Search Results for : Tech

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 […]

Neticenzy, a Dubai-based digital marketing agency with a focus on social media, recently won TikTok’s B2B account. Communicate had a relaxed chat with Fadi Khater, Founder & Managing Partner, to discuss this big win and more. Much more. Your PR announcing Netizency’s TikTok win does not read like the typical PR. It was kind of […]

App analytics and market data company, App Annie, have released a new report that sheds light on Gen Z’s mobile behavior, in order to help marketers develop effective strategies to reach them. 98% of Gen Z report owning a smartphone, on average receiving their first at the age of 10. They are also part of […]

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 […]

Communicate sits with David Fregonas, Accenture Interactive lead, Middle East to learn more about the company’s latest brand move and their recent shift in operations to the cloud. What is the strategy behind this new initiative? We’re following the same advice we give our clients in this time of relentless change: act with great agility and […]

Kaizen is less of a productivity system and more of a philosophy. Earlier this year, when employees were forced to work from home due to the impacts of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, there were many outcries of employees struggling with the stress of the pandemic and finding a distinction between work life and home life. […]

In a newly released report, US-based content generation and analytics platform, Cohley and media publication, Digiday explores the changing state of user-generated content (UGC). The sweeping changes driven by a global pandemic and the resultant quarantine have scattered creative marketing teams, but they have also opened brands’ and agencies’ eyes to the promise of UGC […]

Human nature has always been designed to adapt to changing events in the environment. The advancement in technology has allowed the human race to adapt more quickly than ever. With the current ongoing pandemic, many of the conferences and events which have been scheduled for the coming months, have all come to a standstill. But […]

WARC, the global marketing intelligence service, released its ninth annual Marketer’s toolkit for 2020. The toolkit is based on a survey of nearly 800 marketers around the world and interviews with 10 leading brand marketers and serves as a guide to help marketers be aware of the near-term trends, which will help them stay ahead in the market. The […]

By Ed Barnfield, the winner of Communicate’s creative fiction competition! I wrote a novel last week,” says Fatima. “It took me three hours.”We are meeting in the virtual café at Morningside. Fatima has chosen a cartoon elephant as her avatar, although she insists on keeping her trademark sunglasses and earpiece, which is disconcerting. I’ve gone […]

By Max Alawwad Facebook has come under scrutiny, on multiple occasions,  for its handling of the user’s data. One of the recent events was Facebook paying hundreds of contractors to transcribe audio clips of users from its Messenger app. The social media giant, alongside other tech companies, have been accused and fined on multiple events of mishandling […]

In a recent survey, security company Bullguard, found that 79 percent of public Wi-Fi users are at a risk of being hacked when they choose their connection. Through public Wi-Fi, hackers can set up what appears to be a legitimate gateway but it is actually malicious and can steal people’s sensitive information. According to a statement […]

We spoke to Puja Panuum, the Managing Director of Blis, about how companies can leverage geolocation data while maintaining people’s privacy. She said that in today’s age companies only work with others who are privacy conscious and take the matter seriously. Today, businesses use data very differently which is why it is considered the “new […]

By Faris Sibai  Augmented Reality (AR) is propelling the e-commerce industry into the future with a model that makes advertising not only personalized but fun for the user.  Augmented reality revenues are estimated to reach a staggering $14 billion in 2021, according to ARtillery Intelligence. This growth presents an exciting opportunity for marketers, as consumers […]

By Sharvari Alape  Alibaba Cloud, the data intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has risen to be China’s largest provider of public cloud services, with eyes to expand beyond within the Middle East. During its inaugural Middle East and Africa (MEA) Internet Summit, Selina Yuan said to her audience that the company does not have competition because […]

By Dr Alun Epps There is no need to even slightly paraphrase the prophetic line from the Eagles staple that has become the author’s go-to phrase to describe the “black mirror” world that we have allowed ourselves to check out of any time we like (but never leave). To loosely quote Thomas Browne (1643) from […]

By Sharvari Alape  The topic of blockchain is being increasingly discussed in the region as brands realize the potential behind the concept. Coinciding with the current market trends, the sixth edition of the Arab Luxury World 2019 dedicated a panel discussion among the industry experts titled, ‘Blockchain: is it the next luxury revolution?’ “Who here […]

