Customer Trend Log

Social Media Statistics in United Arab Emirates

Key questions this data raises:-

1. Average ad-spend on social media per annum is AED 50,000 only. The question is, in a market where TV is extremely fragmented and print is very expensive what is stopping brands from exploring new media?
2. Why no conventional brand is topping the chart?
3. E-Commerce market of USD 2 billion and still we don’t see anything about www.souq.com , this raises the question about the rating calculation.
4. Is share of subscribers a good indicator, or we should explore more into user sentiment, loyalty and spending

All the data, is also consolidated in UAE databank . UAE databank, is a project of www.customertrendlog.com which aims at combining all the scattered data of UAE consumer in one place. Contact us if you would like to submit or discover any indicator about UAE consumer.

Author Info: Anam Saeed is an emerging marketing research executive with a knack to explore new age media. She has developed content for multiple local and international clients. Based out of South Asia she brings a perspective of developing markets in her research studies.

How to build a brand in UAE? Ten rules that all marketers should know

The world is full of global brands. Which were never designed to be global brands? How to dominate the world is about how to beat them.

This presentation adds insights from United Arab Emirates to the points raised by Simon Silvester

Rule 1: Think Zeitgest  - UAE has startled the world through its development and growth, brands should capitalize that

Rule 2: Think Trial – UAE is a paradise of retail outlets, think trial to all the young audience and the expats that have recently arrived

Rule 3: Think Visual – When 208 nationalities combine speaking multiple languages, the language of your brand should be visual

Rule 4: Think Youthquake – UAE population has an average age of 27, you should connect to the young & rising.

Rule 5: Think Small – UAE is getting green, your brand should be saving on paper and all avoidable wastes because you love environment

Rule 6: Think Print – The media in UAE is print, followed by digital. Think visual, body copy and go crazy

Rule 7: Think Fast – People are on the move, fads are coming and going and where the hell is your brand? Move fast because if you will not your competition will

Rule 8: Think Cultural Neutrality – So many cultures, so many languages but one dream — Dubai Dream

Rule 9: Think Kiasu – Ambition charges UAE population & your brand should fuel it

Rule 10: Think Mobile 200% penetration rate of mobiles asks brand to evolve through modern technology

Brand Mantra: In UAE brand should capture human imagination, and should capture it faster than human imagination

Reading: How to dominate the world by Simon Silvester

Customer Trend: What consumers are doing while you read this post? 21 social media stats

Statistics, that will make your hair stand. Sit down and watch the counter. This just shows how digital media is helping consumer insight manager in gathering data.

http://www.personalizemedia.com/media/socmedcounter.swf

Public Sector Insight: Public Engagement in Public Sector

Recently Community engagement has reached an appraisable level of interest across public sector globally. There could be many reasons for this including success of Obama’s election campaign, strong conviction of USA, UK & Australian government towards public engagement, UN millennium development goals and technological advanced population.

I have tried to compile the learning’s from across the globe in this document (public engagement in public services), I hope you will find it useful.

I personally believe in identifying the challenges first because that stimulates the thinking as to how these challenges can be addressed. Below is an extract from the document, it highlights the key challenges

Challenges:

A comprehensive list associated with community engagement is available at the website of Queensland Government (Australia); following are some risks which I foresee in community engagement

• A broad target segments: Unlike private sector Government reaches out to everyone equally. Now this involves lower & higher SECs, hard to reach audiences, opinion leaders and followers, literates and illiterates, segments with vested interests etc. This together broadens the scope of community engagement for public services and makes it complicated to ensure unbiased results
• Accountability, information access and federal government:-  Unlike private sectors in public sector – community and citizens have all the rights reserved to access the information they shared at all levels. But it is very difficult from Governments’ perspective to share information at all levels, especially in the absence of web 2.0 technologies. Governments are also centralized and decisions take a lot of time before implementation. This results in distrust of communities on the Governments and consequently people feel that their input is not being valued.
• Generic community management issues:- Addressing the destructive impact of ‘bad participation’, where negative attitudes to community involvement lead to poor engagement practices, causing increased hostility, decreased trust and poor experience and outcomes not only for communities, but also for officials and politicians, thus further reinforcing negative attitudes and behavior. Recognizing the catch-22 faced by residents who take on responsibilities as community leaders, but find their legitimacy challenged precisely because they ‘stand out’ – becoming labeled as ‘unrepresentative usual suspects’.
• Inconsistent vocabulary: - The term ‘community participation’ is understood and applied differently by different statutory bodies, and by different officers within those statutory bodies. These variations can make it hard for different bodies to work in partnership with each other and with communities.
• Lack of available statistics on how community engagement helped Governments gain popularity, enhanced their positive image and got re-elected also acts as a barrier from government officials view point
• Managing expectations: – increased community engagement results into high level of expectations. So it at times become a catch 22 whereby increasing satisfaction through involvement Governments can lead to dissatisfaction by inconsistent policy or by not incorporating the community inputs
• Lack of time and interest: – An audit in Canada found that 55% people don’t want to be involved in community engagement because of lack of time, feeling of no influence over decision making etc.

