Communicate magazine's October 2009 issue carried a story about PR measurement where a competitor made the prediction 90% of his clients will not use AVE's (from the current claimed 60%). My reaction was: huh?! It's one thing to inflate figures -- something the region is notoriously known for -- but to even make predictions based on made-up figures? Having been an integral part of the measurement industry in the Middle East, I would have to admit that these figures are nothing short of an impressive science fiction movie.

I have seen many Twitter HOWTO's and Guides, but I have yet to come across one that shows consumers how they can get the attention of brands/products. We have all been busy talking about how we can talk to consumers, how we can engage with them.. which is all great, but we seem to forget that just like marketers, a lot of these social media tools are new to consumers as well. After all, we are all consumers.

Being on the monitoring end of things, I hope that I can give some insights to how brands see the world and how you, the consumer, can make your voice better heard. The most important thing you need to know is this: good brands are really trying to listen.

Give your opinion weight

The bulk of PR agencies in the Middle East aim at gaining more media exposure to their clients. I think evaluation fits in when we smartly link this media exposure with pre-set business outcomes to our clients.
Needless to say that organizations from both private and public sectors in the Gulf have recognized the power of public relations in strengthening brand equity and enhancing corporate reputation.
They started to recognize that PR involves creating, maintaining and enhancing long term relationships with stakeholders.
Clients in the region realize that their stakeholders have become too demanding. These facts make it imperative to PR practitioners to start providing integrated solutions directly tailored to match their clients’ PR requirements and precisely evaluated according to pre set business outcomes to move PR from being “lovely to have” to being a crucial part of any business strategy!

Yahoo's acquisition of Maktoob posed an interesting challenge to Google, whose approach has been slow and calculated. The truth of the matter is, there are millions of Arabic-speaking Internet users who are not interested in English-based content. So, Yahoo bought their way in.

Google appears to have gone their own way and decided to build their own base. The Egyptian Egabat (egabat.google.com) is the answer. As a product, it is completely uninteresting. It offers nothing that is new or exciting, except that it is an Arabic-only product. In fact, it's so Arabic it's Egyptian.

Now I understand that Google recruits a lot of their Middle East staff from Egypt, but the Egyptian branding of their first Arabic-only product is curious, to put it mildly. It is either Google doesn't understand the region or that their staff are taking this as an opportunity to highlight Egypt's importance in the region.

Dubai’s decision to establish the Dubai Media Affairs Office 'Brand Dubai' in June to coordinate Dubai's media affairs internationally is a classic example of recognition of the value communications bring to the table. While the new office will work as a platform to project Dubai's continuing achievements on economic, cultural and social matters, it also demonstrates that Dubai is a great believer in communications as the key to emerge one-up in the current global crisis. If an entire Emirate can adopt this innovative approach to communications, Arab governments and businesses should made extra efforts to retain their communications personnel because this is the time where they are needed most.

The Saudi's response to YouTube's indiscretionsNaqaTube. The website is essentially a YouTube filter as the videos are all hosted ON YouTube.

Saudi Jeans questions the viability of business models that focus on such niches, given the recent Yahoo! acquisition of Maktoob. The answer is: Absolutely.

There is beyond any doubt a large audience who are very interested in religious offerings. I think it is perhaps one of the most untapped markets, given how profit and religion mixing puts one in a gray area. Let's face it, religion sells.

The Yahoo! acquisition of Maktoob.com has been hailed as a new dawn for the IT sector. A new dot-com boom set to explode in the Middle East! Some are even perplexed by the media's rather uncaring take on the deal (the amount of coverage received not as much as they would like to think). While it is always good to see money pumping in the Middle East for any sector, I just don't see everyone in the world coming down here and buying out companies.

Yahoo! has no interest in, perhaps, Maktoob's most innovative product, araby.com. The only thing that interested Yahoo! is the overwhelming number of eyeballs Maktoob managed to amass throughout the region. While it is a clever way to make yourself attractive for an acquisition, it isn't exactly the pinnacle of innovation.

So, let us please not go overboard with self-congratulations that is so typical of the region without actually looking at what is happening around us.

It's time for another installment of our mailbox. Today I was greeted by several people and firms offering legal services. I thought it was odd to have them all in the same day. This is what I got:

Subject: Offer Letter for Legal Services

Dear Mr. /Ms. _____________,

The Legal Counsels group are willing to be of service to you in providing legal services and consultations that you may need.

And then it goes on.. followed by an Arabic version of the above text. And yes, it says Mr./Ms. __________. Allow me to offer a piece of advice: If you don't know my name, don't put ________ as an alternative.

But, my favorite (repeat spammer) has to be the one and only Alsafeer Advertising with the subject line:

Not to compete but to serve

Why would I think you would compete with me? Or rather, why do you think that those you are sending this out to would think that you are competing with them? That was just odd.

In the fourth installment of our quarterly Real Estate Media Report 2009Q2, we see Emaar, for the first time ever, slipping behind Abu Dhabi developers in the PR numbers game.

The second quarter of 2009 has not been kind to real estate developers. April 2009 saw Emaar slip behind Aldar and Sorouh for the first time ever. Aldar took the lead in terms of absolute coverage size, followed closely by Emaar. It wasn't just purely quantitative leadership that was lost for Emaar. Aldar also had the highest amount of manifest (direct) mentions as well as positive mentions in April 2009. Not to mention that May 2009 saw Aldar taking the lead in terms of latent (indirect) mentions, followed by Sama Dubai and Nakheel.

According to an online consumer survey by Nielson, people trust people. There are no surprises there, but it is interesting that consumers are also willing to trust reviews posted online by 'people' (who could possible be corporate). After all, if the Israelis are doing it, who is to say corporations aren't?

Even more astonishing is the percentage of people who totally or somewhat trust editorial content in newspapers. This number, globally is 69% whereas it is 84% for the UAE. I think it is mostly astonishing because we often forget that most people who are not in the media industry rarely get a glimpse of what really goes on before a news article appears before their very own eyes.