Sit in on most creative reviews in Dubai, Riyadh or Muscat and the sequence is predictable. The idea is born, presented and approved in English. Arabic arrives at the end, handed to a translator with a deadline and a character count.
In more than twenty years of working across three languages, I have watched brilliant campaigns lose their soul in that final step. A tagline built on an English idiom becomes a literal sentence no Emirati, Saudi or Omani would ever say out loud. The audience notices, even when the client does not.
That workflow made sense when English was the language of business and Arabic the language of compliance. The region has moved on.
The rules have already changed
This week, Dubai Municipality’s new Guide to Regulating Advertising Content made it explicit. Arabic must fill at least half of every advertisement, sit at the top or on the right, and appear more prominently than English, with correct grammar in clear Arabic fonts. The guide also warns against literal translations that distort meaning or produce awkward phrasing.
Abu Dhabi’s new out-of-home toolkits, shared in June, already expect Arabic and English copy to be written natively for each language. The Ministry of Culture is also drafting the UAE’s first Arabic Language Law, expected in 2027, which would require customer-facing businesses to employ Arabic-speaking staff. In a country of more than 200 nationalities, that gives every expatriate professional a reason to learn the language.
The message to brands is clear. Arabic is now the hero of the brief.
The audience got there first
The Congress ACI Arab Youth Pulse Survey 2025, run by Ipsos and the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre among 4,092 people aged 18 to 25 in ten Arab markets, found that 71 percent prefer media in Arabic and 77 percent feel proud when they meet it in modern settings.
Here is the uncomfortable part for our industry: 67 percent say the Arabic content available to them feels dated next to its English equivalent. Arabic-language websites made up just 0.6 percent of the web as of July 2026, even though 86 percent of young people in Arab states were online in 2024.
That gap between appetite and supply is the opportunity, and translated afterthoughts will never fill it.
Arabic rewards those who think in it
Arabic is built for creativity. Its root system lets one three-letter core branch into whole families of meaning: from ك ت ب come the writer (كاتب), the book (كتاب), the office (مكتب) and the library (مكتبة). Rhythm and rhyme sit in its bones, and every choice between Modern Standard Arabic and dialect signals who you are speaking to and how close you want to be.
A translator working from an English script inherits the English idea’s structure, humour and references. The result can be grammatically perfect and emotionally empty. A root-pattern pun, a grandmother’s proverb, the warmth of Khaleeji over Levantine: none of these survive translation, because none of them existed in the source.
What marketing leaders should do next
Making Arabic the hero is a process decision first. Write the strategy and creative brief in Arabic, or at least in parallel, so the idea is born in the language your audience lives in.
Give Arabic copywriters, art directors fluent in Arabic typography and strategists who think in dialect a seat at the concept table, with the seniority and fees to match. For too long the region has treated them as a finishing service.
Let Arabic and English teams build twin executions from a shared insight, which doubles as good compliance under the new guidelines. Then test with native speakers from the specific market, because a line that charms in Riyadh can puzzle in Muscat.
At Kenshō Mindful Communications we create in Arabic and English every day across Oman, the UAE and Egypt, and the work that performs best is consistently the work conceived in the audience’s own language.
The language of the next decade
The Gulf has chosen its lead language. Governments have written it onto billboards and soon into law, and young audiences are asking for Arabic that feels modern and theirs. The brands that answer will win a loyalty no media budget can buy. The rest will keep translating, and keep wondering why the work never quite lands.
The best is yet to come, and it will be written in Arabic.
(Marise Assaf is the Founder and CEO of Kenshō Mindful Communications, an integrated Arabic-English PR and communications agency with offices in Muscat, Dubai and Cairo)
