The godfather

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Ghossoub is quick to defend the creative work coming out of the Middle East - and rightly so having won a string of international awards for the work produced by his own agencies.

"Leaving aside real estate, if you look at the advertising for any other business, the creativity levels are well renowned and the campaigns are winning awards worldwide.

"We are doing an excellent job."

He acknowledges however that advertising agencies work under heavy restrictions in some parts of region - a factor that he admits is in some instances hampering creativity.

"The problem is that there are a lot of restrictions around the area - it's a different culture with different ways of communicating, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

"There are a lot of traditions we have to be aware of and lots of barriers that in some cases do not allow for the creativity you would have in the UK or some other parts of the world," he says.

The fact that ‘old habits die hard' in the Middle East also means that as Kevin Roberts pointed out, the region has not yet fully embraced digital technology as a medium for advertising messages.

While there has been an explosion in the popularity of viral marketing and the use of internet and mobile phone-based advertising in Europe, the US and parts of Asia, there is still "a big place for traditional media in the market here", according to Ghossoub.

He believes digital illiteracy in some parts of the Middle East - and the lack of Arabic language internet portals means that the power of digital media has not yet reached its zenith in the region.

"The success of this depends a great deal on the levels of digital literacy within the population.

"In the UAE this is more advanced because of the nature of the population and its inhabitants.

"But it's taking longer to increase in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait due to language barriers and digital illiteracy.

"Even in the UAE it is not as widespread as people think."

With this in mind, he says television is still "the most powerful medium in our area" given "the abundance of channels, both free to air and encrypted that cover all possible areas."

But while traditional media may still dominate the Middle East advertising marketplace, Ghossoub acknowledges that it is an industry that has changed radically since he started out in it.

Print media has seen particularly big changes, he says, following the introduction of more English language newspapers, most recently The National, and the presence of foreign newspapers, including the UK's Times newspaper, in the marketplace.

Ghossoub has praise for the design and content of The National, but believes it could face challenges when it comes to competing with existing Dubai-based publications because of distribution issues.

"I think they will do well within the context of the English newspapers scene if it has good distribution and if it continues to be diligent in terms of its content.

"The newspaper is an Abu Dhabi-based publication and there are three strong contenders in Dubai at present.

"It is competing against well-distributed newspapers in Dubai so it has a task on its hands there."

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