Insights
Industry
People
Culture
Brand Studio
Facebook Hub
Choueiri Group Deep Dives
OMD Corner
LEAD with ABG
Insights
Brand Studio
Facebook Hub
Choueiri Group Deep Dives
OMD Corner
LEAD with ABG
ABOUT US
CONTACT US
ADVERTISE WITH US
Insights People
Back
Filip Jabbour’s outlook for 2016
By Arjun RKSun, Feb 14 2016

Contact
filip-jabbours-outlook-for-2016

Filip Jabbour, CEO, GroupM MENA, on what’s the best and worst thing that can happen in 2016, and his mantra to make it through the year.

What’s the best thing that can happen in 2016?

Well, world peace! The whole sentiment of the region changes dramatically, whether it’s consumers’ confidence or marketers’ willingness or ability to invest [or] the Middle East government’s ability to operate and thrive in tough economic conditions. However, these are macro factors that everyone wishes for and that are beyond our control.

For us as an industry, I would love for us to be able to improve the way we take care of our talent in terms of education, empowerment and getting them to areas where they can be held accountable based on proper training, exposure and development. This is an area we can always do better in but, specifically here in the region, it is something we need to do more of.

In the race to the bottom line, we tend to forget the people who got us there. We try to become commercially more attractive to new business propositions and it limits our ability to continue to invest in talent that supposedly got us the business in the first place. We need to have the right mix of people across demographics, ethnicities’ specialisms and backgrounds. We’re not selling bricks and mortar where things haven’t changed. In our industry, things change by the day. People who get too comfortable in their chairs might not find chairs to sit on.

Having said that, as [with] everything, it’s about someone’s own prerogative to learn, but employers need to be able to facilitate that and provide the right environment and opportunities for people and that’s on us, the management.

The second thing – and it’s a shame that we still talk about this – is that we as an industry need to elevate the level of and create enough reliable data sources. You’d imagine that things in the digital space are measurable and accountable, but we need to be able to better leverage the technologies and expertise available, set better objectives and effectively use data to inform our decisions in a meaningful manner that adds value to our clients’ businesses.

What’s the worst thing that can happen in 2016?

The worst thing would be that none of these happens, because one is the flipside of the other – especially with macroeconomic and political conditions standing in the way. The lack of data and accountability is an issue and, if we’re not investing in our future now, the repercussions might not be felt immediately but over longer periods of time. I know it can’t be cracked in one day but, as long as there is an acknowledgement of the areas we need to work on, any effort is an effort in the right direction. We’ve been known to be a data-poor region and we can’t afford to continue like that anymore, especially with growing digital media options.

I entered [the MENA region] in 1994 and we were talking about TV meters in the UAE. It’s 22 years later now and we’re still talking about just the possibility of it. Now that we’re driving toward almost everything being bought programmatically, delaying this conversation is a moot point.

We can’t wait for the political situation to settle down. Peace in the Middle East… really? You just have to work with what you’re given, do what you can do and control what you can – and that’s a lot of elements. Unless there’s complete chaos and no one is spending money, at the end of the day, advertisers and marketers are still selling to consumers and still need to communicate to them. We just have to make the best out of the resources we have and we cannot wait for factors beyond our control, because our job is to be in areas ahead of our clients; it’s not the blind leading the blind.

Mantra: You miss a 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.

 

RELATED TOPICS
Filip Jabbour Groupm
MORE IN People
People
November 05, 2020 Let the Spoofing Begin: How to Do Parody Advertising Right

Parody advertising is a double-edged sword. It can be pretty effective, but it can also backfire spectacularly. To understand what works and what doesn’t, Communicate spoke to Jaison Ben, Creative Director at Publicis Middle East, who was behind the campaign for Nescafe 3in1’s new packaging, unveiled earlier in the year. How to know when parody […]

People
November 05, 2020 How Gaming Is Powering On in MENA as a Strong Marketing Channel

Interested in the fast-growing gaming community in the region? Communicate spoke with Mathew Pickering, Managing Director at gaming and esports communications agency Power League Gaming, to break it down for you. What does PLG do, exactly? Power League Gaming connects brands with Arabic gaming and esports audiences, primarily across MENA, of which 30% of the […]

People
November 02, 2020 How the Right Loyalty Program Can Help During a Pandemic

A little more than a year ago, Majid Al Futtaim unveiled Share, its app-based lifestyle rewards program. A few months later, Covid-19 struck. Communicate sat with Kashmira Motiwalla, Head of the Share loyalty program at Majid Al Futtaim, to discuss what that meant for the newly-launched initiative. What impact did the pandemic and the lockdowns […]

People
October 27, 2020 Why Investing in Programmatic Advertising is a Safe Bet

Imad Jomaa, Founder and President of Lebanon-based holding company JGroup, explains how he sees programmatic in light of JGroup’s recent investment in FoxPush, a Dubai-based full-stack solution for publishers and digital advertisers. How fast is the programmatic ad market growing in the region and what is driving this growth? Programmatic advertising is growing rapidly across […]

Subscribe to

our newsletter.

This site uses cookies: Find out more.

Logo
  • Insights
  • Industry
  • People
  • Culture
  • Brand Studio
  • Facebook Hub
  • Choueiri Group Deep Dives
  • OMD Corner
  • LEAD with ABG
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise With Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
NEWSLETTER

Get a monthly round-up of Communicate's best insights

© 2020 communicateonline.me
About Us
Contact Us
Advertise With Us
Privacy Policy
Disclaimer
icon
icon
icon
icon
icon
© 2020 communicateonline.me