Social media. This could mean a million and one things depending on who you speak to, but the one thing that it cannot seem to escape is controversy. Whether it’s accountability in the wake of the Capitol riots, disruption to traditional media outlets or addressing the safety of younger users, social media has been a magnet for criticism and interrogation. However, the controversy surrounding social media in the past few years has done nothing to curtail its growth. With TikTok hitting 1 billion monthly active users, Twitch revenue crossing $2bn and Meta claiming ownership of four of the top six apps globally, it’s safe to say that the broad category we’ve labelled as ‘social media’ is only continuing to expand. eMarketer reports a continued increase in time spent online in 2021, with no decline in usage reported for any of the major social platforms.

In fact, we have seen new entrants to the field grow at an unprecedented pace. This should come as no surprise. Successful players in the space are recognising that whatever we do online, it’s more engaging when you add a layer of human interaction. The smartest advertisers are the ones who are recognising that fact and taking advantage of the new opportunities presented. So, in planning your social media investment, what do you need to do?

Let’s not talk about social media: Forget the concept of ‘social media’ as a portion of your ‘digital’ budget, and plan around your consumer. The ways that people interact with an influencer on Twitch, or share movie trailers and video essays on YouTube, could not be more different. It’s time to think about consumer mindsets. Are you looking for deep engagement in a lean-forward environment with users that are in the mindset to discover new things? Turn to Twitter or Facebook feeds. Are you looking to build brand recall with users who are in the mood for TV-style lean-back entertainment? Check out Snapchat Discover or YouTube. Consider what mental state you want your consumers in (and please, let’s stop repurposing the same TVC for both YouTube bumpers and Facebook lead-gen ads).

Look to holistic measurement: Given the overwhelming narrative of digital measurability, we’ve come to expect that we can map every dollar of spend to the bottom line. Tools like store visitation and offline conversions claim to bridge the gap between digital and physical presence. Realistically, most of these solutions are indicative at best, with quite significant blind spots. Taking this data as fact can lead marketers down the wrong path entirely. So what’s the solution? Look to marketing mix modelling, which has long been one of the best ways to measure the impact of media on revenue, and brand lift studies, which are an essential tool in understanding the building of a brand. What they have in common is the ability to view social media as part of a greater whole and its impact on a digital generation.

Build beyond the platform: While it is tempting to believe that the big tech players know best, the reality is that there are a number of bright start-ups and established businesses who have found ways to improve on what the Pages and Zuckerbergs of the world have built. It’s worth exploring some of the options that companies like Smartly.io, 4C, Skai and others have to offer. In a lot of cases, these companies will provide specialised solutions that can help to massively improve performance or provide a different perspective. One great example of this is attention measurement as a replacement for video views – 2-second and 3-second video views have long been one of the most controversial metrics in digital media. Attention measurement bridges that gap by looking at factors outside of just continuous view time to understand just how much impact your video advertising is having. This is a great example of a step that digital media needs to be taking in order to build robust yet flexible measurement frameworks.

In short, while social media may be drawing the wrong kind of attention in some circles, its growth has not been dampened at all. In fact, doors have even opened for new entrants in what many assumed to be a saturated market, and the digital platforms that we have labelled as social media have grown to take over more and more of our day-to-day lives. Good digital marketers will be finding ways to leverage the measurement capabilities of social platforms in order to drive solid return on investment. Great digital marketers will recognise that social media as a concept is too all-encompassing to be useful – it is integrated into every aspect of our lives, deserving much more of our attention than just a simple label.

This article was first published in Campaign Middle East

Claire Fletcher has been appointed as head of engagement at OMD UAE. She will be developing new ways brands can connect and engage with audiences by placing empathy and human connection at the forefront. Through a multidimensional strategic approach with content, creators, experiences, and technology, she will be building innovative practices where brands, products and customers intersect to enrich the overall customer experience in today’s world.

Claire offers over 9 years of experience in the advertising industry, having spent 7 of them working with diverse brands and categories across MENAT/GCC. In her previous role, Claire spearheaded an addressable content arm allowing her to work closely with global markets, successfully merging data, tech, innovation, and eCommerce to deliver personalization at scale.

