Battle of the brands

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YOUTH MARKET: Brand strategists are keen to target the young population of the Gulf.

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HINDRANCE: The region’s culture and mixed demographics can sometimes make research harder than in other parts of the world.

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He sees the increasingly crowded real estate industry as the most obvious growth story for branding in the Gulf.

"All the branding in the Gulf hasn't been moving forward at the same rate. So some of it is quite crude and some of it is very polished," he says.

"If you don't have a building that's an actual concrete building that's there, then you can only sell on the branding and the promise and the lifestyle choice that people are making maybe three, four, five years down the line."

He is also, perhaps more unexpectedly, excited about branding in the banking sector. While banking brands in the rest of the world tend to have a fairly conservative, staid image that changes little over time, the Gulf's large expat populations have made it an exception.

"In Europe, banks won't rebrand as often because people are afraid of change that involves their money. If they've always seen their money safe in the bank and they see their bank changing, they'll start to worry that the bank is going to start doing crazy things with their money," Allison says.

"Here, a bank will rebrand quite often because it knows that as these potential customers come in, they're only going to be hanging around for maybe three or four years."

James and Hughes of The Brand Union are especially proud of their work with Al Hilal Bank, Abu Dhabi's second Islamic bank that launched in June this year. Al Hilal entered a market that was already very crowded, raising questions over whether there was really room for another player.

"We've developed a brand that we see as very differentiating and quite daring in the sense that it's not a traditional Islamic bank. It doesn't look like a traditional Islamic bank," Hughes says.

Research showed strong demand for Sharia-compliant banking in the country but frustration with the customer experience offered by many banks.

One result of the branding agency's research was a branch layout it calls the region's first ‘financial mall'.

"Rather than walking into a bank it is much more open plan. There are kiosks where you can go and do your personal banking," James says.

The region's culture and mixed demographics can sometimes make research harder than in other parts of the world.

"We have a very cosmopolitan mix of people within our strategy and design teams," Hughes says.

Saudi Arabia's private culture means that one-on-one interviews are more common there than elsewhere, and men and women can't be part of the same focus groups. "Some of the dynamics there do change the results that you will get and how you can engage [the group]," Hughes says.

Jim Wallace, owner of independent branding firm Feel Brand Consultants, sees plenty of opportunities for smaller players in the branding sector, but says that he too has to spend a lot of time explaining to customers what a brand really is.

"A brand is an emotional bond that is born between a product or service and the consumer by a promise made and a promise kept," he says.

Wallace likens the consumer's relationship with the brand to that of a friend: getting to know somebody takes time, and trust is usually the last thing to come into the relationship.

A young market is therefore less likely to have a lot of strong brands.

Looking at property ads from companies like Emaar and Damac, Wallace says he would still base his assessment solely on the companies' reputation.

"I'm not making an emotional decision. I'm making a very functional decision, and that is not really a brand," he says.

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