Tag Archives: Gulf

Understanding the #Gulf through the #Olympics

Posted on by
Reply

It’s always interesting to view the Gulf through the prism of global events such as the Olympics. Much has been made of the ping-pong played by Saudi Arabia’s Olympic committee with the International Olympic Committee in respects to sending Saudi females athletes to the 2012 Olympics. A good overview of the affair can be read here in a piece by the Wall Street Journal’s Ellen Knickmeyer.

The paragraph below is from Knickmeyer’s article (Knickmeyer can be followed on Twitter at @EllenKnickmeyer)

“Saudi Arabia ended its status as the last Olympic nation to refuse to send women athletes to the Olympics, agreeing just two weeks before the start of the London games to field two young female competitors, the International Olympic Committee announced.”

The Saudi female athlete saga has been making headlines globally, both in print and via broadcast outlets. Al Jazeera covered the news extensively and featured clips of one of the two Saudi ladies. Sarah Attar is a 17-year-old, California-raised and -trained track competitor who will race in the 800-meters.

Knickmeyer and others have noted that despite the gravity of the decision to finally send Saudi female athletes to the Olympics the news has not even been registered by the country’s official media outlets. “The kingdom’s state media, which recently announced the men’s teams for the games, made no public comment by Thursday evening on sending women as well.”

Contrast this to Kuwait, which is sending its first female swimmer (yes, swimmer) to the Olympics. She’s interviewed here by the Kuwait Times.

Faye Sultan is also featured in an interview below with the BBC (unfortunately this video can’t be embedded but can be accessed via the link below).

Kuwait's Faye Sultan to make Olympic history

She was also documented at a semi final Women’s 50m freestyle race at the Hungarian National Swimming Championship 2012 a couple of months back. The video is embedded below and you can make out Faye from her swimming cap which has the Kuwaiti flag emblazoned on it.

And then there is Bahrain. According to Bahrain’s largest circulation English newspaper fourteen Bahrainis will be going for gold when they compete against the world’s best at the London Olympics later this month. The article goes onto say that Bahrain’s medal hopefuls include Mahboob Hassan, Adam Ismail, Shawqi Jamal, Haleem Jabry, Bilal Ali, Mariam Jamal, Mimi Salim, Shama Mubarak, Taj Baba, Jamila Shami and Maitha Lahdan.

Now we get to the fun part. If you’re a Bahraini or know Bahrain you’re probably going to know that those names aren’t your typical family names found in Muharraq, Manama or Riffa. Mahboob Hassan is a Kenyan who was naturalized in 2005/2006. Bilisuma Shugi is an Ethiopian, while Tareq Mubarak Taher is also a Kenyan who changed his name from Dennis Kipkurui Sang.

Meet the Bahrain Olympians and spot how many are actually Bahraini

Bahraini nationals often voice concerns about the number of naturalized Bahrainis in certain segments of government (the best example would be the police force which employs few native Bahrainis). And what has been the reaction of Bahrainis to the above? One person started a hashtag called #uniteafrica while the most popular tweet was the below.

All in all, an interesting view into the culture of the Gulf through their Olympic policies. And no, I’m not even going to cover Qatar and their Brazilian/Uruguayan B football squad.

What do #brands do with #franchises when consumers get #socialmedia angry?

Posted on by
Reply

A couple of recent events, both personal as well as public, have highlighted the challenges facing brands when it comes to franchises and customer service. Social media has given consumers the ability to interact directly with brands in ways which were never before possible. Today’s consumers expect a response from brands’ social media feeds, be it on Twitter or Facebook.

So what do brands do when they’re not in full control? How do brand communication teams deal with a consumer who is angry at a franchise? It’s an interesting question, especially for us consumers and comms professionals here in the Middle East.

A number of high profile examples have brought to light the limited scope for communications between consumers here in the Middle East and brands from locations outside of this region. The best case study would be the #noshaya Twitter-led campaign against the Kuwaiti-based retailer M.H. AlShaya. The call to boycott the company’s stores back in December was a response to AlShaya’s decision to stop providing cash refunds to customers throughout its stores.

AlShaya owns tens of franchises across the Gulf, including Top Shop, BHS, and H&M. It’s by far the largest retailer in the Middle East and thousands of Saudi consumers took to social media to vent their anger at AlShaya’s decision (for the full reasons behind the boycott please see this previous blog post).