Having led the social media departments across creative and media agencies, Claire will be focusing on building agile teams, products and methods to create work that leans on dynamic content, thinking and futuristic experiences to execute solving business problems creatively.

This article was first published on Campaign Middle East

Saleh Ghazal, Managing Director of OMD MENA, discusses collaboration, processes and finding the right people.

How would you define collaboration?

Collaboration is much more than teamwork or collective work; it is having the right mindset, the right culture, and it doesn’t have to be within the same discipline or the same team. We are now at a time when, more than ever, collaboration is needed with a wider audience.

I really like the idea of ‘casual collisions.’ Pre Covid, we had people talking to other people outside of their teams – in the lift, in the pantry, while having a tea break – and bouncing ideas with individuals or talents outside their day-to-day job or direct team. Collaboration really stems from these casual collisions between individuals to deliver better work for clients. During Covid, we missed that.

How do you foster such a culture, especially in a diverse country in terms of ethnicity, language, religion, values, etc.?

It’s very difficult to build a culture top bottom. Culture comes from the people. So, you foster the culture by listening to people, understanding exactly what they want, hearing them out, and, to a certain extent, by trial and error.

Building a culture requires a lot of time, but it also requires the right tools. During Covid, we’ve invested a lot in tools like Microsoft Teams or Zoom because it was very hard for us to have that interaction with the wider people. But it affected the culture a lot.

And how do you foster a collaborative mindset within the organization, specifically?

It’s a very difficult question. [Achieving that] is a mix of many things, including leadership – leading by example – and a proper hiring strategy. We need to see whether a talent fits within that culture and has that mindset of creativity, openness, diversity, and inclusion. Because changing someone’s mindset or helping people come up with a mindset is difficult. You can’t educate people on how to read the room or how to improve their emotional intelligence.

How can systems and processes help?

I’m not a huge fan of processes because processes limit someone’s creativity and kind of boxes them into a certain framework. If we did not have strict policies and strict processes, innovation would be much higher. Of course, there are definitely certain processes that you need to follow to help people fall into place and reach certain positions or thoughts. But even these processes, to a certain extent, limit creativity. It’s the opposite of fostering a culture of creativity and imagination. There [should always be] room for someone to move away from that straight line, to experience something that is new and experiment with something that is different. To allow someone to test and fail and learn from their mistakes is the only way we can innovate. This is something that we are trying to develop to be able to foster innovation and creativity.

So, what do you think of tools and techniques like design thinking, for example?

As an organization, we do brainstorming sessions, ignition sessions, and so on, and there is a process on how we conduct these sessions. But with time, you become used to them and you no longer are creative. This is why these processes themselves should be disrupted. This is why, as an organization, we’ve come up with different techniques that we keep trying even during a single year, because we don’t want to hamper creative thinking and innovation.

Collaboration goes beyond an organization. It also involves partners and clients. How do you approach that?

Everything that I’ve talked about so far is about collaboration not only inside the organization but also outside of the organization. Collaboration is embedded in everything that we do, from our personal lives to how we apply it to creative problem-solving at the workplace, with clients, with partners, with competitors.

If you really know how your clients operate, you should be able to nurture collaboration. There can be resistance only if the clients do not see the value. As long as you portray and illustrate the value of that collaboration, then I don’t think there is anyone who’d say no to that – unless there is ego behind it.

And that never happens, of course.

It definitely happens and this is the biggest challenge that we have in that industry. But for you to be able to overcome that ego, you need to show the value that you bring to the table.

What practical advice, tips, or tools would you share to help foster and enhance collaboration in an agency?

The more facetime and teamwork people have, the more you foster collaboration and creativity. Inspiration comes from people’s actions, words, and even how they carry themselves. When two or more team members collaborate together, joining their thoughts, it produces better results and it opens doors for arriving at more innovative solutions. This is something that we have noticed a lot during the lockdown. People did not have facetime with one another – these casual collisions I mentioned earlier. This is why after the lockdown, we started asking people to come to the office.

This interview first appeared on Communicate. 

This article was originally published by Campaign Middle East.

OMD MENA has promoted Wissam Najjar, its regional managing director, to the position of Chief Operating Officer. Until now, he was responsible for the Levant, Egypt and the Gulf.  He will now add the North African and UAE offices to his remit.

