It is a marketing research report on the trends of brand management and online marketing in UAE.

1. Brand Management &
New Media Marketing 2010
An insight into brand management trends and the usage of New Media as a
marketing tool in UAE

2. Brand Management and New Media Marketing Survey
Executive Summary
Branding is an integral part of any organization. It is
branding which makes a company stand out from the
crowd based on intangible benefits. A properly managed
brand can impact the bottom line, drive revenues and
growth, and set the upward future growth trend. A well
managed brand can help the organization sustain more
effectively and efficiently in times like recession and they
recover faster. This survey was conducted to find out the
trend in brand management in UAE. UAE has become a
global village where you will find professionals from
almost all nationalities. This cultural diversity brings
with it some unique challenges when it comes to Brand
Management. Additionally survey also tries to find out
the trend of organizations based in UAE and the
organizations with regional offices in UAE using the
conventional as well as new media tools to manage their
brand and to market their products and services.
www.linksmarketing.net 2|P a g e

3. Brand Management and New Media Marketing Survey
The Experts
The survey was mainly targeted towards
the top and midlevel managers. 69% of
respondents were involved in marketing
related functions. Total 60 respondents
took the survey and completed 100% of
the questionnaire. The participants were
invited to take part in the study using social
How ma ny people work in your organization?
network websites. It had a fair mix of
respondents representing B2B and B2C
sectors with 39% from B2C and 61% from
B2B. The companies surveyed were almost
all from medium to large scale enterprises
as you can see in the Graph ii.
Graph ii
The Findings
• Branding is no more considered a manual and brand manual among the
superficial makeup but its considered an vastly used.
integral part of the marketing strategy. • Cultural differences, language/translation
Majority of the organizations have a issues and lack of local expertise are some
formal brand management policy which of the main barriers in effective brand
gets top management’s backing and also management.
get implemented. • Due to the economin downturn companies
• As UAE is becoming a regional hub for are exploring more cost effective
foreign companies with their regional alternatives to advertising like PR, direct
offices and distribution centers established marketing, and new media/online tools to
here, most of the brand management is market their products and services.
goverened through centralized brand • Website, email marketing, online feedback
management. forms, and online advertising are the
• Companies use different tools for brand mostly used new media tools for
management with corporate identity marketing activities.
www.linksmarketing.net 3|P a g e

4. Question 1: How much your brand influences your customers buying
behavior?
Scale 1-10. 1 being No Influence, and 10 being High Influence
72% voted 7 or higher which shows how big of a heirarchical process which is achieved over
role brand plays in consumer preference. time. An excellent product without proper
Consumers like to buy the products with brand branding could be a failure but it would still gain
names they trust. It is the perception about a the momentum because of the good
brand that trigers people switch from other experiences of early adopter. However a flop
brands or buy it at first place . Once the brand product with excellent branding would be a
lives upto the promises made, it develops trust. bigger failure as after having bad experience
As a happy consumer we become loyal to that once consumers will never buy the same brand
brand and later an advocate of that brand. It is again even with a better/improved product.
Question 2: We have a formal brand management policy.
82% say they have a formal brand management value of brand management and that they have
policy which shows that UAE companies see the invested resources to establish a formal brand
www.linksmarketing.net 4|P a g e

5. management policy. Now how well that policy not having a formal brand management policy
is being impleneted will be more clear from the will be reconfirmed later in another question
proceeding questions. Another fact to be noted which proves the validity and accuracy of the
here is that 16% don’t have a formal brand data produced in this survey.
management policy. This fraction of companies
Question 3: Does your organization offer brand-specific guidelines?
This question further breaks down the “type” of management program whether it is in the form
certain brand specific guidelines organizations Brand Manual or Corporate Identity Manual or
have. 87% do have some sort of brand Behavioral guidelines.
Question 4: how well does your firm follow brand guidelines?
Scale 1-10. 1 being Not Well, and 10 being Very Well
With the Mean Value of 7.4 and 88% voting 5 or
higher, it shows the brand guidelines are not Last three questions show that companies do
merely the part or marketing documents follow brand guidelines and they do have a
wihtout implementation but these brand brand management programs but what exactly
management policies actually get implemented. they do in this regard will be discovered in the
It is a good news that UAE companied pay following two questions.
attention to the vital concept of brand
management from concept to implementation.
www.linksmarketing.net 5|P a g e