The world’s largest sneaker company is launching Nike Fit, an addition to its app that lets customers scan their feet at home and provides their proper size in various models. The company says 60% of people wear the wrong size shoe, and concern over fit has a material impact on consumer confidence. “This is something […]

According to Accenture Technology Vision 2019, an annual report from Accenture, the enterprise is entering a new “post-digital” era, where success will be based on an organization’s ability to master a set of new technologies that can deliver personalized realities and experiences for customers, employees and business partners. This year’s report, under the title  “The […]

Bringing technologists in the Middle East together, Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit in Dubai was held on Wednesday, to connect, collaborate, and learn more about the AWS Cloud and the way organizations in the Middle East can leverage the cloud technology to innovate and grow. AWS had previously announced that it will launch the first […]

By Christian Reilly For modern Chief Intelligence Officers (CIO), success is not about the technology; it’s about using technology to drive business innovation and value. It’s about providing an always-on, secure digital workspace — without a costly outlay of capital. And it’s about efficiently and securely expanding into new markets and regions. In other words, […]

By Mustafa Shamseldin, Senior Vice President Foods Category, Middle East, North Africa and Asia Pacific, PepsiCo While supermarkets, restaurants, and a myriad of other retailers and services providers are going online, the traditional vending machine has remained somewhat static. There have been minor upgrades over the years, such as accepting credit cards or selecting snacks […]

When CES opened its doors in Las Vegas last month, Mastercard took the opportunity to drop some news: The company was erasing its name from its logo. The red-and-yellow overlapping discs that have anchored its brandmark for nearly 50 years would, in most cases, stand on their own. It’s not every brand that has the […]

2018 was a transformative year for Saudi Arabia, socially and politically, but also for brands.   One such brand is Saudi Telecom Company (STC) that closed all 220 branches across 118 governorates in the Kingdom’s 2.1 million square kilometers of territory on December 19 without any warning or prior notice.   Instead, STC went to its clients by redirecting […]

By the numbers, CES is an impressive circus of gadgetry. The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was spread out over nearly 3 million square feet last week, with 4,500 exhibitors showing their wares – the latest in 8K screens, giant drones, walking cars, robot pets and automobile prototypes that would make Bruce Wayne jealous […]

No matter how much a consumer rationalizes their purchase decisions, ultimately it comes down to emotion. And that’s why today’s marketers and agencies need to pay attention to the emotions behind the data. One such agency, Omnicom’s RAPP, which classifies itself as a “high precision brand engagement agency”, is reinforcing the notion of empathy in […]

Virtual assistants, or more simply chatbots, have been all the rage in recent times. Brands like Hamleys, Nissan and Emirates NBD are just a few who have deployed chat bots to engage with customers. Now, INFINITI has launched Idris, its new AI-powered virtual assistant that aims to helps customers with any product-related questions. Idris is […]

Creative agencies have been known to be slow on the uptake of technology with media agencies embarking digital and data quickly. That has now changed with multiple creative agencies building their digital offering. TBWA\RAAD, for example, has its own data department and manages digital and social for clients including Nissan. In fact, the agency’s CEO, […]

By Reda Raad, Group CEO at TBWA\RAAD I first started out in advertising as a junior account executive, which essentially meant analyzing newspaper ads. I would monitor them, gather clippings, see what was what, and report back. It wasn’t the highlight of my career, by any stretch of the imagination, but I did learn; the […]

Top CEO, the definitive platform for the recognition of exceptional business leadership of CEOs in the GCC, is back and inaugurated its second edition today. This time, the event, which gathers the region’s business leaders under one roof, includes a day-long conference followed by the Top CEO Awards ceremony later in the evening. Organized by […]

This year’s theme at GITEX Technology Week was “The Internet Future of Everything”, where du showcased its initiatives to ensure that Dubai moves forward as a smart city. The week-long event took place from October 18 to 25 at Dubai World Trade Centre. In an attempt to demonstrate the immediacy of du’s smart city undertakings […]