Najjar has been at OMD for 16 years. In that time, he has proved instrumental in spreading OMD’s culture and difference across all the markets he’s managed. As well as spurring their performance, he’s also spearheaded the expansion of the network to Bahrain, Iraq and Jordan and solidified the relationships with local and regional business partners.

In this new role, Najjar is being tasked with propelling OMD forward and delivering a consistently best in-class product across all its markets, through the optimal combination of talent, technology and resources. While he continues to report to Nadim Samara, CEO of OMD MENA, all local offices and network operations will now report into Najjar.

“Wissam is ideally placed to further capitalize on the power of the network and the strengths of our great local operations to deliver an even stronger client performance and operational efficiency,” stated Nadim Samara. “He will build on our current scale, which we’ve achieved with high-performing and like-minded teams, and leverage all potential synergies.”

“Despite the headwinds, there are still many growth opportunities for marketers across the region. It’s a case of knowing where to look and how to activate them,” commented Wissam Najjar. “Connected and empowered by technology, OMD’s experts define and deploy creative and effective strategies for clients everywhere to unlock these pockets of growth.”

The promotion is effective immediately.

This article was originally published by Campaign Middle East.

AFAF ZAHER, 29, SENIOR EXECUTIVE, OMD UAE

Nominated by Terry Mo, director of performance, OMD
“Over her past few years with Omnicom, Afaf has become one of our key e-commerce specialists. She managed
some of the first advertisers in the region to use Google Shopping and keyword-level data-driven attribution, both initiatives that generated clear incremental revenue for her clients. Afaf’s audience- and data-driven approach to performance, married to her passion for luxury retail, has generated around 40 per cent to 60 per cent growth in performance billings for her key clients. In 2018 she was awarded OMD’s Extra Mile award for her outstanding and tireless contributions to her team and client. She is definitely one to watch.”

Career path
“I started my career in the performance team in July 2015, working on FMCG, automotive and finance. Based on my performance, I was assigned to LVMH to assist with e-commerce launches. I have continued to learn and challenge existing paradigms, driving early adoption of betas and tests that help maximise revenue across channels. I was promoted to senior executive in December 2017 and am now mentoring fresh recruits, among other responsibilities. In 2017, I was awarded OMD’s quarterly employee achievement award twice, and in 2018 I was awarded the annual Extra Mile award for my contributions.”

Guiding principles
I believe that making mistakes is the best way to learn. So one thing that I would pass on to someone
new to the industry is the importance of having a good mentor who lets you make these mistakes and
learn from them. Another thing that has helped me is prioritisation of work-flow and learning to focus
efforts on what’s truly important. It’s essential to look at the larger picture while working on the
granular detail of performance accounts, in order to not lose sight of the overall vision for the client.

 

NOUR MONTASSER, 24, BIDDABLE MEDIA EXECUTIVE, HEARTS & SCIENCE

Nominated by Stacy Fisher, head of digital transformation, Hearts & Science
“Nour has transformed in her year here at Hearts & Science by consistently demonstrating her knowledge internally in meetings with the client teams and externally both with our clients and in media partner sessions. I am very impressed with her even-keeled approach and her positive attitude towards ensuring we reach our client goals.”

Career path
Upon completing her undergraduate studies in Toronto, Nour launched her career in biddable media in Dubai with Wavemaker. Her first client was a global FMCG, which exposed her to the full scope of the social media advertising realm. She is currently a part of the biddable media team at Hearts & Science, focused on delivering data-driven campaigns across social media, display and video platforms.

Guiding principles
At the end of the day, if I walk away confidently knowing I did my absolute best, then my job is done. This is the fire that fuels my work.

 

SONIA JOHN, 29, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, DIGITAL, HEARTS & SCIENCE

Nominated by Nadim Karam, senior director, Hearts & Science
“Very few people in this industry are as pleasant to work with as Sonia. She’s a great asset to any team, as she will always elevate the conversation and get great work done.”

