Digital commerce reshapes how brands grow across the Middle East. The rules around creativity, accountability, and customer experience are rapidly evolving. Oliver White, Group Executive Director of Commerce at MCN Middle East Communications Network, shares a clear-eyed perspective on market maturity, organizational silos, creator-led strategies, and what AI means for the future of shopping.
In times of geopolitical uncertainty, what helps brands keep commerce growth stable?
Stability in uncertain times rarely comes from doing more – it comes from doing the right things with more discipline.
The brands that hold up best are usually those with the clearest picture of what they can actually deliver. That means knowing where stock is, being honest about fulfillment timelines, and resisting the temptation to promote aggressively when replenishment is uncertain. Growth built on promises you can’t keep unravels quickly.
There’s also a customer experience dimension that’s easy to overlook. People under stress don’t want to be sold to – they want to find what they need, quickly, with no surprises at checkout or delivery. Brands that make that easier tend to hold share. Brands that use uncertainty to manufacture urgency tend to lose trust.
And for brands with local infrastructure – in-market stock, local fulfilment – this is quietly an advantage. International competitors are dealing with the same disruption without the same ability to absorb it.
So the short answer: know what you can deliver, be straight with people, and make it easy for them. That’s what holds growth stable when everything else is noisy.
How mature is Middle East e-commerce?
It varies significantly by market. We often use terms like Middle East and GCC interchangeably, but commerce maturity differs by country. Dubai is one of the most sophisticated digital markets globally. From a commerce standpoint, penetration and consumer behavior place Dubai alongside the UK and increasingly closer to the US and parts of Asia.
A large share of retail in Dubai is tourism-driven, which doesn’t fully translate to e-commerce, but domestically almost everything is digital: bills, Salik, flights, groceries. Saudi Arabia is catching up rapidly, with commerce growth accelerating over the past three to four years, fueled by domestic D2C brands.
Qatar is mature, Bahrain progressing, and Egypt presents a major opportunity, though still early in growth. Across the region, markets sit at very
Are “nice ads” disappearing as digital drives revenue?
Hopefully not. But we may be seeing the end of ads that only look nice. For years, brands could afford work that was emotionally appealing yet commercially distant. Today, tighter margins mean CMOs are increasingly accountable for commercial outcomes, not just brand custodians. Creativity is losing immunity and gaining commercial responsibility: it must drive desire and sales, while still being creative.
We are also in an era where everything is measured. Creativity is losing its immunity and gaining commercial responsibility. It is not about abandoning creativity. It is about creating more useful ads that build desire while driving sales.
Who owns growth today?
It varies by organization. Growth ownership might sit with the CMO, CFO, Chief Growth Officer, or Chief Commercial Officer. In reality, every function contributes.
IT, logistics, fulfillment, finance. Not all of this shows up as top-line sales growth, but it directly affects profitability and scalability.
How should CPG and FMCG leaders rethink accountability?
Silos are outdated. Historically, teams were split: brand vs performance, e-commerce in a corner, data elsewhere, finance separate. That structure limits growth. Today, commerce, content, marketing, IT, and data occupy the same space. Brands must work horizontally; content no longer sits upstream of commerce, they are interconnected.
Are brands overinvesting in digital?
I would not necessarily call it overinvestment, but there is still excessive focus on technology infrastructure. Technology has become commoditized. It has never been easier to launch a digital business using platforms like Shopify. Yet it has arguably never been harder to make money from one.
Businesses often fixate on platforms while overlooking operational fundamentals like logistics and fulfillment. As margins tighten, profitability depends on efficiency. Warehousing, pick-and-pack, shipping. Those areas determine scalability.
Why do brands struggle to drive sustained sell-out?
Fragmented ownership is a frequent issue. For many CPG and FMCG brands, a large share of sales flows through third-party platforms such as Amazon. Commercial teams negotiate margins, while separate teams manage operations, content, and media.
When these teams work in isolation, disconnects arise. Aligning commercial negotiations with operational execution is critical.
Creativity vs performance: real trade-off?
Creativity and performance are not mutually exclusive. The challenge is designing creativity to achieve measurable outcomes. You still need to build desire, overcome friction, communicate product benefits, address objections, and create value.
Measurement must evolve: media performance in isolation misses merchandising, availability, margins, assortment, competitor activity, and promotions. A holistic view across the funnel is key.
What separates transformation talk from impact?
We should interrogate the word “transformation.” We have discussed digital transformation for 15 years. That is not transformation. It is continuous evolution. Treating transformation as a six- or twelve-month project with a finish line is flawed.
Technology constantly changes, especially with AI. Brands cannot stand still. They must continually evaluate new technologies and decide how and when to adopt.
How should brands think about culture?
Culture is not static or binary, particularly in this region. The Middle East is composed of overlapping micro-communities. Saudi’s youth subcultures. Dubai’s multinational mix. Platform-level subcultures across TikTok and others. Brands must identify which communities they want to engage with. One umbrella cultural approach rarely works across markets.
How can CPG brands build connections beyond promotion?
Promotion interrupts; it does not build connection. Brands should focus on moments across the purchase journey: discovery, decision, purchase, and post-purchase. Strategies must span all these stages.
Most FMCG purchases are need- or want-based rather than aspirational. Relevance at the right moment becomes the central challenge.
Can short-form video drive sustained growth?
Brands still tend to associate short-form video with specific platforms instead of treating it as an asset across the entire purchase journey. Rather than creating content that lives only on social platforms, brands should consider how it supports product pages, retail media, and marketplaces. If success is measured against conversions, that must shape content creation from the outset.
What is the right mix for creator-led commerce?
The short-term versus long-term tension often arises because teams measure the wrong things. Performance teams optimize last click. Brand teams optimize sentiment. Neither fully owns the customer journey or P&L.
Brands also tend to engage creators too prescriptively. Ideation happens within the brand or agency, then gets handed to creators. Bringing creators into the process earlier enables more authentic and effective outcomes. Performance considerations should also be integrated early.
Has AI killed Google search?
Search is not gone. Many AI tools, including ChatGPT, still rely on Google to source information. Google remains central, even as new interfaces emerge. Products like Gemini show that traditional players are deeply embedded in AI’s evolution.
Advertising within AI environments will grow, but competition should keep the user experience balanced.
(Read this interview in the latest CPG issue of Communicate here)
