligence, so it’s a totally different game,” says Udo Klein-Bölting, CEO of the Germany office.
The launch was marked by an exclusive study, Brand Arabia, which measured the value of Arabia as a brand, offsetting it against other regions, namely Asia, North America and Europe. It also looked at the value of the countries within the region.
Arabia ranked fourth with a brand value of €1.9 billion, preceded by the top three, Asia (€20.8 billion), North America (€9.7 billion) and Europe (€8.1 billion). In terms of cities, Dubai (€30 billion), Abu Dhabi (€30 billion) and Doha (€25 billion) ranked tenth, 11th, and 12th, respectively, with Cairo having the lowest brand value due to political unrest, poverty, poor economic strength, and high criminality rate.
In association with Communicate and its sister title Gulf Marketing Review, the company hopes to continue this study, adding year-on-year benchmarking and an annual report of the top brands and their values in the MENA region.
