When I left university in England in the mid-1980s, advertising was the industry of choice for those who didn't want to develop coronary disease, duodenal ulcers or high blood pressure selling eurobonds. The blue chip advertising agencies Saatchi and Saatchi, Bartle Bogle Hegarty and the like, which took only one or two graduates every year, could take their pick of potential account managers from the Oxbridge crop. (The creatives who listened to the Smiths and New Order, and who wore black-framed glasses long before Tom Ford ordered us to, came to the sector via the altogether murkier art school path.)
Here in Lebanon, we like to think that we are the power behind the US$2.2 billion (Dh8.08bn) ad industry in the MENA region. In the GCC, where all the major Lebanese agencies have offices, we trade on our savvy, creativity and relative sophistication. When Antoine Choueiry, arguably the most powerful man in regional advertising, died in March of this year, he was given nothing short of a state funeral. LBC, the local TV station that benefitted most from his business genius, ran live coverage. Yes sir, in Lebanon we love our ad men.
But it was never always thus. In the late 1990s, I attended a lecture in Beirut given by a famed London creative. I can't remember the name and I can't remember the agency, but our man was in Beirut as part of a regional tour. He was straight out of central casting, every inch the Covent Garden neo-yuppie: 50-something, wearing the obligatory black-framed glasses; black Paul Smith suit and a white shirt with the top button done up and no tie. He sounded like Terence Stamp and was possessed of an ennui that suggested he had seen it all before.
He drawled on about which direction the Lebanese ad industry should be heading and hinted at the potential talent that lay hidden in Lebanon's multi-lingual, educated and liberal human capital. When it was time for questions, a well-meaning graduate trainee stood up and asked him what he thought of the creative quality of the ads being turned out in Lebanon.
"Atrocious," he boomed. "Beyond the valley of the atrocious!" There was silence (not least because the reference to the 1970s cult Russ Meyer movie momentarily threw them). "They reminds me of ads produced in the Far East in the 1970s," he added.
He had, and to some extent still does, have a point. While a few, very few, of our agencies can be said to be genuinely on a par with the best, not only in the region but in some cases the world, the way in which we hawk some of our goods is truly beyond, if not the valley of the atrocious, then at least most people's comprehension.
Billboards are my current beef. Tourists driving out of Beirut, especially those heading north, will be at once amazed and then saddened by the hundreds and hundreds of cheap hoardings that blitz our senses. Municipalities, which clearly have no interest in the aesthetic potential of the country's main artery, not to mention road safety, have somehow approved them. It is not enough that Jounieh, once a beautiful costal village, has now become a concrete jungle. To add insult to environmental injury, there is also row after row of gaudy signs hawking everything from cheap lingerie to fifth-rate cabaret artists. It is hard to believe that Lebanon has one of the lowest per capita ad spending (just under $30) in the region.
But enough of that. The World Cup is in its last week and my son and I have been glued to the Albanian channel, the only one of the 224 we receive that gives us English commentary on the matches. The ads we see at the half-time break give us an intriguing, if at times bizarre, insight into Albanian life.
I must confess that I had been labouring under the shameful illusion that Albania, one of Europe's poorest countries, was a bleak land still held back by decades of communism and where the most common form of transport was a horse and cart. It was, I imagined, Europe's North Korea.
But no, the Albanians are a jolly lot and drink, judging by the ads, a phenomenal amount of beer. Albania's national quaff, Tirana, is sold to us with two cheeky chaps on a beach with an ice bucket loaded with the stuff. Out of the sea strides Albania's equivalent of Haifa Wehbe (or is it Ursula Andress) and one man, clearly the cheekier of the two, grabs her attention by holding up his bottle of Tirana, suggestively peeling the wet label as she adjusts her bikini.
More in keeping with the football spirit is Korca, a beer whose agency has gone with a referee flipping the coin at the start of a match only to the reveal that it was never a coin after all but a Korca bottle top. Cunning, eh?
Banks are big advertisers and Alpha Bank is keen to show us that not all Albanians are snaggled-toothed tractor drivers. Its TV ad shows an Albanian family with no obvious signs of malnutrition applying for a housing loan, while Tirana Bank has gone a bit bonkers with an ad that shows the start of a football match that is overrun by one team already parading the cup. I can't read the tag line but clearly Tirana Bank likes to sell itself as one step ahead. Our guru from London would no doubt groan.
Albania is poorer than Lebanon with a nominal GDP of $12.2bn compared with Lebanon's $37bn, but it is a member of NATO, so one mustn't be too smug. Still, it warmed my heart to read on Wikipedia that the country is "still of low interest for major foreign investors due to frequent power shortages, occasional lack of water supplies and ubiquitous illegal activities."
I knew there was something about them I liked.
Michael Karam is a PR and media consultant based in Beirut
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
The specs: 2018 Chevrolet Equinox
Price, base / as tested: Dh76,900 / Dh110,900
Engine: 2.0L, turbocharged in-line four-cylinder
Gearbox: Nine-speed automatic
Power: 252hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: Torque: 352Nm @ 2,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 8.5L / 100km
Race card
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m
5.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m
6pm: Arabian Triple Crown Round-1 Listed (PA) Dh230,000 (T) 1,600m
6.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m
7pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 (T) 2,400m
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
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The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
Teri%20Baaton%20Mein%20Aisa%20Uljha%20Jiya
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
SHAITTAN
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ANATOMY%20OF%20A%20FALL
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COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
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Fixtures
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ABU%20DHABI'S%20KEY%20TOURISM%20GOALS%3A%20BY%20THE%20NUMBERS
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Women%E2%80%99s%20T20%20World%20Cup%20Qualifier
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Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