After only a couple of hours of the campaign going live online activists started messaging the retail brands directly.

https://twitter.com/#!/hindkz/status/143315760419323904

https://twitter.com/#!/Maialshareef/status/143021336778903553

Activists sent hundreds of messages to the official Twitter accounts of retailers who had franchise agreements with M.H.AlShaya. While I may be wrong (and I hope I am) I didn’t see a single response from these retailers. These retailers weren’t helped by promoting their own refund policies on their websites, most of which were much more generous that AlShaya and included cash refunds on returned products – the activists’ key demand.

Another consumer-led campaign which hit the headlines this week relates to a nightmare incident in Saudi involving a Toyota Landcruiser which was stuck in cruise control at a speed of 210 kilometers per hour. For those Arabic readers out there check out this harrowing news piece from Al-Hayat newspaper. #ToyotaCruiseFailSa has been a top trending hashtag in Saudi for the past two days.

Out of all the car brands in Saudi Toyota probably has the best reputation for reliability and customer care. Does Toyota rely on its distributor Abdul Lateef Jameel to step in a repair the public relations damage done (so far, there’s been little word from the distributor) or do they step in themselves to reassure Saudi drivers? The response of one Toyota Landcruiser owner is typical of those trending the topic on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/#!/m_alshwaier/statuses/155276831241666560

The Arabic translates as, “I haven’t used the cruise control since buying the car because of this story.”

To ask again, when do brands step in to protect their brand value? How or what do they agree with their franchise and distributor partners as to who is responsible for what? Social media has changed the communications sector in ways that few could have envisaged. One short but interesting article online has found that consumers who contact the brand via social media are much more likely to expect a response to their queries. Check out The State of Social Marketing 2011 – 2012 by Brian Solis

I wonder how many of us in communications are taking note of what is happening around us before the same thing happens to the brands that we are entrusted with?

How to defuse a crisis at a Gulf-based telco? Tell the journalist there’s no story.

Posted on by
Reply

I love talking to journalists. They’re often witty, sometimes charming. One thing that journalists have an abundance of are stories and anecdotes. I’ve dealt with one Gulf-based telecommunications firm for a couple of reasons of late, and it’s a fascinating company due to internal issues and ambitions. However, this firm has faced accusations of poor customer service in its home market. Consumer anger recently came to a head with calls for a symbolic, hour-long boycott of the company’s products and services.

I’m not going to name the firm, but if you do a search on Google you won’t have to search long and hard for the story or its context.

While this in itself is an interesting development, the mark of a good communications team will be able to step in, work with journalists and bring out the positive of any negative story. This didn’t happen to one journalist colleague who inquired about the boycott. An experienced reporter on a global title, she emailed a PR executive at a public relations firm representing the telco asking about the boycott.

The response was abysmal. Rather than talking through the issue, explain the company’s attempts to improve its customer service and put right the company’s standing amongst its customers the PR executive pulled his face and told the journalist there was no story.

Telling a journalist those three words – there’s no story – is akin to holding up a red rag to a bull. Following on from this faux pas the executive then started to vent his belief (off the record) that the competition was behind the boycott.
Needless to say, despite his best efforts he failed to put over to the journalist anything remotely useful that would have conveyed how much his client were investing in time and money into their customer service.

What happened? An article in a global business title which prominently featured comments from those spearheading the boycott and a single quote from the company in question. That story was syndicated both regionally and globally. This company has operations in 17 countries and ambitions to operate telecommunications networks in many more locations.

The damage done to the firm’s reputation can’t be measured. However, there’s always time to put right what has been done. Get in touch with the journalist, show them that the company cares, that it aims to redouble its efforts. Even if the journalist doesn’t write a follow-up story you’ve left a positive impression.

To date has there been any follow-up? Unfortunately not. But then again, who needs good communications and media outreach when you’re a government-owned firm with a sizable marketing budget and only one competitor in your home market? Do you really want to have a frank and open dialogue with the media and your customers? Or are you happy with being subjected to boycott campaigns simply because you don’t want to listen and you think there’s no story? How you defuse the situation is your choice.

About time…

Posted on by
Reply

After years of saying that I’m going to blog, I’m putting up the first post in what seems to be an age or three. The aim of this blog is to talk about marketing, media communications, which is what I do for a living.

My blog will also look at life in Saudi Arabia in particular and the wider Gulf region in general. As someone who has deep roots in this part of the world through family, friends and work I sometimes feel that I should talk more about the positives and negatives of life in Arabia.

Enjoy the blog and feel free to post comments, send me emails or tweet. Yalla!