6. Question 5: What have you done to define and articulate your
company’s brand over the past two years?
This question ads further credit to
preceeding question and show
what kind of activities companies
have done in terms of brand
management over the past two
years. Companies have been
involved in a range of activities
from training emplyees to
engaging a brand consultancy
firms. It signifies that brand
management affair if taken
seriously by companies in UAE.
Question 6: What is your typical approach to managing brands?
1. Centrally managed, with consistent global implementation
2. We have global brands, but they can be slightly adjusted to local needs
3. We have global brands which are heavily tailored at a country level
4. We develop distinct local branding for each market
5. We don’t have a special brand management program
6. Other
UAE being a multi cultural country and having manage their brand in this multicultural
established its status as a regional hub for environment. 41% centrally manage their
distribution for many foreign companies it was brand with consistent global implementation,
equally important to know how companies
www.linksmarketing.net 6|P a g e

7. while 28% have the global brand but with the flexibility of tweaking it to local needs.
Question 7: What are the main barriers to managing your brand
effectively in international markets?
exist. Being culturaly diverse posses the
biggest challenge for brand managers.
Same message could be percieved
differently even if it is in the same
lanuguage for example english. Now
imagine that message having translated
into regional languages. So as expected
cultural diversity is one of the main
barrier to manage brand effectively
followed by lack of local market
expertise and translation issue among
the others. These challenges would be
easier of overcome only if companies
get local expertise but as I mentioned
Nothing is free of challenges and such is the the whole idea of Marketing, leave the
case with brand management as well. However brand management aside, is new to this region
the set of challenges and the magnitude of so it not quite easy to find the right talent
them might be a different but they definitely tailored to this market.
www.linksmarketing.net 7|P a g e

8. The Tools
Having discovered companies take on brand out the new media/internet tools companies in
management It wold equally important to know UAE have been using, or, on the other hand
what tools companies have been using and are which unconventional tools they could use but
planning to use in future to manage their are not really using them effectively.
brands. Beside conventional tools I tried to find
Question 8: In 2010, do you expect spending to increase, decrease, or
remain the same in each of the following marketing disciplines?
From 2005 untill end of 2008 we saw taking piggie back ride on construction industry
unprecedented increase in adverts, bill boards, closed down with few months and some a year
baners, and posters. Companies were spending later. As expected the survey reflected the
and in some instances competing on ad space. sentiment of the business leaders in UAE.
After recession hit and as construction industry Budget constraints have pushed business
took the nose dive, the biggest customers of ad leaders to steer away from expensive
space, so did the advertising industry along with advertising and incllined more towards PR,
it. We witnesed many Ad agencies who were Direct Marketing and Digital/Online.
www.linksmarketing.net 8|P a g e

9. Question 9: How regularly you work with these agencies?
Unlike western world direct marketing and responsible for sales and marketing as
digital/online media concepts are still new to marketing is not considered important enough
this market. PR is catching up quite fast as more which needs a separate department, leave
and more people see value in public relation alone the separate budget. Therefore to
activities, whereas advertising being more of achieve monthly sales targets these managers
traditionally core and important to marketing focus mainly on gorilla type marketing which
gets the biggest chunk of marketing budget. But produce immidiate results i.e Advertising. PR
then I believe the whole concepr of “Marketing” and Digital/Online marketing which should be a
is still very young in this region as people still part of Integrated Marketing Communications
largely confuse sales with marketing functions. strategy is often neglected.
The trend here is to have one person
www.linksmarketing.net 9|P a g e

10. Question 10: Which of these online/new media techniques do you use
often to market your brand ?
As expected website ranks the highest among an established medium for over a decade, to
other tools that companies use with Email social networking. Social networking is catching
Marketing the 2nd most often used, followed by up quiet fast as marketing gurus realise the role
onilne feed back forms and web statistics. Most it plays in openion making. Social networks
of the companies use a mix of tools to maximize make up an important aspect of a product
their online presence and to gain higher search launch especially when it comes to FMCG. It is
engine ranks which results in higher sales leads. even more relevant for UAE as more than 74%
There is a very interesting trend we see here of its population uses internet according to
when you compare online advertising,which is stats from internetworldstats.com.
www.linksmarketing.net 10 | P a g e

11. About the author
Noor Ul Ain Mohammd is a Markerting
Professional with over 10 years of B2B and B2C
Marketing Experience. He is also a Chartered
Marketere and Member of Chartered Institute
of Marketing. He has been involved with a
range of industries like water treatment and
desalination, Chemicals, fire fighting and safety
equipment, industrial gases, air purification,
electronic article surveilance, Rental and
Maintenance, and technical training.
Every effort has been made to verify the
accuracy of this information. The facts and
figures are scientifically based on survey results.
It was a non profit study and the information
presented here is strictly for education purpose
only, not to be used in any other context.
www.linksmarketing.net 11 | P a g e