Democratization

Brands represent one important means of releasing that self expression. They help people define who they are as individuals, what they stand for. They help give all of us a sense of identity, a sense of who we are. That is why brands are important now in these markets as never before.

Increased democratization in these markets means increased opportunities for brands which reach out to consumers looking for ways of saying who they are, standing out from the anonymity of the crowd. That anonymity of course offers a kind of security - belonging to the crowd. To stand out requires a new level of self-confidence. Brands can offer that. But, to do so, brands have to show that they understand what these consumers want emotionally from their lives, what really drives them. And as these influences or drivers reside in the consumers' sub-conscious, revealing them and understanding them is certainly not straightforward.

Back in 1987, as MERAC, we ran the first really large scale quali research investigation into Gulf Arab consumers and what made them tick, how they interpreted and responded to marketing activities at the time.

Across the Gulf region, we described a group of very collectivist societies and target audiences with low expectations from advertising, a very literal understanding of advertising. At the time creativity often confused rather than enhanced a brand's ad effectiveness.

And it was our impression that little really changed much - until the advent of satellite TV in 1996 brought about significant change in people's attitudes and aspirations.

So when we finally updated the study in 2001, for the first time we were able to segment these markets in terms of identifiable, distinct clusters of consumer attitudes, aspirations, lifestyles i.e. for the first time we could segment these markets psychographically rather than simply demographically.

In other words, these markets have now evolved, matured, to such an extent that significantly different personal motivations, priority needs, now drive different groups of consumers. Different markets, different categories, have evolved to different stages. Brands can now be targeted with quite distinctly different brand strategies - opportunities for quite sophisticated brand differentiation, more deeply meaningful, emotionally bonding communication platforms and positionings, now exist and we are starting to understand them.

It really is a very exciting time to be in marketing in the region!