IMPLICATIONS to United Arab Emirates

• In a tax-free environment, the first question which Government as a service provider asks is the depth of community engagement. Why and to what level people should be engaged? On top of tax-free environment, high turnover rate of expats (which constitutes the major part of the population) complicates service delivery, satisfaction levels and result oriented community engagement
• A unique mix of expats from different parts of the world results into different level of satisfaction and expectations across different segments. It becomes increasingly difficult to understand the cultural, lingual differences in involvement and product delivery.
• UAE has very high penetration of mobile phones and internet; this actually paves a way for technologically advanced means of sustainable community engagement.

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Customer Trend: Post recession Consumer

We (you and I), people who are in the eye of the recession and were in the eye of the unrealistic boom are one of the most interesting consumer segment I have come across during my marketing career. This is the reason why I think so

• We saw a magnanimous growth in last few years – We saw more than one economic bubble i.e. the dot.com bubble, real estate bubble, and the most interesting of it all is the rise and fall of credit based economy.
• We have seen wars and threats of terrorism – 9/11, Iraq war, Afghanistan war
• We have seen the most devastating natural disasters – Tsunami, Earthquakes (Haiti, China, Pakistan) and still we are expecting much more as the “globe is warming up to take its revenge from mankind.”
• We have seen media revolutions and are still witnessing it – Satellite television, computers, Internet & social media  

All of this has shaped our behavior, we can laugh about things which our previous generations couldn’t. We worry about situation which never existed before. In short, We are stronger, agile, insecure and more connected. If you disagree then enlighten me with your opinion.

Now in the following presentation I am investigating the post-recession consumer. I believe the world is going through an optimism divide i.e. hopeful BIC (Brazil, India & China) vs. the rest of the world. The insecurities and the charged passion is changing marketing landscape.

Here is my view:

Additional Readings

I talked about trust in this blog almost 6 months ago and PWC’s report released today on 31-Oct-10 just re-confirms my thoughts (talk about bragging): PWC – Trust report

How The Current Economy Has Changed Consumer Behaviors

Survey report – 3 out of 5 people in UAE believe that UAE is in recession - (This is just the executive summary – full report can be viewed by premium members)

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Customer Trend – Insights into the global youth

Young, strong, financially influential, globally connected. These are some of the attributes of young people of our times. With a cumulative purchasing power of $ 592 billion i.e. bigger than the economy of Switzerland, they are far more powerful and equally more capable of bringing radical change. Though the young today are more dynamic than their counterparts in yesteryears but the basic motivators stays the same.

Here is how I think this market can be targeted more effectively

1. Possible meaningful styles –  Young people today are strongly seeking substance behind styles, after going through their key triggers i think oppurtunities lies in the domain of Nationalistic pride (especially for Asian audience), save the globe, etc.
2. Motivator: A brand, a concept and/or a government that is going to spend in motivating them and nurturing their risk-taking nature either through investment or through engagement will be successful
3. Youthland -  They are connected and have crossed geographic boundaries. No government, no brand and no market can afford to take ‘em lightly.  And they grow in groups, so a product promise in US which hurts people in Mid-East can hurt the product far more successfully than before. Similarly you hurt ‘em in Iran you will hear the roar in world. So beware of your messages to the audience globally.

Additional Resources:

1. Interesting studies by mobile youth
   1. Youth mobile marketing trends
   2. Mobile youth in India by Graham Brown
2. The digital youth project
3. Trends in India
4. Youth Consumption influences
5. MTV Being young: The global trends about youth
6. China youth trends
7. Synovate survey shows that young Asians are driven by media and music