Open ad management company for multiscreen campaigns, Sizmek, announces its partnership with Future Tech Media, which aims to provide regional advertisers access to ad technology products.  Starting in January 2016, Future Tech Media will become Sizmek’s official partner across the MENA region, utilizing its open technology methodology and data intelligence to help advertisers create cross-platform […]

Recently, Communicate had the opportunity to sit down with Tim O’Brien, Microsoft’s general manager of global communications, for a chat about Microsoft’s branding strategies and how they have changed since the tech giant was born. How has Microsoft evolved as a brand? In the earliest days of the company, most people associated it with a PC on […]

Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) in many organizations have become bigger IT spenders than any other business function, including the CIO. This is because the role of the CMO has effectively moved to that of being the ‘chief digital officer’. Customer engagement and lifetime value expansion have become integral in the entire business process, whereas customer […]

GITEX Technology Week turns 35 this year and will showcase next generation tech solutions intended to drive Middle East business into the Internet of Things era. Taking place from 18-22 October at Dubai World Trade Center, attendees can expect technology from drones to robotics, and more presented under theme “The Internet Future of Everything”. According to IDC, […]

AdZouk, regional advertising network, and StackAdapt, programmatic native advertising technology company, announce an official partnership to exclusively distribute native advertising technology across MENA. The new partnership will allow advertisers to buy placements with real-time bidding. Native advertising units appear in-stream and aim to open up creative possibilities for branded article and video content distribution. “Some of […]

Blast off Upon the launch of Criteo’s new Dubai office, coming this summer, the company’s presence was felt at the recent ArabNet, where Communicate got to chat with Gregory Gazagne, executive vice president of EMEA with Criteo. The performance marketing technology company has had a remote presence in Dubai since 2012, but with a local […]

Yes, JC or Jonathan Oliver, is every bit as crazy as he looks in the picture and as we got to witness up close during his talk at the first ever Festival of Media MENA held in Dubai this April. It’s the good kind of crazy; the kind that is good for a company like […]

Market-i, regional marketing research consultancy, won the ESOMAR Best Presentation Award for their paper on Mobile Technology in Marketing Research at the recent ESOMAR MENAP Forum 2015 at the Address Dubai Marina. This award was initiated in 2011 by ESOMAR to celebrate the most inspiring, effective and professional speakers and their ability to deliver an impactful, authoritative and engaging […]

Xaxis, a global programmatic media and technology platform, announces the official launch of operations at their new MENA branch. With the regional headquarters in Dubai, Xaxis MENA will help advertisers with multi-channel, programmatic campaigns. The debut of Xaxis introduces the MENA region to a second-screen solution, Xaxis Sync, through which advertisers can sync their TV […]

Dubai-based technology startup accelerator TURN8 has added ten new companies, bringing its portfolio size to 32 companies. Companies in the new round represent a number of technology innovations including peer-to-peer marketplaces, on-demand delivery, facilitation of online and offline connections, paperless e-ticketing for events, and healthcare. TURN8 is an early stage seed accelerator founded by DP […]

  du, Majid Al Futtaim Group (MAF) and Beam Wallet, have signed a partnership to tap into the potential of mobile shopping across the region, creating more opportunities for consumers to earn rewards and save money. The collaboration brings together a leading telecom provider, one of the biggest retail groups in the region and an […]

Inmarsat, one of the leading providers of global mobile satellite communications services, unveiled some innovations during GITEX Technology Week 2014. These innovations are “designed to deliver the most powerful, portable and flexible connectivity services on a global scale,” says the company in a press statement. Inmarsat provided live demonstrations of its recently launched IsatHub service, […]

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) will soon offer voice biometrics as a means to authenticate customers and allow them to perform banking transactions via phone or mobile devices easily and securely. The bank claims in a press statement that it is the first bank in the world to offer voice biometrics in Arabic, English and […]

  Depending on your personality or your personal situation, the future is either a source of excitement or a cause for anxiety. Either way it rarely leaves anyone indifferent. For businesses, it comes loaded with implications, particularly if they need to be ready to react to rapid changes. No strategy has ever been conceived with […]