Career path
Sonia started her career at PHD India on the Unilever account as a digital planner. She then moved to Dubai and joined a boutique agency as a digital specialist, where she led on planning and operations, learning the tricks of the trade. She then moved to Hearts & Science where she works on KFC, keeping data at the core of the operation. This year she was nominated by management and won a global Hearts award for her work in facilitating the digital transformation of KFC.

Guiding principles
“Rest in reason, move in passion” is a quote by Khalil Gibran that I have followed all through my career and I would pass on to someone joining this industry. It is extremely important to be passionate about your work, but reasoning will always keep you grounded. In the ever-changing and growing field of digital transformation, everything that you mastered a week ago no more holds true. So always keep yourself up to date.

 

ACHRAFE MAMI, 30, MANAGER, BIDDABLE MEDIA, HEARTS & SCIENCE

Nominated by Fadi Maktabi, general manager, Hearts & Science
“Achrafe has done an excellent job the past year, since moving to the region, at leading programmatic planning within our agency. She is always ready to push boundaries to get things done better, and to top it off she always has an infectious positive outlook on everything.”

Career path
Achrafe started her digital journey at PHD Canada as an analyst, where she quickly rose through the ranks, making manager in less than a year due to her firm handle of programmatic. Over the course of her career, Achrafe has worked across automotive, finance, travel, telecommunications and F&B clients. She moved to Dubai in 2018, to Hearts & Science to lead the biddable media team, covering programmatic and paid social for all the agency’s accounts. This year she was awarded by management for embracing and championing data-driven marketing across all of Hearts & Science’s clients.

Guiding principles
If it scares you, go for it. This is the rule that allows me to grow and learn every day. If it gets too comfortable then it’s time to move to a new challenge. Take ownership. This is something that my first media manager taught me. I would complain about a difficult client or a challenging campaign, and her answer would be that I have to take ownership of this issue and work on fixing it. Anything can be improved if we make the effort to look at things with different perspectives and an open mind.

 

RANA SAWMA, 30, SENIOR DATA ANALYST, ANNALECT

Nominated by Raouf Ketani, head of Annalect
“Rana has exceptional data science skills in finding solutions to our clients’ marketing challenges through the use of data and analytics. Within her first two years at Annalect alone, Rana has successfully developed and deployed everything from multi-touch attribution models to highly accurate predictive customer lifetime value models and countless insightful data explorations of MENA consumer habits. A problem-solver and always ready for a challenge, Rana has also mentored young data scientists within the group, helpingthem better understand the work we do.”

Career path
Rana started her career as a web developer in media company Zawya in Lebanon, before moving to the healthcare industry as an analyst. This experience piqued her interest in big data and analytics, leading her to get a Master’s in business analytics and big data. In 2017, she joined Annalect, the data and analytics arm of Omnicom Media Group in Dubai. She is currently on a committee to judge an inter-university data competition that has been organised by Omnicom Media Group MENA.

Guiding principles
I live by three main rules:
1. Treat people the way you want to be treated.
2. Share your knowledge. It’s the best way to grow.
3. Try to learn something new every day.

This article was originally published by Arab Ad.

Nadim Samara has taken on the mantle of chief executive for OMD across the entire MENA region. He talks consistency of product and the importance of purpose with ArabAd.

The office may be the same but the role has changed significantly. Nadim Samara, once the khaki jacket toting chief executive of OMD UAE, has swapped the UAE for MENA, bringing a new level of accountability and pressure to his professional career. Not that you’d guess from talking to him, such is his affability and composure.

“If you have that four-letter acronym in your title you’re responsible for them,” he says. “I don’t want these four letters to be just a brand. I want to own them.”

Samara stepped up to the plate in early October, tasked with leading a network of 15 offices and managing more than 200 clients. His challenge? To drive the network’s transformation and to better respond to current and emerging client needs.

Much of the hard work on a UAE level has already been done. The agency’s service offering has been strengthened, a new breed of talent brought in, a new agile structure created, and expertise in tech, analytics and performance has been scaled up. The end result has been the creation of what Samara describes as a business performance company, not a traditional media agency. The job now is to roll that out regionally and to ensure consistency of service.

“The purpose of this appointment, or this role, isn’t a fix-it job. It’s a grow-it job,” says Samara, who is sitting comfortably in his Dubai Media City office. “That’s important for us to understand. There are no market weaknesses: there are market opportunities and there’s a network opportunity first and foremost.

