Twins Dena and Dahlia Haleem live together, party together and now even work together. They tell Anil Bhoyrul why, so far, they haven’t got sick of each other.
The problem with twins is that they, erm, look and sound the same. And they always use the term “we.”
How old are you? “We’re 26,” says Dena Haleem.
And you? “We’re also 26,” says her twin sister Dahlia.
It goes without saying that they also live together, hang out together and work together. Luckily for the duo, most clients seem to like that, helping them build up their PR company Harvard Associates from scratch into a growing force in the industry.
“There are times when we wake up and think we should just get a normal job somewhere because you don’t know where the money is coming from. Sometimes it gets a bit scary,” says Dahlia (or maybe it was Dena, I can’t remember).
Right now though, enough money seems to be coming into the business. At a speech last year, O2 managing director Mohammed Johmani estimated the size of the Middle East PR industry to be $100 million, and to grow by a staggering 200% in 2009.
Of course, that was before the credit crunch. Most of the big players have shed up to 20% of their staff. Things are a little dicey now to say the least, but the sisters say they are managing. “We’ve been making money and doing it from the start. We know how much our bills are, and we know how and when to pay them,” says Dena (or maybe it was Dahlia).
That’s probably thanks to the likes of Al Ghussein Global Investments and Cornerstone Real Estate coming on board. The sisters were also behind the launch of Lara Croft’s new game in the UAE, staging a spectacular stunt which involved 100 Harley Davidsons cruising through Dubai for the day in a motorcade. They were also responsible for the hyping of West Coast Customs (the car customization company responsible for “Pimp My Ride” which involved putting on a massive concert, featuring four R&B artists including Omarian.
“We just kind of sit down together and think up the ideas, and then make them happen. We’ve always been small and that makes it easier to deliver. Some of the big companies take their clients for a ride,” says one of them.
That said, the credit crunch has left no-one unaffected. “It is stressful, of course it is. We don’t like letting people down, so there is pressure on everything and everyone. But I don’t think the market has changed that much in our industry. Events are still going ahead, it’s just that less people are going to them,” says the other one.
For the Haleem sisters the best is yet to come. They are putting on this year’s Games 09 Exhibition in Dubai, after signing up with both Sony Playstation and Microsoft X-box.
“This will be huge and it’s a big challenge, but that’s what we like doing – being small and taking on big things. You need to keep challenging yourself in life otherwise you will never progress,” Dena explains.
The company was the brainchild of Dahlia Haleem – she first came to the UAE five years ago, and after a stint in PR and events working for other people, decided to go out on her own. Two years ago, Dena joined her. They split their roles, with Dena – a graphic designer – concentrating more on the creative side, and Dahlia more operational. They found offices themselves, and moved back in with their parents to save cash.
“I thought we could do things differently. A lot of people were making big promises and delivering nothing, I didn’t want to work for those sorts of people so I thought I would start my own company,” says Dahlia.
Despite a few ups and downs along the way, they say they have “no regrets.” Bizarrely, the two of them like unwinding by playing video games, with, you guessed it – each other.
Don’t they ever get sick of each other?
“We’ve been twins for a while now, we’ve got used to it.”
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