“In terms of priority, it’s the consistency of the product, it’s the consistency of the leadership team, and at the same time (which is an oxymoron) it’s the specialisation of each market and the specialisation of each leadership team. I want to make sure that we have this intersection of consistency – to make sure that you get one version of OMD across 15 offices – and the bespoke mentality of each market. That character, that culture that comes out in a positive way.”

Samara is one of the industry’s more likeable characters. He talks of pain and suffering as only a true Star Wars geek would, referencing Yoda’s terminology for training like a Jedi, and views data as sexy. He uses words such as extrapolate and talks finance with the best of them (“When OMD is seen as the investment banker for brands, whether it’s on the short or long term, you need to think like an investment banker”).

  “If you have that four-letter acronym in your title you’re responsible for them. I don’t want these four letters to be just a brand. I want to own them.”

He has been with OMD for 17 years, beginning his career as a media manager in 2002 and working his way up the corporate ladder via a five-year stint at OMD in the US. Since returning to the UAE in 2012 he has helped build OMD into an agency that currently sits second in RECMA’s agency rankings for the Middle East and North Africa. For the first half of 2018 it was rated number one in pitch performance by Comvergence and has submitted gross billings of just over $1 billion to RECMA for 2017, up from $931 million in 2016.

Challenges remain, however, not least the level and frequency of uncertainty in the market, while still being labelled a media agency is of concern.

“The more we are treated as an agency – we take something with the right hand, add our fees or subtract our commission, and then give it away with the left hand – then that’s something that I think is going to make us obsolete,” says Samara. “This intermediary role is something that’s vague, that doesn’t show value. The second you show you’re providing value through a unique proposition and you have a vested interest in performing for a brand, which will also have an affect on your own performance, then you start to have a viable and sustainable role.

“And I think that purpose is yet to be defined. It’s very important to talk about purpose, and when we sit in a pitch or a client meeting, I want our clients to know that our purpose is one and the same – which is to create work that works”

What does work?

“Personalisation at scale,” replies Samara. “The fact that personalisation at scale is a combination of creative and media is actually something that’s working for our clients, and OMD’s structure is designed for that. In fact, it is harder and harder to de-couple creative, technology, distribution, measurement, analytics and the many other disciplines within marketing.

“And something that I have driven for a handful of accounts but should be scaled out is ‘flawless execution’,” he adds. “It’s something that I would love to be able to claim with full confidence, but we’re not quite there yet. Every time the rubber hits the road it needs to be 100 per cent. But we’re human, there are some errors, and we’re in a very complicated infrastructure when it comes to digital. But we should get to a point where we have flawless execution.”

It’s very important to talk about purpose, and when we sit in a pitch or a client meeting, I want our clients to know that our purpose is one and the same – which is to create work that works.

Samara is not alone of course. He is supported by Wissam Najjar, who leads OMD’s offices outside North Africa, and Eric Bequin, who heads its luxury practice and the three offices in the Maghreb region. Samara himself reports to Elie Khouri, chief executive of Omnicom Media Group MENA.

“There’s a level of frustration that in 2018 AI is just an acronym,” he says, discussing the need for further transformation. “Machine learning – or ML – is just a term. That’s the transformation that we should go after. Not specifically these two terms, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, but there’s a lot in that belly of the iceberg that is low hanging fruit.

“For example, ad tech solutions are now foundational to every investment made on measurable media, augmented with new focal areas, such as what we are labelling as ‘CreTech’ (technology that further enables creative and content solutions) revolving around dynamic creative optimisation, rapid response management, on-ground/online real-time activation synergies, and so forth. Most of this is common practice. However, it is not systematically scaled to cater to the consumer demands each brand deserves. Now that our 15 offices are working in unison for 2019, it’s a key focal point to further add to our integrated structure.”

“The fact that we’re intersecting our business performance company mentality with our portfolio of integrated products, all under one roof and with one goal, is something that will help us grow,” he adds. “And I know that we’re structured in a way that we’re very resilient; we’re very agile, and we’re very integrated. And when you have these three things in you as part of you’re DNA, then you come out on top.”